An Encounter with Anthony Burgess

AN ENCOUNTER WITH ANTHONY BURGESS

BY JOHN STAPLETON

I had a vicious hangover the morning I met Anthony Burgess.

At the time I was yet to work out that only the lowest of the low in terms of the pecking order of print journalists got slotted in at 9 am.

I had been to see the movie Clockwork Orange twice, and slept through it both times. Now I was interviewing one of the world's most famous and most successful authors through a sheet of blinding pain; in the foyer of one of London's many up-market hotels. At the time I shared the disdain towards Burgess held by some of the slower, less prolific writers in the English canon.

Burgess had just penned his book Ninety-nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939; along with another in his Shakespearean series titled Enderby's Dark Lady, or No End of Enderby.

Indeed, after I had waded through the series, there did indeed seem to be no end to Enderby.

Burgess's publication of Ninety-nine Novels had created a predictable furor in literary circles, promoting the publication of counter lists.

As quickly became evident when I asked him about the sometimes excoriating commentary accompanying its publication, Burgess was hugely enjoying the controversy over which books should and should not be included in a list of the 20th century's best fiction.

The criticism was water off a duck’s back. The author of A Clockwork Orange was already a multi-millionaire. Nothing could touch him but time itself. Critics were just mosquitoes as far as he was concerned.

“Who would want to be a critic?” Burgess demanded. “Do these people sit in school and dream about their futures and think, yes, that's what I want to be, a critic. Is that all their dreams are made of?”

As for the controversy, you had to start somewhere Burgess shrugged. The book had promoted debate and that is what it was intended to do. And hopefully it had got people reading more books.

Although I had not enjoyed the Enderby books I asked Burgess about hopefully what was the last of them.

Burgess had already breakfasted in his room so unfortunately had no desire for any more repast. I could have done with a free coffee and some breakfast, alcohol sweat defying the hotel’s air conditioning. The interview ended up being conducted on a couch in the foyer.

The public relations woman sat perkily next to Burgess throughout, occasionally trying to facilitate the conversation.

When the interview wound up after an hour which had seemed like an eternity I made my way across the football field of a foyer and out into the London streets.

I hadn't bothered to dress up for the interview, and didn't possess the clothes anyway, but the sight of my shambolic self in the foyer's many mirrors did nothing to instill self-confidence.

As I stepped down from the mezzanine level and headed towards the hotel's revolving doors, I saw Anthony Burgess and the public relations woman staring after me quizzically, and then burying their heads together.

Not that Burgess could talk. In the late 1950s he was dismissed from his position as a teacher in Brunei, and as an excuse claimed to have had a brain tumor; a tumor that was never found.

Burgess's story telling abilities were well known to extend to himself.

As Wikipedia observed of the tumour incident: “Burgess' biographers attribute the incident to the author's notorious mythomania.”

He was said to be suffering from the effects of prolonged heavy drinking and associated poor nutrition...of overwork and professional disappointment.

There was no air of disappointment about Burgess when I met him.

Indeed, Burgess could hardly have appeared more affluent, stolid or certain of himself.

While Burgess prepared for another interview before flying back home to Monaco, I headed back to an increasingly frustrated lover, and to another night of pointless carousing and implausible excuses.

As I entered the over-white light of the street, I had a stab not just of disorienting pain, but of envy for the workers in the street, the shop keepers behind their counters, the bus driver passing by, the legal secretaries with bundles of documents rushing to their offices. I envied them their normality, singleness of purpose, their apparent certainty in who they were and why they were. I had no idea. In a sense I didn’t want to be at all. But the paper loved the story, and at least as far as interviewing famous authors was concerned, I was on my way.