Books: To Russia for Luv

HONEY FOR THE BEARS by Anthony Burgess. 256 pages. Norton. $3.95.

Fictional voyages of self-discovery are customarily accompanied by a change of outer scenery. If, for instance, the author’s aim is to reveal inner darkness, his characters traditionally head for Africa (Conrad, Gide, Paul Bowles). If, on the other hand, the blossoming of a long-repressed joie de vivre is the theme, then sunny Italy will unlock the passion in the tourist’s heart (Goethe, Mann, E. M. Forster). But whoever would have thought of th Soviet Union as an emotional catalyst? Well, nobody, until British Satirist Anthony Burgess came along.

In Burgess’ newest novel, a pallid British antique dealer has to go to Leningrad to learn that he has always been a latent homosexual. On top of this, his, sulky American wife turns out to be an incipient lesbian.

Burgess wrings some wry laughs from his hero’s bumbling efforts to unload twelve dozen fancy “drilon” dresses on the Russian black market. But alas, it turns out that Burgess takes his main joke seriously. He offers the perverted antique dealer as a disapproving symbol of Britain Today. Trying to be urbane about his (and England’s) present predicament, the poor man says: “You have no idea how pleasant it is not to have any future. It’s like having a totally efficient contraceptive.” “Or like being impotent,” says one Russian interrogator drily. The Englishman has the grace to blush.