The Wanting Seed
by Anthony Burgess · first published 1962
2mentions
1recommended by
2HN commenters
2017–2024first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
"Set in the near future, The Wanting Seed is a Malthusian comedy about the strange world overpopulation will produce. Tristram Foxe and his wife, Beatrice-Joanna, live in their skyscraper world where official family limitation glorifies homosexuality. Eventually, their world is transformed into a chaos of cannibalistic dining-clubs, fantastic fertility rituals, and wars without anger. It is a novel both extravagantly funny and grimly serious. "
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As a teenager I came across the eclectic medley of Anthony Burgess novels in my school's library, and fell in love. They're all so vastly different and weird and yet they made for great reading: - The Wanting Seed: sci-fi about an overpopulated planet, full of dry humor - The End of the World News: a musical about Trotsky's final days in Mexico, mixed with Freud and an Earth-destroying comet. Supremely weird but…
on “Anthony Burgess at 100: unearthly powers” ↗…that people simply went along with it. Only a handful swim against the tide. Even Alex's parents are reprogrammed more or less at will by the media. Burgess has touched this material before in The Wanting Seed, with what was acceptable lashes back and forth. That came through sufficiently in the movie that I feel like this delivery was fine. Similarly, the free will issue came through fine. Alex lacks the…
on “'I should not have written 'A Clockwork Orange''” ↗