Barefoot in the Head (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Brian W. Aldiss
- First Published: 1969
- Type of Work: Science fiction
- Time of Work: A few years after World War III
- Setting: Europe
- Principal Characters: Colin Charteris, Phil Brasher, Angeline Brasher, Nicholas Boreas
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction, Dystopian fiction
- Subjects: Freedom, Europe or Europeans, Revolutions, Future, Dreams, War, Death or dying, Fantasy, Drugs, Disabilities or physically challenged persons, Hallucinations or illusions, Environment or environmental health, Christ figures or saviors, End of the world, Western Europe or western Europeans, Horror, Chemical warfare
- Locales: Europe
The Novel
When one first opens Brian W. Aldiss’ Barefoot in the Head, it is not hard to see why the work has always been more popular with critics than with audiences and more popular in Great Britain than in the United States. It is a dense, many-layered work, relying heavily on the punning, condensed, multilingual, and allusive style introduced to the twentieth century by James Joyce. Although many things happen, or appear to be happening, much of the “action” takes place within the disordered minds of the characters.
A few years before the beginning of...
[The entire page is 2085 words long]
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