Anthony Burgess: The Clockwork Testament (Or: Enderby 's End)

SPERR: This is the Sperr Lansing Show. Be right back after this station break.

(Station break)

SPERR: Were talking with two professors Professor Balaglas psychologist and Professor er Endivy British poet. Professor Balaglas…

BALAGLAS: Call me Man (Pause then A). Representative Man (P then A).

ENDERBY: Whats that short for. I knew you werent a bloody Christian.

SPERR: Do you believe professor that movies and books and er art can influence young people to violence rape mugging and so on (A).

BALAGLAS: There is I would consider ample proof that the impressionable and not merely those in the younger age groups can be incited to antisocial behavior by the artistic representation of er antisocial acts. There was the instance in the township of Inversnaid NY not too far from Ribblesdale where as you know I am at present on the faculty of the university there of the young man who killed his uncle and said that seeing Sir Laurence Oliviers movie of Hamlet had influenced him to perform the crime.

ENDERBY: How old was he. I asked how old was.

BALAGLAS: About thirty. And very unbalanced.

ENDERBY: And had his uncle just married his mother (L). His mother. Not his uncles mother (L).

BALAGLAS: I dont recollect as much. It was just the killing of his uncle as in this movie. And also if I recollect rightly that also comes in the play on which the movie was based.

ENDERBY: Shakespeare.

SPERR: Thats right. And would you believe in the restricting of the viewing of professor.

ENDERBY: Of course not. Bloody ridiculous idea.

SPERR: I meant the other professor professor (L and A).

BALAGLAS: Well as we are committed to control of the violentment (?) and as works of art and movies and the like are part of it then for the sake of society there must be control. There are too many dirty books and movies and also violent ones (A).

ENDERBY: This is bloody teetotal Aryan (??) talk. You mean that kids wouldnt be allowed to see or read Hamlet because they might go and kill their uncles. Ive never in my life heard such bloody stupid actionary (?) talk. Why by Christ man

BALAGLAS: Thats right Man thats my name (L and A). Call me Man by all means but cut out the blasph (Very loud A).

ENDERBY: But bagger (?) it man you idiot I mean that would mean that nobody could read anything not even Alice in Windowland (?) because it says Off with his Head and the Wizard of Oz because of the wicked witch is

BALAGLAS: I do not know what standards of etiquette prevail in your part of the world Professor Elderley but I do most strenuously object to being called idiot (Very loud A).

SPERR: And at that opportune moment we take a break. Stay with us folks (A).

(Commercial break)

SPERR: Professor Balaglas made an interesting slip of the tongue folks which weve just been discussing during the break.

ENDERBY: I still say that he was trying to be bloody insulting. A man cant help his age.

SPERR: Right. Because if a girls name was ever improper that is to say not appropriate to what she is then the name of my next guest must be. Beautiful charming talented and above all YOUNG star of such movies as The Leaden Echo Mortal Beauty Rockfire and just about to be released Manshape here she is folks Ermine Elderley (Very loud and sustained Applause also male whistles as she comes on kisses Sperr and Prof Balaglas not Prof Enderby sits down).

SPERR: Wow (L and A).

ENDERBY: I see so youre Elderley. I thought he was trying to take the (Unintell piece? pass?)

ERMINE: Sure I am. How young do you like em (L and A).

ENDERBY: What I meant was (Not heard under L and A)

SPERR: Ermine if I may call you Ermine

ERMINE: Just buy it for me sweetie (L and A). I apologize. You always have done before baby (L and A). Called it me I mean (L and A).

SPERR: How would you like to be raped (Very sust L with A lot of visual L L and again L). I meant in a movie of course. Seriously (L).

ERMINE: Seriously yes. If I was playing that sort of part okay but I dont think I would oh I might if there was a kind of you know moral lesson and the guy gets his comeuppance after or before he really gets under way his teeth knocked out that sort of thing not shooting shootings too good. But I wouldnt have it if I was playing a nun like in this German movie. Thats irreligious.

ENDERBY: Look Im not trying to defend it. What she calls this German movie. As a matter of fact its not allowed to be shown in Germany.

SPERR: No Deutschland for Deutschland right (L).

ENDERBY: I have to make this clear dont I.

ERMINE: You should know brother (L).

ENDERBY: The film is very different from the poem.

SPERR: What poem is that.

ENDERBY: Why the poem its based on. By Gerald Mann Leigh.

ERMINE: You mean no rape in the poem (L). Well what do they do in the poem pluck daffodils (L).

Enderby, sweating hard under the lights and the awareness of his unpopularity, looked at this hard woman who exhibited great sternly supported breasts to the very periphery of the areola and was dressed in a kind of succulent rutilant taffeta. The name, he was thinking: as artificial as the huge aureate wig. He said:

"I grant its cleverness. The name, I mean. I should imagine your real name is something like let me see Irma Polansky-no, wait, Edelmann, something like that." She looked very hard back at him.

"Do you read much poetry, professor?" Sperr Lansing asked.

"Well, I guess I hardly have the time these days." This Professor Balaglas flashed glasses in the lights. He had the soft face of a boy devoted to his mother and wore a hideous spotted bow tie. "What with working on the problems that this kind of movie under present discussion gives rise to." There was laughter. The audience was full of mouths always, as it were, at the ready, lips parted in potential ecstasy. "I have a collection of rock records like everybody else, of course. It's the job of poets to get close to the people. We shall be able to use poets in the new dispensation," he promised. "Rhymes are of considerable value in hypnopaedia or sleep-teaching. A great deal of the so-called poetry they write these days-"

"Who writes?" Enderby asked.

"I don't mean you, professor. I never read anything you wrote. You may be very clear and straightforward for all I know." Laughter. "I mean, you've been using very clear and straightforward language to me tonight." Very great laughter.

"The point I was trying to make," Enderby said. "About her name, that is." He shoulder-jerked towards the star. "There you see the poetic process exemplified in a small way. Ermine-suggesting opulence, wealth, softness, luxury. Elderley-the piquancy of contrast with her evident near-youth, no longer very young, of course, but it happens to everybody, and the denotation of the name. The small frisson of gerontophilia."

Sperr Lansing did not seem to be greatly enjoying his job. He was a man adept at appearing to be on top of everything, ready with quip and oeillade, but the eyes now had become as glassy as those of a hung hare. "Get on top of whom?" he tried, and then saw he was being betrayed into unbecoming lowness. There was, rightly, no audience laugh.

Miss Elderley cunningly got in with "I used to know a poem about the wreck of something." There were relieved sniggers.

"The Hesperus perhaps," Professor Isinglass (?) brightly said.

"Naw, this went 'The boy stood on the burning deck-' "