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A review by bub_9
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
5.0
This was such a marvelous work that, despite its length, I genuinely finished it in one very long day. It's very monumental, and I am sure I missed myriad references (it reads like a personal tour of the 20th century and all its associated literary, social, and moral detours). It is also irrepressibly comical, impressively encyclopedic, and translucently textured.
From that first sentence: "It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me", we know we're in for a ride, and while it is mildly slow going at first, the structure is both all-encompassing and entertaining, and the writing is just bitingly funny at times. Standout passages include the dealings with James Joyce. They're so funny, you can almost see them happening!
Anyway, not a generalist recommendation by any means, but certainly the work for which Burgess should be remembered, heralded, and celebrated, not the other one.
From that first sentence: "It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me", we know we're in for a ride, and while it is mildly slow going at first, the structure is both all-encompassing and entertaining, and the writing is just bitingly funny at times. Standout passages include the dealings with James Joyce. They're so funny, you can almost see them happening!
Anyway, not a generalist recommendation by any means, but certainly the work for which Burgess should be remembered, heralded, and celebrated, not the other one.