When a well-known writer dies, there ensues either a period of mourning and exaggerated praise (see: Leigh Fermor, P.), or a silence like that which follows an outburst from the dock. Typically, this silence is a probationary interlude before the sentence of utter obscurity (see: Mailer, N.). Frequently, the silence is broken, and the jury fixed, by whispers of political and marital malfeasance (see: Bellow, S.). When the political deviation is considered especially offensive to decency, the whispering begins while the writer is still alive, in the way of dismemberments for treason (see: Naipaul, V.; Steiner, G.).
The birth of Anthony Burgess was one of the lesser upheavals of 1917. His death in 1993 inspired the critical equivalent of last orders, a cocktail of hurried tributes and foreshortened arguments. In The New York Times, Herbert Mitgang called Burgess a prolific, versatile, witty, and erudite follower of Sterne, Joyce, and Waugh. Yet Mitgang demurred from saying which of Burgess’s books were worth reading, or from suggesting which might endure. Instead, the obituary ended with a list of Burgess’s “most widely read” books. In the London Independent, Roger Lewis wrote that the “sheer quantity” of Burgess’s books amounted to “a resplendent career,” and identified “flashes and sparks of genius in every one.” But Burgess, Lewis said, was “a great writer who never wrote a single great book.” He did, however, achieve something much harder, by making himself “the first highbrow millionaire since Somerset Maugham.”
In the
