Homage to Anatole Broyard as Book Reviewer

 


Homage to Anatole Broyard as Book Reviewer

Back in the 1960s - 1980s Anatole Broyard wrote reviews for The New York Times. Here's one of his reviews I particularly enjoy since I'm on a Anthony Burgess run at the moment:

ENDERBY'S DARK LADY. By Anthony Burgess 

Poor, lecherous, unreliable, believing in nothing but his art, Anthony Burgess's Enderby stands for a long line of louche or maudit poets stretching through the centuries from Francois Villon, Richard Savage and Baudelaire to Delmore Schwartz, Dylan Thomas and John Berryman. Enderby is a defender of literature and a subverter of everything else. His life is a sprung rhythm of desperate improvisation. He wears his poetry like a secret weapon for which he has no license. He is a hustler of sensibility, an opportunist of inspiration.

Mr. Burgess is so fond of Enderby - by far his best creation - that he has devoted four books to him: ''Inside Mr. Enderby'' and ''Enderby Outside,'' which were published in 1968, ''The Clockwork Testament'' in 1975, and now, ''Enderby's Dark Lady.'' Mr. Burgess killed off Enderby in the third book, and then, realizing his mistake, disinterred him. Taking their cue from him, McGraw-Hill has reissued the three earlier books in both paperback and hard cover to accompany the new one.

In his reincarnation, Enderby comes to the United States to write the book for a musical play about Shakespeare's life. The production is planned as a joint celebration of the 360th anniversary of Shakespeare's death and our own Bicentennial. The relation between the two events is clear only to Mrs. Schoenbaum, a rich Indiana woman who is sponsoring the play. Since Mr. Burgess surely knows that America's leading Shakespeare scholar is also named Schoenbaum, he would seem to be mischievous here. If he is, however, this much of his satire is misplaced, for Samuel Schoenbaum is a very good writer as well as a highly respected authority.

Enderby has been chosen for the job on the basis of a fantasy he published about Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Serving as the first chapter of ''Enderby's Dark Lady,'' this fantasy enables Mr. Burgess to show us how skillfully he imitates the Elizabethan style. In fact, most of the fun of the book arises out of the various versions of Shakespeare - from pastiche to parody - that go into the musical.

The songwriter proposes a number that begins ''To be or not to be/ in love with you'' and rhymes this with ''To spend my entire life/ hand in glove with you.'' Enderby objects and offers a dreadfully faithful version of Elizabethan song. The issue is decided by the female star, April Elgar, who plays the Dark Lady of the Sonnets.

As an American innovation, Shakespeare's Dark Lady is black. She is played by a beautiful nightclub singer who inspires Enderby to write lyrics like ''The white man's knavery/ sold me in slavery/ to an unsavoury.'' Enderby rhymes stallion, rapscallion and galleon. He writes ''To be or not to be/ smitten by you/ bitten by you.''

Scholarly opinion is divided as to whether Shakespeare did or did not have a homosexual affair with the Earl of Southampton. Mr. Burgess is among the believers and makes some of his less successful jokes on the subject. For the most part, though, he is as loyal to the Bard as Enderby is. When the play finally does go on, Enderby is forced to substitute for the male lead, who has been injured in a car accident, and he does a creditable job of improvising Elizabethan lines when he cannot remember them.

When April takes him to her family home for Christmas, she passes Enderby off to her mother and father as a Baptist minister. Inevitably, he is asked to preach a sermon in church, but except for a fine opening - ''Do not be afraid of poets'' - Enderby does not seize the day with any real conviction. His relation to April is inconclusive too, as if, having created a black heroine, Mr. Burgess is not sure how to deal with her.

While it is funny and clever, ''Enderby's Dark Lady'' is not as good as the previous three books. It's as if Mr. Burgess's poet still has one foot in the grave and feels a bit confused by his reincarnation. Still, it's good to see him back. Let's hope the blood returns to his cheek in his next appearance.