Anthony Burgess

Jupiter is in four of the six closest contacts in this chart, which makes it the planet to follow. Water takes four of his ten planets, air three, fire two and a single one earth, with five of the ten fixed. Mercury, Venus and Uranus fill eight degrees of Aquarius. The record says Burgess was told he had a year to live, wrote five novels to leave his wife an income, then lived another thirty three years and wrote about thirty more, and that he also composed over 250 musical works.

Jupiter sits square Neptune at under half a degree, and the reading is faith without evidence: wishful thinking, being taken in, and promises that felt entirely real when they were made. A prognosis of one year that turned into thirty four is a promise that felt entirely real when it was made and was wrong, and the unusual thing here is the direction. Almost every reading in this vocabulary describes something a person does. This one landed on something done to him, by a doctor, and the record is the only reason anybody can tell.

The Sun sits conjunct Mars at three quarters of a degree, and the reading is that self and will are the same thing: courage, competitiveness, and a low tolerance for being told to wait. Writing five novels inside a year because that year was supposed to be the last one is a low tolerance for being told to wait, applied to the one piece of news nobody argues with. That is the contact in this chart with the most record behind it, and the record supplies both the news and the response.

Jupiter also sits sixty degrees from Pluto at just over a fifth of a degree, effective power, and a fifth of a turn from Uranus at under half, fortunate change. His Moon sits on the twenty eighth degree of Aries at noon with Taurus still possible, so it is left out. Saturn, Neptune and Pluto were the three retrograde planets. He died in London on 22 November 1993, at seventy six. Three separate contacts that day ran to or from Jupiter: square his natal Neptune at eleven hundredths of a degree, in easy contact with his natal Pluto at fourteen, and back on its own natal place at a third, which is a Jupiter return and comes round about every twelve years. The Moon was at its first quarter and sixty three per cent lit.