Inside Mr Enderby by Anthony Burgess. Short summary

5 seconds

Enderby is an outwardly unattractive hero, he lives his life and writes poetry while defecating. He has no friends and few people can stand him at all. After undergoing external changes, he loses himself.

1 minute

Enderby is a poet. At the same time he is a completely unsympathetic person. He writes his poems while sitting on the toilet. It’s also where he keeps his compositions. The apartment is in complete disarray and filth.

He goes for a walk, then goes to one bar, then to another, then to the next. That said, Enderby is a totally uncompanionable guy, He is such a complicated personality that he only gets along with himself. No one else can accept his dull nature. The first one who can’t stand him is the seniors’ club. Then he goes to a lesbian bar and finds his muse there. Along the way he breathes the sea air and finds it beautiful. He is a poet, after all. After the walk he returns home, goes to defecate, and right to the bubbling of his bowels he writes his poems.

The hero decides to change himself. He overcomes his bad breath, changes his habitual eating habits, and stops gassing everywhere. But, as it turns out, there is no Enderby himself without it. The dissonance of the inner and outer world robs him of his ability to express himself.