The Burgess bibliography lists twenty-one novels. (There are rumors of esoterica under a pen name.) "The Long Day Wanes," an autobiographical trilogy set in Malaya, launched the Burgess canon. It remains perhaps his most poignant, unguarded performance. "A Clockwork Orange" brought celebrity when it was made into a striking movie. But the fiction is subtler than Stanley Kubrick's package and points to that in Burgess's politics and alertness to science-fiction which connects his writings to those of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. "Honey for the Bears" is both a political fable and an ingenious meditation on language. It is one of a cluster of works, fiction and nonfiction, in which Burgess seeks an imaginative grip on the ominous charms of the Russian tongue and of its native speakers. "Enderby," "Nothing Like the Sun," and "ABBA ABBA" form a sparkling trio. They are studies of the writer's odd condition...