Ninety-Nine Novels: The Podcast
We're currently releasing series three of our podcast exploring Anthony Burgess's favourite books. Here's some more about the podcast, and a round-up of some recently released episodes.
In 1984, Anthony Burgess was approached by the publisher Margaret Busby to write a survey of the twentieth century novel in English, modelled to some extent on Cyril Connolly’s 1965 book The Modern Movement: 100 Key Books from England, France, and America, 1880-1950 (which was eventually republished alongside Burgess’s book).
The book Burgess eventually produced presented a very personal, typically idiosyncratic, selection of novels that had made an impact on him through his years of book-reviewing for papers such as the Observer and the Yorkshire Post. He titled his book Ninety-Nine Novels: the Best in English Since 1939, and the cover emphasises his ‘personal choice’. This caveat may seem rather apologetic, but Burgess took his task seriously, thinking carefully about the time period his selection should draw from and, more importantly, what makes a successful work of fiction.
Burgess’s introduction to Ninety-Nine Novels details the parameters he imposed on himself and why. Of the time period under review, 1939-1984, he writes that he chose ‘the last forty-five years’ and not a ‘round fifty’, because ‘it is more poetic to begin with the beginning of a world war and to end with the non-fulfilment of a nightmare’, referencing George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty Four, which of course appears in Burgess’s selection. He explains the questions he asked himself about the novels of this period: ‘How far has the novel in English reflected the period accurately? How far has it opened our eyes to the future? How much entertainment has it given?’
When he comes to defining what makes a successful novel, he names the five criteria he considered when making his selection:
Human Character – ‘It is the Godlike task of the novelist to create human beings whom we accept as living creatures filled with complexities and armed with free will […] The action is there to illustrate the character; it is character that counts.’
Time and Space – ‘It is not enough for a novelist to fabricate a human soul: there must be a body as well, and an immediate space-time continuum for that body to rest or move in.’
Dialogue – ‘There is a certain skill in making speech lifelike without it being a mere transcription from a tape recorder. Such a transcription never reads like fictional speech, which is artful and more economical than it appears.’
Shape – ‘A good novel contrives somehow to trace a parabola. It is not merely a slice of life. It is life delicately moulded into a shape.’
Philosophy – ‘A novel ought to leave in the reader’s mind a sort of philosophical residue […] The novelist has not preached: the didactic has no place in good fiction. But he has clarified some aspect of private or public morality that was never so clear before.’
Ninety-Nine Novels presents a selection of books that all fit into Burgess’s stated criteria, but it is not an exercise in high-brow canon-building. Burgess’s list of books (which can be seen in full here) is accompanied by ninety-nine short reviews that reveal a life spent exploring the literary world widely, taking in literary heavyweights, such as James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, and Vladimir Nabokov; familiar favourites by George Orwell, Graham Greene, and Evelyn Waugh; entertaining commercial fiction by Ian Fleming, Raymond Chandler, and Len Deighton; and experimental fiction by women such as Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Bowen, and Muriel Spark.
Burgess’s selection reveals its value to readers in the lesser-known works it highlights. Novels such as the strange alternate reality science fiction Pavane by Keith Roberts, and the poetically obscene Falstaff by Robert Nye sit well alongside more celebrated novels, and deserve more attention.
Ninety-Nine Novels proves to be a rich literary source for those willing to take the ride, though not every novel on the list will please every reader. Even among the staff at the Burgess Foundation, debate rages as to which books are worthy of inclusion. But this is exactly what Burgess wanted, writing, ‘If you disagree violently with some of my choices I shall be pleased. We arrive at values only through dialectic.’
And it is in this spirit that we created the Ninety-Nine Novels Podcast. We were eager to find out what Burgess’s list could tell us about twentieth century literature, what it could reveal about Burgess himself and his view of what makes a good novel, and whether a book that was written nearly forty years ago could still be a relevant source for readers today.
Each episode of the podcast takes the form of a conversation with an expert in the chosen novel, whether they are academics, editors, biographers or novelists themselves. Our guests reveal the importance of the novels on Burgess’s list, their own personal relationships with the novels (and sometimes Burgess and his work too), and they attempt to articulate the legacy of each work Burgess has chosen. Following Burgess’s own invitation that ‘the reader can decide on his own hundredth’ novel, we ask each of our guests for a recommendation, thus creating a further, even more diverse, reading list.
The Ninety-Nine Novels Podcast is available on all podcast platforms, including (but not limited to) Acast, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
In previous series, we have already discussed novels by James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, Iris Murdoch, V.S. Naipaul, Ian Fleming, Muriel Spark, and William Golding among others.
Here are some highlights from the current series, which will release every Wednesday until the end of November 2023. Click on the titles below for more information.
Further series of Ninety-Nine Novels will follow in 2024 and beyond. Make sure you subscribe wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts so you don’t miss out!
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Andrew Biswell talks to Dr Barbara Cooke, author of Evelyn Waugh’s Oxford, about the novel that made Waugh famous. Burgess describes Brideshead Revisited as ‘a novel altogether readable and damnably magical.’ Listen to a clip of the podcast:
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
Graham Foster talks to Michael Schmidt, poet, writer, and founder of Carcanet Press, about Lowry’s bleak, difficult, but ultimately rewarding, Mexico-set novel. Burgess says that Under the Volcano ‘belongs to the tradition which began with Ulysses.’ Listen to a clip of the podcast:
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Andrew Biswell talks to Isherwood’s authorised biographer Katherine Bucknell about this important early work of queer fiction. Telling of secret grief and same-sex love, A Single Man impressed Burgess as ‘a fine piece of plain writing which haunts the memory.’ Listen to a clip of the podcast: