Book Review: EARTHLY POWERS by Anthony Burgess

Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

"What you're trying to say about God it seems to me cannot be said ever ever, do you understand, about God... the human imagination is capable of a terrible amount of evil. God bless us, God save us from harm."

That quote sums up how I feel about this terrible book. Is it beautiful and brilliant? Undoubtedly so. But so was the former angel known as the Morning Star. I am a firm believer in the redemptive power of art and literature, and I was appalled at how this 600+ pager of a novel came to a close: such incredible promise, such explosive potential, and all for naught.

It is a very lengthy, very learned memoir that starts out with perhaps the most infamous sentence in English literature (too foul to be reproduced here), which should have warned me about its contents. It tells of a man who is asked to confirm a late pope's sanctity unto sainthood, who sifts through his memories of living through perhaps one of the most evil of centuries (the 20th), who sees and lives through much evil.

I do wonder what the author meant to accomplish by this fearsome work. This should come with a warning: "not for ye of little faith." It seems to be written by one who has a passionate love/hatred for the Catholic church, and for any form of organized religion. If there was such a genre as "fictional theology" or "theological fiction," then this book would exemplify it: most of the dialogue and conflicts revolve around matters of faith, as well as of gender and sex.

Some might define great literature in terms of technique, of the weight of ideas, the erudition of an author who can write with authority on all matters anthropological, musical, literary and linguistic. By that rubric, they would say this is a great novel.

But great literature should also ennoble, not enfeeble; encourage, not demoralize. And by that metric, this book gets a solitary star.

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