Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements, (Paperback)

The Napoleon which Burgess gives us is a comic tyrant, a conqueror with bad breath, an emperor whose noble hand - tucked ever in his tunic - comforts a case of common heartburn. The opening movements reveal him on his glorious Austrian campaign, a cuckolded Colossus penning ardent letters to a faithless Josephine in Paris who celebrates her husband's victories in a lover's bed. So, the conqueror of Egypt becomes the libertine of Europe, bedding princesses and prima donnas, as news of his wife's adultery reaches him. <br>The soundtrack to this picaresque tale is the thunder of the guns and the muttering of troops scorching, starving or freezing to death - the expendable masses who throughout history have died for a tyrant's dream. <br>After the huge success of <i>A Clockwork Orange</i>, Stanley Kubrick wanted to make an epic movie of Napoleon's exploits and he commissioned Burgess to write a screenplay. The film never came to fruition, but Burgess went on to write this novel, using Beethoven's 3rd Symphony, 'The Eroica' as a framework. <br>Napoleon Symphony has to be one of Burgess's finest achievements. While a genius of music inspired the undertaking, a literary genius insured its triumph!

• Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements, (Paperback)
• Author: Anthony Burgess
• ISBN: 9781917543279
• Format: Paperback
• Publication Date: 2026-10-25
• Page Count: 320