A Clockwork Orange
by Anthony Burgess
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
I was speaking to an audience in England some years ago, when
I was asked: “Why are American sports so violent?” To which I
mounted a lukewarm defense of the NFL: “Hey, at least our
violence is on the field, not in the stands”—a perhaps
uncharitable reference to the tradition of soccer hooliganism,
which the British have virtually elevated to a lifestyle category.
But I might equally have pointed to serious British fiction. And
I’m not talking about trashy supermarket novels, rather
highbrow classics. Is there a more disturbingly violent novel
than Iain Banks's The Wasp Factory, which The Independent
picked as one of the top 100 books of the 20th century? Well,
J.G. Ballard’s Crash might qualify, which not only fixates on
gore and mutilation, but even aims to poeticize it. It made The
Telegraph’s list of “100 Books Everyone
Should Read.” (My addendum . . . but
don’t drive a car for the next week.) And
when British authors try their hand at a
touching coming-of-age story, it comes
out like Lord of the Flies or Never Let Me
Go.
But then we arrive at the most famous of
them all, Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork
Orange, which took the brutal exploits of
nasty punks and transformed them into
the main theme for a literary symphony.
As late as 1973, a bookdealer in Utah was arrested for selling a
copy of this novel. Of course, Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation
had created controversies of its own by then. It was
condemned by the Catholic bishops in the US, and the movie
was withdrawn from the UK
cinemas soon after release
because of allegations that it
was spurring copycat crime.
For more than a quarter of a
century this movie was almost
impossible to see in Burgess’s
native country.
Even so, far more people have
viewed the film than have read
Burgess’s potent novel. If you
know Kubrick’s version you
may be sad (but more likely
relieved) to learn that the song
“Singin’ in the Rain” does not
figure in the book. But there is
certainly no shortage of music—
and associated violence—to fill the gaps. A more striking
difference between film and book is Burgess’s final chapter,
omitted from the original American edition and ignored by
Kubrick, which tries to redeem his protagonist Alex and send
him off to a conventional wife-and-kids-at-home life.
At the start of the novel, Alex is the fifteen-year-old leader of a
band of punks who spend their evenings committing random
acts of violence in a dystopian setting where crime is rampant
and most folks stay indoors at night. Not that Alex and his
cronies are above breaking and entering, and beating people to
death in their homes. A Clockwork Orange follows Alex’s
criminal career, his subsequent arrest and rehabilitation in a
high tech brainwashing facility, and finally his attempt to
return to society. In the longer book version, Alex decides on
his own to embrace the straight and narrow, while the
shortened edition leaves the matter ambiguous.
This final episode changes the meaning of the book, but can
hardly negate the tone of nihilism in the previous two hundred
pages. Oddly enough, Burgess insisted on the later inclusion of
the final chapter in US editions, yet also claimed that the pat
resolution of the book was its biggest flaw. “The book does also
have a moral lesson,” he wrote, “and it is the weary traditional
one of the fundamental importance of moral choice. It is
because this lesson sticks out like a sore thumb that I tend to
disparage A Clockwork Orange as a work too didactic to be
artistic.”
Now that might have surprised the censors, and even many
current readers of the book. Burgess thought his novel was too
obvious in advocating traditional morality? Hmmm, I think we
should let the readers vote on that. Many would see this book
as the quintessential expression of anti-morality or of a
Nietzschean will to power.
Burgess once offered a different angle on the book to an
interviewer. Talking to a journalist in Malta (where Burgess
had moved to avoid 90% marginal tax rates back home), he
commented: “We can eradicate any public evil we wish most
efficiently if we employ dictatorial methods. The secret of
government, as of private morality, is to balance individual
freedom of choice with what is considered to be a necessary
apparatus of repression. Lead us not into temptation. But it’s
only to God that we pray so; it’s not up to the State to keep
away the occasions of sin.”
So one can read A Clockwork Orange as a look into the
morality of an individual, or as an inquiry into the morality of
the State. The latter perspective is easy to overlook in all the
throttling, kicking and slashing in these pages, but is there
nonetheless. Indeed, the dark sci-fi trappings of the novel
make A Clockwork Orange a worthy follower in the British
tradition of Orwell and Huxley, who believed that genre fiction
could support the weight of sociopolitical discourse.
