The Eve of St Venus
First published 1964 · English · 138 pages
- Novels
- Short stories
- Love and romance
- Fantasy
A short comic work by Burgess, taking its title from Keats's poem about a night of love and superstition. Burgess plays with the old idea of a bridegroom, a statue of Venus, and a ring that causes embarrassing trouble, and sets the tale in a light and witty form. It is a minor but characteristic piece, showing his taste for humour, classical echoes and musical language.
Quotes
…I prefer to think of [young women] less as human beings than as pimply parcels of televisual reflexes.
So she was Greek, was she?’ said Sir Benjamin. ‘Well, well. I suppose the new vice laws are driving some of them out of Soho. Driving them down here,’ he said, as though a whole new world were opening up. ‘Well.
She is a goddess,’ said Ambrose, drunkenly and stoutly. ‘…And she wants me. She’s the pursuer…She’s the epitome of woman, not,’ he said, ‘not a second-hand bundle of coy erogeneity draped,’ he said, ‘in an all-too-diaphanous robe,’ he said, ‘of pudeur.