In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess's interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess's list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests.

In this episode, we’re exploring the complex, controversial and language-rich novel Darconville’s Cat by Alexander Theroux with our guest, writer George Salis.

The novel tells the story of Alaric Darconville, an English instructor at an all-girls’ college in Virginia. He is intensely romantic and intellectual, and eventually falls in love with one of his students. He views their relationship as a great love affair, but his romanticism blinds him to reality. Eventually, he meets the mysterious Dr Crucifer, an unrepentant misogynist who attempt to brainwash the younger man to his way of thinking.

Alexander Theroux was born in Massachusetts in 1939, and is the author of four novels, four collections of poetry, three collections of short stories and several works of non-fiction. His most recent publication is the collection of poetry, Godfather Drosselmeier’s Tears & Other Poems.

George Salis is a novelist, literary critic and editor. His novel Sea Above, Sun Below was praised by Alexander Theroux as having ‘electricity on every page’. He is the editor of The Colliderscope, an online publication that celebrates innovative literature, and the host of its companion podcast. He has recently completed his maximalist novel Morphological Echoes.

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BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

By Alexander Theroux

Three Wogs, including 'Theroux Metaphrastes' (1972)

Laura Warholic (2007)

By others:

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851)

Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

Girls at Play by Paul Theroux (1969)

Plus by Joseph McElroy (1977)

Love in a Dead Language by Lee Siegel (1999)

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LINKS

Sea Above, Sun Below by George Salis at Amazon

The Collidescope, George Salis's website

The Collidescope Podcast

International Anthony Burgess Foundation

The theme music for the Ninety-Nine Novels podcast is Anthony Burgess’s Concerto for Flute, Strings and Piano in D Minor, performed by No Dice Collective.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess's interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess's list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests.

In this episode, Graham Foster discovers Nadine Gordimer’s 1966 novel The Late Bourgeois World, with guest Jeanne-Marie Jackson.

The Late Bourgeois World tells the story of Johannesburg suburbanite Liz Van Den Sandt, who finds out her ex-husband has committed suicide after betraying his comrades in the burgeoning rebellion against apartheid. Though she lives a privileged life with her new partner, she begins to feel drawn towards political action. When she is asked to help the Black Nationalist movement with their finances, she has to choose between her own safe but boring life and the exciting but risky act of rebellion. But does her ex-husband’s failure prove the futility of political action?

Nadine Gordimer was born in the Transvaal region of South Africa in 1923. She moved to Johannesburg in 1948 and lived in the city for the rest of her life. She published her first novel, The Lying Days, in 1953 and went on to publish 14 more novels and over 20 books of short stories. Gordimer won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1991. She died in 2014.

Jeanne-Marie Jackson is Professor of English at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focusses on African literature and intellectual history. Her first book, South African Literature’s Russian Soul: Narrative Forms of Global Isolation was published by Bloomsbury in 2015. Her most recent book, The African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing was published by Princeton University Press in 2021. She has written for the New York Times, New Left Review, and The Conversation, among others. Her latest book, as editor, is a critical edition of J.E. Casely Hayford’s Ethiopia Unbound.

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BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

By Nadine Gordimer:

The Lying Days (1953)

Burger's Daughter (1979)

July's People (1981)

'Living in the Interregnum' in The Essential Gesture: Writing, Politics and Places (1988)

By others:

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (1862)

The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942)

The Ripley Series by Patricia Highsmith (1955-91)

The Necessity of Art by Ernst Fischer (1959)

Muriel at Metropolitan by Miriam Tlali (1975)

Edith's Diary by Patricia Highsmith (1977)

Amandla by Miriam Tlali (1980)

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (1999)

The Theory of Flight by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (2018)

The History of Man by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (2019)

The Quality of Mercy by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu (2022)

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LINKS

South African Literature’s Russian Soul: Narrative Forms of Global Isolation by Jeanne-Marie Jackson

The African Novel of Ideas: Philosophy and Individualism in the Age of Global Writing by Jeanne-Marie Jackson

International Anthony Burgess Foundation

The Burgess Foundation's free Substack newsletter

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1984, Anthony Burgess published Ninety-Nine Novels, a selection of his favourite novels in English since 1939. The list is typically idiosyncratic, and shows the breadth of Burgess's interest in fiction. This podcast, by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, explores the novels on Burgess's list with the help of writers, critics and other special guests.

In this episode, Andrew Biswell talks to Brian Boyd about Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pale Fire, which Anthony Burgess called ‘a brilliant confection’.

Pale Fire is unlike any other novel. The first section of the novel takes the form of a 999-line poem, by a murdered poet called John Shade. The second section concerns the discursive commentary and notes by Shade’s supposed editor, Charles Kinbote. Seemingly unconnected to the poem, Kinbote’s notes describe his belief that he is Charles the Beloved, the exiled king of a country called Zembla. Can this be true, or is Kinbote a fantasist? Does Shade’s poem really reference the revolution in Zembla? Is Shade even real? These are just some of the questions raised by this rich and puzzling novel.

Vladimir Nabokov was born in St Petersburg in 1899, and being of aristocratic heritage, was exiled from Russia when the Bolsheviks seized power. Having studied in Britain, he settled in America in 1940, lecturing in Russian literature at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and Cornell University in New York State. His novel Lolita, published in 1955, brought him fame, and was filmed by Stanley Kubrick, from Nabokov’s own screenplay, in 1962. Nabokov died in Switzerland in 1977.

Brian Boyd is University Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and one of the leading experts in Nabokov’s work. His writings about Nabokov include Nabokov’s Ada: The Place of Consciousness, Nabokov’s Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery, and two volumes of biography subtitled The Russian Years and The American Years. He is currently working on a biography of the philosopher Karl Popper, along with a follow-up to his On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction; a book on Shakespeare’s plays; two books on Lolita; and a continuation of his annotations, a chapter at a time, to Ada, already almost 2500 pages, with about 500 to go. He is also co-editing Nabokov’s Lectures on Russian Poetry, Prose, and Drama.

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BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

By Vladimir Nabokov:

The Defense (1930)

Lolita (1955)

Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969)

Transparent Things (1972)

'The Vane Sisters' in The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov (1995)

By others:

Gradus ad Parnassum by Johann Joseph Fux (1725)

Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)

The Joy of Gay Sex by Edmund White (1977)

A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk (2015)

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LINKS

Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery by Brian Boyd (affiliate link)

International Anthony Burgess Foundation

International Anthony Burgess Foundation Newsletter

The theme music for the Ninety-Nine Novels podcast is Anthony Burgess’s Concerto for Flute, Strings and Piano in D Minor, performed by No Dice Collective.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.