Yet put aside the “meaning” of A Clockwork Orange for a bit,
and just enjoy it for the prose. Burgess is one of the great heirs
of James Joyce, and creates a new language to convey his
story. You will realize from the opening page that this will not
be your conventional narrative: “There was me, that is Alex,
and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, Dim being
real dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our
rassodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter
bastard though dry.”
I have elsewhere suggested that conceptual fiction, which plays
fast and loose with our conceptions of reality, serves as an
alternative to fiction that experiments with words. Yet here
Burgess delivers both, and in full measure. This author may
have had reservations that he had written a novel that was all
too ‘weary’ and ‘traditional’. But I doubt that will be your
impression on reading this extraordinary, unsettling book.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature, and popular culture.
His newest book is The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the
Repertoire.
by Anthony Burgess
Reviewed by Ted Gioia
I was speaking to an audience in England some years ago, when
I was asked: “Why are American sports so violent?” To which I
mounted a lukewarm defense of the NFL: “Hey, at least our
violence is on the field, not in the stands”—a perhaps
uncharitable reference to the tradition of soccer hooliganism,
which the British have virtually elevated to a lifestyle category.
But I might equally have pointed to serious British fiction. And
I’m not talking about trashy supermarket novels, rather
highbrow classics. Is there a more disturbingly violent novel
than Iain Banks's The Wasp Factory, which The Independent
picked as one of the top 100 books of the 20th century? Well,
J.G. Ballard’s Crash might qualify, which not only fixates on
gore and mutilation, but even aims to poeticize it. It made The
Telegraph’s list of “100 Books Everyone
Should Read.” (My addendum . . . but
don’t drive a car for the next week.) And
when British authors try their hand at a
touching coming-of-age story, it comes
out like Lord of the Flies or Never Let Me
Go.
But then we arrive at the most famous of
them all, Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork
Orange, which took the brutal exploits of
nasty punks and transformed them into
the main theme for a literary symphony.
As late as 1973, a bookdealer in Utah was arrested for selling a
copy of this novel. Of course, Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation
had created controversies of its own by then. It was
condemned by the Catholic bishops in the US, and the movie
was withdrawn from the UK
cinemas soon after release
because of allegations that it
was spurring copycat crime.
For more than a quarter of a
century this movie was almost
impossible to see in Burgess’s
native country.
Even so, far more people have
viewed the film than have read
Burgess’s potent novel. If you
know Kubrick’s version you
may be sad (but more likely
relieved) to learn that the song
“Singin’ in the Rain” does not
figure in the book. But there is
certainly no shortage of music—
and associated violence—to fill the gaps. A more striking
difference between film and book is Burgess’s final chapter,
omitted from the original American edition and ignored by
Kubrick, which tries to redeem his protagonist Alex and send
him off to a conventional wife-and-kids-at-home life.
At the start of the novel, Alex is the fifteen-year-old leader of a
band of punks who spend their evenings committing random
acts of violence in a dystopian setting where crime is rampant
and most folks stay indoors at night. Not that Alex and his
cronies are above breaking and entering, and beating people to
death in their homes. A Clockwork Orange follows Alex’s
criminal career, his subsequent arrest and rehabilitation in a
high tech brainwashing facility, and finally his attempt to
return to society. In the longer book version, Alex decides on
his own to embrace the straight and narrow, while the
shortened edition leaves the matter ambiguous.
This final episode changes the meaning of the book, but can
hardly negate the tone of nihilism in the previous two hundred
pages. Oddly enough, Burgess insisted on the later inclusion of
the final chapter in US editions, yet also claimed that the pat
resolution of the book was its biggest flaw. “The book does also
have a moral lesson,” he wrote, “and it is the weary traditional
one of the fundamental importance of moral choice. It is
because this lesson sticks out like a sore thumb that I tend to
disparage A Clockwork Orange as a work too didactic to be
artistic.”
Now that might have surprised the censors, and even many
current readers of the book. Burgess thought his novel was too
obvious in advocating traditional morality? Hmmm, I think we
should let the readers vote on that. Many would see this book
as the quintessential expression of anti-morality or of a
Nietzschean will to power.
