A review by jasonfurman
Abba Abba by Anthony Burgess

4.0

This a two-part novella. The first tells of a last days of John Keats in Rome, centered around a fictitious meeting with the Roman dialect poet Belli. The second part, more of an appendix, is a set of Belli’s poems, with the framing device of an introduction by the supposed translator Wilson. It is filled with enormously witty wordplay, deep references to the form and history of the sonnet, and that period in Romantic literature. Most of them went well above my head but I still caught enough to find this an fascinating and enjoyable book. Having read nearly twenty novels by Anthony Burgess, although none in the last fifteen years, this made me hungry for more of them. Maybe re-reading Enderby should be next on my list.