The Eve of Saint Venus

This romp through a rural English manor and its ritualistic mannerisms is a glittering entertainment, a grab-bag of allusions, images, and rhetorical gems that Burgess profligately casts away like mere baubles.

His verbal and dramatic alchemy turns the dross of caricature inscribed on the pedestal of an engaging fable. Sensuous, irreverent, erudite.

Here is a midsummer night's dream of a novel, Anthony Burgess in a mood of comic whimsy. A baronet, Sir Benjamin Drayton, has received a consignment of stone statues of gods and goddesses, including Venus. A ring slipped on Venus's finger by a young man about to be married upsets a number of arrangements, including the wedding plans.