Burgess once offered a different angle on the book to an
interviewer. Talking to a journalist in Malta (where Burgess
had moved to avoid 90% marginal tax rates back home), he
commented: “We can eradicate any public evil we wish most
efficiently if we employ dictatorial methods. The secret of
government, as of private morality, is to balance individual
freedom of choice with what is considered to be a necessary
apparatus of repression. Lead us not into temptation. But it’s
only to God that we pray so; it’s not up to the State to keep
away the occasions of sin.”
So one can read A Clockwork Orange as a look into the
morality of an individual, or as an inquiry into the morality of
the State. The latter perspective is easy to overlook in all the
throttling, kicking and slashing in these pages, but is there
nonetheless. Indeed, the dark sci-fi trappings of the novel
make A Clockwork Orange a worthy follower in the British
tradition of Orwell and Huxley, who believed that genre fiction
could support the weight of sociopolitical discourse.
Yet put aside the “meaning” of A Clockwork Orange for a bit,
and just enjoy it for the prose. Burgess is one of the great heirs
of James Joyce, and creates a new language to convey his
story. You will realize from the opening page that this will not
be your conventional narrative: “There was me, that is Alex,
and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and Dim, Dim being
real dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our
rassodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter
bastard though dry.”
I have elsewhere suggested that conceptual fiction, which plays
fast and loose with our conceptions of reality, serves as an
alternative to fiction that experiments with words. Yet here
Burgess delivers both, and in full measure. This author may
have had reservations that he had written a novel that was all
too ‘weary’ and ‘traditional’. But I doubt that will be your
impression on reading this extraordinary, unsettling book.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature, and popular culture.
His newest book is The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the
Repertoire.
| conceptual fiction |
Follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to reviews)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Saramago, José
Blindness
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
Jospeh Peschel
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction and
its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials
from publishers, authors, publicists
or other parties.
www.twitter.com/tedgioia
Conceptual Fiction:
A Reading List
(with links to reviews)
Home Page
Abbott, Edwin A.
Flatland
Adams, Douglas
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Allende, Isabel
The House of the Spirits
Amado, Jorge
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Amis, Martin
Time's Arrow
Apuleius
The Golden Ass
Asimov, Isaac
The Foundation Trilogy
Asimov, Isaac
I, Robot
Atwood, Margaret
The Handmaid's Tale
Banks, Iain M.
The State of the Art
Ballard, J.G.
The Atrocity Exhibition
Ballard, J.G.
Crash
Ballard, J.G.
The Crystal World
Bester, Alfred
The Demolished Man
Borges, Jorge Luis
Ficciones
Bradbury, Ray
Dandelion Wine
Bradbury, Ray
Fahrenheit 451
Bradbury, Ray
The Illustrated Man
Bradbury, Ray
The Martian Chronicles
Bradbury, Ray
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Brockmeier, Kevin
The View from the Seventh Layer
Bulgakov, Mikhail
The Master and Margarita
Burgess, Anthony
A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott
Ender's Game
Carpentier, Alejo
The Kingdom of This World
Carroll, Lewis
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chabon, Michael
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Chiang, Ted
Stories of Your Life and Others
Clarke, Arthur C.
Childhood's End
Clarke, Arthur C.
A Fall of Moondust
Clarke, Arthur C.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Susanna
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Crowley, John
Little, Big
Danielewski, Mark Z.
The Fifty Year Sword
Danielewski, Mark Z.
House of Leaves
Davies, Robertson
Fifth Business
Delany, Samuel R.
Babel-17
Delany, Samuel R.
Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.
The Einstein Intersection
Dick, Philip K.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Dick, Philip K.
Ubik
Dick, Philip K.
