Rating: 
Summary: Misunderstood
Review: The point about this book, well-hidden and perhaps too well-hidden, in that the Pope being investigated for canonisation is (whether consciously or not a wicked man) is one whose "miracles" are all deeply flawed (ie the kidnapping of the general is accompanied by the murder of the guards, the child he saves grows up to be a mass-murderer like Jim Jones). This is a disguised attack on the "loveable" and almost universally revered Pope John XXIII, who, by letting in Modernism and calling the Second Vatican Council, laid the church in ruins.
Rating:
Summary: Quite outstanding
Review: This is Burgess's masterpiece, a semiautobiographical, chunky, lovely, rich, picaresque feast of a book. The anecdotes come thick and fast, as do the dozens of characters, locations, times and historical events. The way Burgess wraps Toomey into the twentieth century, being everywhere but affecting very little, is brilliant. Toomey is the ultimate everyman, fallable but lovable in his imperfections. The plot is superb in itself, with a devastating and quite aweinspiring twist at the end. And surrounding the events of the tumultuous life of Toomey (and with him, the twentieth century) is a wonderful exploration of all the important things in life - sex, politics, truth, memory, the past, religion, war, science, death, art, love, race, nationality - all attacked from different angles by different characters. Having read this it seems a scandal that Burgess wasn't honoured enough by his and my country, and that this book was turned down for the Booker Prize. As Earthly Powers shows, Burgess was very much a European writer, perhaps even more a Western writer, and he was too cosmopolitan to be recognised by Britain. It's a shame, because this book alone is worth a knighthood. You hate yourself for finishing it, because it becomes a friend; and you can sense Burgess hating to have to finish it too, because much of his life is bound up in it. Read this and become a wiser person about the world and about human beings.
Rating:
Summary: The best Burgess has written
Review: This is the sort of book one regrets finishing. It is an extremely well written simulated autobiography
of a distinguished gay English writer. It is humorous,
entertaining and conveys very interesting views on
religious issues.
Rating:
Summary: Anthony Burgess' Neglected Epic
Review: This novel, Earthly Powers, by Anthony Burgess from 1980 strips bare the twentienth century and turns its skeleton into a wonderful narrative stream inhabited by two beautifully realized characters, Kenneth Toomey, novelist, and Don Carlo, eventually the Pope. Everyone and everything of importance in the last century becomes a part of the mix without ever clogging the story, which remains clearly focused with the clever use of the fictional creations. This book is an epic that truly deserves that title and it will give the reader many hours to reading pleasure. A wonderful reading experience.
|
