Earthly Powers
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| Earthly Powers | |
 Penguin edition |
|
| Author | Anthony Burgess |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Historical novel |
| Publisher | Hutchinson |
| Publication date | 1980 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 678 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-09-143910-8 |
Earthly Powers is a panoramic saga of the 20th century by Anthony Burgess first published in 1980. On one level it is a parody of a "blockbuster" novel, with the 81-year-old hero, Kenneth Toomey (allegedly based on British author W. Somerset Maugham[1]), telling the story of his life in 81 chapters. It "summed up the literary, social and moral history of the century with comic richness as well as encyclopedic knowingness", according to Malcolm Bradbury.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
On his eighty-first birthday, the gay writer Kenneth Toomey is asked by the archbishop of Malta to assist in the process of canonization of Carlo Campanati, the late Pope Gregory XVII. Toomey subsequently works on his memoirs, which span the major part of the 20th century.
[edit] Themes
- Toomey's break with the Roman Catholic Church, which regards his homosexuality as an intrinsically disordered state
- the marriage of his sister Hortense to composer Domenico Campanati
- Domenico's brother Don Carlo's ascent to the papacy
- gay rights
- The relationship between Love and Lust
- censorship
- Hollywood
- divorce
- terminal illness and euthanasia
- ecumenism
- exorcism
[edit] Places
[edit] References to historical events
- The Great War
- the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic
- the rise of fascism in Italy
- Nazi Germany
- World War II
- post-colonialism in Africa
[edit] Disguised references to historical events
- The fictional Carlo Campanati becomes Pope Gregory XVII. This name was allegedly the one to be adopted by Giuseppe Siri, who four times failed to be elected Pope in controversial circumstances. However, many of Campanati's attributes are shared by the real-life Pope Paul VI, including his dealings with Mussolini's government, his support for Jews escaping the Nazis, and his arguments against contraception and priestly marriage.
- The Jonestown mass suicide of 1978 is presented in the form of a fictional group called the "Children of God" (not to be confused with the new religious movement of the same name).
[edit] Opening
| “ | 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. | ” |
