Tremor of Intent Read Free

permanently destroying the text.
    The early reviews of
Tremor of Intent
were rather mixed. Lawrence Graver in the
New Republic
described it as ‘a kind of clown’s
Waste Land
’ with a ‘preposterous’ plot. Maurice Richardson in the
Observer
said that Burgess ‘overwrites insanely’. In the
Times Literary Supplement
, Vernon Scannell said that ‘Burgess often writes like Nabokov, with the same energy and delight in language, the same constant awareness of nuance and ambiguity’. William Pritchard, in
Partisan Review
(Spring 1967), made an identification between the author and his protagonist: ‘Anthony Burgess, like Hillier in this novel, plays the secret-agent game of “being a good technician, superb at languages, agile, light-fingered, cool.” But behind these ambiguous gifts, sentence by sentence, there stands revealed the man who wrote them, an extraordinary and attractive character whose like has been seldom seen.’
    Tremor of Intent
is both an artful work of fiction and a knowing critical commentary on the popular novels of the Cold War era. It is energetic, language-loving and richly rewarding. There is no other novel in English quite like it.

One
1
    The position at the moment is as follows. I joined the gastronomic cruise at Venice, as planned, and the
Polyolbion
is now throbbing south-east in glorious summer Adriatic weather. Everything at Pulj is in order. D. R. arrived there three days ago to take over, and it was good to have a large vinous night and talk about old adventures. I am well, fit, except for my two chronic diseases of gluttony and satyriasis which, anyway, continue to cancel each other out. There will be little opportunity for either to be indulged on this outward voyage (we shall be in the Black Sea the day after tomorrow), but I dribble at the glutinous thought of the mission-accomplished, unbuttoned-with-relief week that will come after the turn-around. Istanbul, Corfu, Villefranche, Ibiza, Southampton. And then free, finished. Me, anyway. But what about poor Roper?
    D.R. handed over, as arranged, the ampoules of PSTX; I have, of course, my own syringe. I know the procedure. A sort of proleptic wraith of poor Roper is already lying on the other bunk of this Bibby cabin. I explained to the purser that my friend Mr Innes had been called by unforeseen business to Murfiater but that he would be making his way by road or rail or ferry or something to Yarylyuk and would be joining us there. That was all right, he said, so long as it was clearly understood that there could be no rebate in respect of his missed fifteen hundred miles of cruising (meaning gorging and fornication). Very well, then. For Roper all things are ready, including a new identity. John Innes, expert in fertilisers. Thebearded face of that rubbery man from Metfiz looks sadly back at me from the Innes passport. He has been many things in his time, has he not, that all-purposes lay-figure. He has been a pimp from Mdina, a syphilitic computer-brain skulking in Palaiokastritsa, a kind of small Greek Orthodox deacon, R. J. Geist who had the formula, even a distinguished Ukrainian man of letters set upon for his allegations of pederasty in the Praesidium. And now he is John Innes, who is a sort of egg-cosy for soft-boiled Roper.
    I well understand, sir, Her Majesty’s Government’s palpitating need to have Roper back. Questions in the House, especially after Tass passed through the jubilant news of the breakthrough in rocket-fuel research and Eurovision showed the Beast gliding through May-day Moscow. What I cannot so well understand is the choice of myself as the agent of Roper’s repatriation, unless, of course, it is the pure, the ultimate trust which, if I were not modest, I would say I have earned in my fifteen years of work for the Department. But you must surely be aware of a residue of sympathy for a schoolfellow, the fact that until his defection we maintained a sort