Any Old Iron

Rating:
Summary: Burgess does what he does best - sly legends in prose!
Review: In "Any Old Iron" Burgess gives us an entertaining tale of a Russo-Welsh family across the decades since the late 1800s. The story is ostensibly about families, war, love, birth and death - the usual fare, in other words. He also, being Burgess, gives us a liberal dose of foreign language, word play and (as a subtext that had me re-reading this book a number of times) a carefully camouflaged and delightfully off-kilter retelling of the Arthurian legend. This book is worth reading if only to see if you can tell which character was the "Fisher King" and which others correspond to legend - a marvellous romp through the legendary and the prosaic. Add in Burgess' sly wit and taste for word play and you have a story to settle down with for any number of evenings. I'm sorry Burgess is gone - we shan't see his like again for a long, long time!