Tremor of Intent: An Eschatological Spy Novel

Tremor of Intent: An Eschatological Spy Novel

First edition (publ. Heinemann)
Author	Anthony Burgess
Language	English
Genre	Spy novel
Publication date	1966
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print
Pages	256

Tremor of Intent: An Eschatological Spy Novel (1966), by Anthony Burgess, is an English espionage novel.^[1][2]

Burgess conceived it as a reaction both to the heavy-handed and humourless spy fiction of John le Carré, and to Ian Fleming's James Bond, a character Burgess thought an imperialist relic. The subtitle "An Eschatological Spy Novel" refers to Burgess's idea of the Cold War as a hostile symbiosis, an "ultimate conflict" for which Good and Evil are inadequate terms. In Burgess's view the Soviet bloc and the West formed a yin and yang-type duoverse. In You've Had Your Time, the second volume of his autobiography, he confesses that the title of the novel occurred to him one hungover morning when his hand began shaking and his wife said, "That is tremor of intent."

The novel has confused some readers and critics because it straddles the dichotomies between serious fiction and comic fiction, and between popular genre storytelling and metaphysical philosophy. It's also an example of one of Burgess's experiments in combining musical forms with literature: its structure is based on sonata form.^[3]

The subtitle "An Eschatological Spy Novel" appears on the dust cover of the first American edition, but does not appear on the title page of the novel.^[4] The British first edition, published by William Heinemann, does not include the subtitle on the dust cover or the title page.

The uncorrected proofs of the novel state where and when the novel was written: "Etchingham, June 20-August 30, 1965."^[5]

Anthony Burgess later wrote a screenplay for the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) featuring characters from the novel, but it was rejected in favor of Richard Maibaum's script.^[6]

Plot summary

The amoral Agent Hillier of MI6 journeys to the city of Yarylyuk aboard the passenger ship Polyolbion, on a mission to infiltrate a conference of Soviet scientists and return to the United Kingdom with his childhood friend Roper, who has defected to the Soviet Union. En route Hillier meets the sexually precocious sixteen-year-old Clara, the voluptuous femme fatale Miss Devi and the shadowy tycoon Theodorescu.

References

1. Worldcat.org
2. Google Books
3. Shockley, Alan (2017). Music in the Words: Musical Form and Counterpoint in the Twentieth-Century Novel. Routledge. OCLC 1001968147. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
4. Burgess, Anthony, Tremor of Intent, W W Norton, New York, 1966 Dust cover and title page.
5. Burgess, Anthony, Tremor of Intent,(Uncorrected Proof) William Heinemann, London, 1966 p. 240.
6. Field, Matthew (2015). Some kind of hero : 007 : the remarkable story of the James Bond films. Ajay Chowdhury. Stroud, Gloucestershire. ISBN 978-0-7509-6421-0. OCLC 930556527.

External links

• Anthonyburgess.org