M/F

Anthony Burgess

‘The situation as far as I’m concerned,’ says the young-narrator-hero of MF, ‘is an interesting one. In two days in a strange country I’ve acquired a mother in the form of a Welsh-speaking Bird Queen who scares me. I’ve spent some hours in prison, I’ve discovered the works of an unknown superlative artist in a garden shed and I’ve been shot at by a riddling lion-faced expert on Bishop Berkeley. Most interesting of all I’m due tonight to be married by a circus clown to my own sister.’

Almost 21, a college throw-out, Miles Faber embarks on a defiant pilgrimage across the Caribbean. His destination: the shrine of Sib Legeru, Castitian poet and painter. In the streets of Castita’s capital, gay with a religious festival, a series of bizarre revelations awaits him—his own double (the foul-mouthed son of a circus sorceress) and a plump sister he had never met before. Unspeakable crimes of blood and lust are perpetrated against both before Miles, solving the final riddle, wakes—like Oedipus—to find himself a willing victim of the machinations of dynastic destiny. M/F is an outrageous entertainment, full of humour and invention.

status	Copy #1 (3774): in
genre	Literature and Fiction » General Literature
publisher	Ballantine Books, Inc.
publish date	1972
popularity	checked out 1 time(s)