Earthly Powers

This book, like much of Burgesss's output, is sui-generis. Yes, our narrator, Toomey, by Burgess's own admission, is based on Somerset Maugham, but he is also based on Burgess himself----For those who missed the Burgessian word play here: "Two of me". The word play is one of the things I delighted in about this book, so is the arcane vocabulary. For readers who detest fun with abstruse linguistics this is Not the book for you----For all others, you'll love coming across, time and again, words like (off the top of my head) "cecity".But, as almost all reviewers have noted, this book is also a kind of roman a clef of historic personages, literary and otherwise, populating the Twentieth Century - literary and otherwise - from Henry James to Jim Jones. This effect does, as another reviewer has noted, become tedious after a bit, as does the theological casuistry strewn throughout the book, another one of Burgess's - as he calls himself, a "lapsed Catholic" - obsessions. He once told critic Harold Bloom, "I'll see you in Limbo, Bloom!" - But I digress. At their worst, these parts come across as preachy. - Burgess gave a 1985 interview with Donald Swain (to which you can listen online at Wired for Books) in which he repeats verbatim several points Toomey makes in his Wodehousian broadcast for the Nazis herein. It's just a tad off-putting. But Joyce, Burgess's greatest literary influence, can be off-putting and Jesuitical at times too.So, I'm ready to forgive Burgess/Toomey this theological muddle in light of the splendid, erudite dialogues and cutting wit that permeate the book from first page to last. This book truly is a swan song for literacy and art. As Toomey/Burgess says in the early going:"I believed that writers were fine people and the legislators of the world and so on, but I was already desperately out of date. The future belonged to the universal eye, to be tricked and overfed with crude images; it did not belong to the imagination."And, well, look around you.Toomey has as the tentative title for this narrative (revealed in the last few pages of the book) Confabulations, a title I like much better than Earthly Powers. Perhaps it's what Burgess wanted to call it himself. But I don't know this as a fact. So, I'll simply appropriate it for my review title-----and trust that it incurs no unintended consequences.

Slow moving and loaded with referemces to the literary esoterica of post WWI in England, Europe and the Mediterranean. The pace allows Burgess time to develop the characters in breadth and depth that the reader begins to feel a kind "being there" regarding the Zeitgeist of the times and a kind of intimacy with the inner circle of characters that closely resembles what one feels with one's family and friends in real life. Burgess doesn't moralize plot wise but one through the dialogue certainly experiences all the nuances, secrets, weaknesses strengths foibles and struggling of the characters to be recognized by others, and hopefully eke out enough satisfaction to make life bloom from time just enough to justify hanging in there through the quiet desperation that governs modern civilization with all its suffocating hypocrisy that must be survived while grasping for the hope that moves ahead of one like a desert mirage. But this is only at a halfway point of the first half about secular striving, the second half with deal with Catholicism's priestly striving and jockeying for power in the jungles of religious hypocrisy. I look forward to some real disillusioning portrayals of the upper ranks of that pecking order

Both the preface by Paul Theroux and the author make references to the similarity of Earthly Powers to War and Peace. The only similarity I could find is that both books are long. Tolstoy's opus comes in at 1200 pages in the paperback edition; by comparison, Earthly Powers has only 654, albeit with very small type.The book is written in the form of a fictional autobiography of one Kenneth Toomey, a self-confessed gay, mediocre, but highly successful author. Burgess has some very funny bits and an enormous vocabulary. The story is more like a series of essays that Burgess has cleverly strung together by having Toomey know everyone involved. There is a lot of name dropping and one-liner evaluations of various authors. For example, Herman Hesse's 'The Glass Bead Game' is characterized as fake orientalism.The book was finished in 1980 after Burgess spent nearly 20 years of writing. Burgess has followed the standards for gay writing in that era: all gay relationships are terrible. Toomey's first entanglement was with a poet. When Toomey didn't have the cash (£20) that the poet demanded to publish his early poems, the poet deserted him and became a lifelong adversary. I guess Toomey learned from that since he showered money on every successive liaison and each but one treated him badly. Toomey had one `love of his life' which was totally platonic, mostly unacknowledged and Burgess quickly killed the guy off.It is a hugely pessimistic view of the twentieth century.

A remarkably ambitious novel, structured around the life of Kenneth Toomey, popularnovelist and world traveler. Toomey's brother-in-law is Don Carlo, an eventual Pope.Through their complex and often inexplicable relationship, an immensely complex portraitof the 20th century emerges. Burgess manages to capture much of modern artistic andpolitical history through his labrynthine panorama of friends, colleagues, relatives, andprofessional laisons. There is much of Burgess reflected in the Toomey-both are highlyintelligent, ironically jaded writers with a penchant for drama. Yes it is unfocused at times,perhaps positively unruly. But there are magnificent scenes here-particularly aconfrontation between Carlo and Nazi torturors. As is often the case, Burgess isbound to the major theological and aesthetic questions of our time: what is thenature of true moral choice? What is freedom? What is evil? How can one live withintegrity and decency but also in peace? This novel hazards some answers. And its also damned entertaining.

