[Burgess'] sensitivity to the comic potential of English is apparent throughout his novels, and presumably it was increased by his reading of Joyce. He does not use language, in precisely the same ways that Joyce does, but he makes it, along with situation and character, a principal vehicle of comedy. And, like Joyce,… he does not hesitate to go beyond English and devise a tongue suitable for his artistic purposes.

The influence of Joyce can also be seen in the portraiture of several of his protagonists and, to an extent, in the structure of some of his novels. Victor Crabbe in The Long Day Wanes, Paul Hussey in Honey for the Bears, Edwin Spindrift in The Doctor Is Sick, and Tristram Foxe in The Wanting Seed all share a great deal with Leopold Bloom. They are all sensitive, cultured, well-meaning but ineffectual, cuckolded non-heroes involved in non-heroic Odyssean...