VALIS
Doctorow, Cory
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Donoso, José
The Obscene Bird of Night
Esquivel, Laura
Like Water for Chocolate
Fuentes, Carlos
Aura
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
Gaiman, Neil
Neverwhere
Gibson, William
Burning Chrome
Gibson, William
Neuromancer
Grass, Günter
The Tin Drum
Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Grossman, Lev
The Magicians
Haldeman, Joe
The Forever War
Hall, Steven
The Raw Shark Texts
Harrison, M. John
Light
Heinlein, Robert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert:
Stranger in a Strange Land
Heinlein, Robert
Time Enough for Love
Helprin, Mark
Winter's Tale
Herbert, Frank
Dune
Hoffman, Alice
Practical Magic
Huxley, Aldous
Brave New World
Keret, Etgar
Suddenly, A Knock at the Door
Kundera, Milan
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Kunzru, Hari
Gods Without Men
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Lathe of Heaven
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Leiber, Fritz
The Big Time
Leiber, Fritz
Conjure Wife
Leiber, Fritz
Swords & Deviltry
Leiber, Fritz
The Wanderer
Lem, Stanislaw
His Master's Voice
Lem, Stanislaw
Solaris
Lethem, Jonathan
The Fortress of Solitude
Lewis, C. S.
The Chronicles of Narnia
Link, Kelly
Magic for Beginners
Mann, Thomas
Doctor Faustus
Márquez, Gabriel García
100 Years of Solitude
Markson, David
Wittgenstein's Mistress
Matheson, Richard
What Dreams May Come
McCarthy, Cormac
The Road
Miéville, China
Perdido Street Station
Miller, Jr., Walter M.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Millhauser, Steven
Dangerous Laughter
Mitchell, David
Cloud Atlas
Morrison, Toni
Beloved
Murakami, Haruki
1Q84
Murakami, Haruki
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the
End of the World
Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Niven, Larry
Ringworld
Noon, Jeff
Vurt
Obreht, Téa
The Tiger's Wife
O'Brien, Flann
At Swim-Two-Birds
Okri, Ben
The Famished Road
Pohl, Frederik
Gateway
Pratchett, Terry
The Color of Magic
Pynchon, Thomas
Gravity's Rainbow
Rabelais, François
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Robinson, Kim Stanley
Red Mars
Rowling, J.K.
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's Children
Saramago, José
Blindness
Shelley, Mary
Frankenstein
Silverberg, Robert
Dying Inside
Silverberg, Robert
Nightwings
Simak, Clifford
City
Simak, Clifford
The Trouble with Tycho
Smith, Cordwainer
Norstrilia
Smith, Cordwainer
The Rediscovery of Man
Stephenson, Neal
Snow Crash
Stross, Charles
Glasshouse
Sturgeon, Theodore
More Than Human
Sturgeon, Theodore
Some of Your Blood
Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels
Thomas, D.M.
The White Hotel
Tolkien, J.R.R.
The Hobbit
Updike, John
The Witches of Eastwick
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Mixed Men
Van Vogt, A.E.
Slan
Van Vogt, A.E.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
Van Vogt, A.E.
The World of Null A
Verne, Jules
Around the Moon
Verne, Jules
From the Earth to the Moon
Verne, Jules:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Vonnegut, Kurt
Cat's Cradle
Vonnegut, Kurt
The Sirens of Titan
Vonnegut, Kurt
Slaughterhouse-Five
Wallace, David Foster
Infinite Jest
Walpole, Horace
Hieroglyphic Tales
Wells, H.G.
The First Men in the Moon
Wells, H.G.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wells, H.G.
The Time Machine
Winton, Tim
Cloudstreet
Woolf, Virginia
Orlando
Zabor, Rafi
The Bear Comes Home
Zelazny, Roger
Lord of Light
Special Features
Notes on Conceptual Fiction
Ray Bradbury: A Tribute
The Year of Magical Reading
Remembering Fritz Leiber
Samuel Delany's 70th birthday
The Sci-Fi of Kurt Vonnegut
Curse You, Neil Armstrong!
Robert Heinlein at 100
A.E, van Vogt Tribute
Links to related sites
The New Canon
Great Books Guide
Postmodern Mystery
Fractious Fiction
Ted Gioia's web site
Ted Gioia on Twitter
SF Site
io9
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Millions
Big Dumb Object
Jospeh Peschel
The Misread City
Reviews and Responses
SF Signal
True Science Fiction
Disclosure: Conceptual Fiction and
its sister sites may receive review
copies and promotional materials
from publishers, authors, publicists
or other parties.