My Amazon copy is my third, the previous editions having fallen apart from constant re-reading. Earthly Powers is simply my favourite novel (of the many I've read either in pursuit of my Masters in English or for less academic pleasure over the decades since). Maybe if I share just some of the reasons you'll give it a try? One thing to say early on is that this is actually a more authentically and intricately "demonic" book than the Exorcist. It has more than one climactic twist to out-gasp Falling Angel or The Sixth Sense. It's also funnier than anything written by Spike Milligan and even Clive James. Interested?First thing for me, though, is that the book combines the intellectual rewards of "serious" lit' with the more popular joys of any "thumping good read"! Critical analysis can be (and probably has been) made in great depth, if you're so inclined, from the thematics of the plot to close exegesis of the imagery, the syntax, the sound, the intricacies and subtleties of the prose: polymath Burgess is certainly up to any level of detailed appreciation, being more than capable in that area himself. But this is so much more than just a "clever-clever" exercise. Burgess rejoices in language as the virtuoso rejoices in musicianship: that is, he makes brilliance and insight accessible, entertaining and enlightening with the same effortless, but technically expert and hard-won, ease as Mozart or Shakespeare.So there's that erudite, piquant, moving, hilarious voice to recommend Earthly Powers, just for starters. Then consider the story: well, it's about Good and Evil in the Twentieth Century, right? OK, it's about the Devil and his possession, at some time or other, of just about anyone who ever tried to do right, let alone the weak and downright villainous. Satan is even shown to act - and occasionally speak, if you pay attention - through the "author" himself .This narrator, Kenneth Toomey, is what Earthly Powers is "about" on the simplest level: his outrageous cultural, religious, literary and sexual adventures amongst the movers and shakers, fictitious and real, of the modern age. The Toomey persona is clearly close to Burgess in many ways - he's witty, self-deprecating, eloquent, tortured, magnanimous, irascible. Very "real," then; but also brilliantly imagined - witness more than one glib critic being fooled into writing of Burgess as "homosexual" (wrong) on the strength of this most convincing of personae.Earthly Powers is exciting and entertaining in so many ways, from sheer quality of authorship through to scope of plot and impact of incident. Lovely characters, too. It has true and important things to say about human behaviour; profound messages about love, respect and inhumanity. Please read it.PS. Ignore the Introduction in this edition, though - he gets it wrong!

I first read this around 1980 when it was published and thought it a work of genius as I was an almost uncritical fan of Burgess at that time.I read it again around 1995 and was less impressed as much of it was confusing. Well, I have just reread it for the third time, an effort that took 13 months and will never be repeated.I have had a similar experience with Burgess's Enderby books which I loved in my younger days but find they have have deteriorated with age, as I have myself.The only work of his that has survived three readings for me was The Malayan Trilogy (also known as The Long Day Wanes) consisting of Time for a Tiger, The Enemy in the Blanket and Beds in the East.I was always aware that Burgess was an affected show-off who could never have known a fraction of what he claimed about languages, music, literature and other cultures but his stuff was usually entertaining.*Earthly Powers shows him at his most pretentious and irritating. The book is based on the life of a Somerset Maugham-type writer whose sister's brother-in-law (don't blame me for the complicated relationship) becomes the Pope.The narrator is not only a homosexual but also a lapsed Catholic which gives Burgess plenty of scope for discussions on the meaning of life, art, race etc.The story is supposed to be about the battle between the forces of good and evil within Man and Burgess labors the point over 600 pages of what looks like 9 point type to me.It name drops like a modern celebrity magazine and brings in lots of Burgess's pet hates such as the tax system in Malta, where he was an unsuccessful tax exile, which are of nil interest to anyone else.Real characters ("Jim" Joyce, John Maynard Keynes, Norman Douglas) mix with Burgess's creations in a bewildering ride across decades and countries until the book fizzles out as Burgess basically runs out of creative energy.The ending describing a mass suicide/murder similar to the Jonesville massacre in Guyana in the late 70s when 900 people were killed is appended almost as an afterthought.Overall, I would say the main fault was Burgess's decision to make his main character a homosexual. He obviously knows little about this lifestyle and would have been better modeling the character on himself - a talented heterosexual writer who never knew when he had gone too far.I hope this review does not put anyone off as I still regard Burgess as one of the best - and enjoyable - English writers of the 20th century.The Malayan Trilogy is highly recommended.*If you don't believe me then read his autobiographical writings.

Disappointed with the condition it arrived in as it is supposed to be a Christmas gift.

Beautifully written, interesting characters and a well-rounded story.Thoroughly enjoyable 600+ page epic.Two caveats: Have a dictionary handy as Burgess likes to exhibit a large vocabulary andyou may need a strong pair of glasses for the typescript size in the Vintage edition.

I remember picking this up and getting a feeling of joy bubbling through me when I read the first line and found that I already liked Kenneth Toomey as he explained his thinking behind the first line a little way down the page. I think I was even more surprised that it didn't come across as clever-clever, elitist or smug - it just came over as intelligent, funny, humane writing.I'm currently reading this for the second time in the space of a year, something I thought I'd long outgrown. This is a book that glories in literary heritage, in theological debate, and in the politics of sexuality, religion and art. Above all, Burgess glories in taking the time to construct a beautifully believable, human hero and peoples the novel with characters both real and imagined (although even the real ones are imagined).I am a voracious, constant reader and Earthly Powers is my reward - it is the reward for any serious reader. A page turner that is also a great work of art. In my opinion, it's the perfect novel.