Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements

The Napoleon which Burgess gives us is a comic tyrant, a conqueror with bad breath, an emperor whose noble hand - tucked ever in his tunic - comforts a case of common heartburn. The opening movements reveal him on his glorious Austrian campaign, a cuckolded Colossus penning ardent letters to a faithless Josephine in Paris who celebrates her husband’s victories in a lover’s bed. So, the conqueror of Egypt becomes the libertine of Europe, bedding princesses and prima donnas, as news of his wi...