A review by onerodeahorse
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess

4.0

My second dive into Burgess after reading A Clockwork Orange years ago - and I think this is the better book. A long, bitingly satirical novel, the action follows the life of gay British novelist Kenneth Toomey and his on-again-off-again friendship with Carlo Campanati, who eventually rises to be Pope. Through the life of Toomey, Burgess tackles religious hypocrisy, religious power and comfort, Nazism, cults, the "colonial" experience, the birth of Hollywood and more. Toomey is a great narrator: a figure by turns pompous and obnoxious, then sympathetic and pitiful. The moral core of the novel is the problem of evil, free will and the soul; but this is all depicted in a book that sometimes feels picaresque and at others like Burgess is just making fun of various other writers. It's a long, complex book, but I had great fun with it.