Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess (1980)

All the time I was reading this novel I kept thinking of a line from the song "Ziggy Stardust" (as sung by David Bowie): "Making love with his ego, Ziggy sucked up into his mind." More than anything else, Earthly Powers seems to me to be an example of an author showing off, making love with his ego.

Yes, Mr. Burgess, I recognize that you are ultra-intelligent and learned. When you include many untranslated passages of conversation in a variety of languages, I know right away that you are more educated than I am. When you name drop scores of literary figures, I can see how well read you are. Even your condescending tone lets me know that you are superior. That you make some attempt to disguise your preening by putting it in the mouth of your first-person narrator does not fool me at all. I know that I am intended to admire you.

This is the story of Kenneth Toomey, a homosexual writer of popular novels, as he looks back on his life from an advanced age, in particular concerning his relationship with a man who would become Pope. Through this plot Burgess examines such weighty issues as the nature of good and evil, all in a tone which is sardonic and bitchy.

One thing I don't understand is what Burgess is intending to say through the various subplots about homosexual relationships. On the one hand, he seems to be criticizing Church and society for negative attitudes, yet on the other hand he often seems to equate homosexuality with pederasty, which is, of course, indefensible. (Anthony Burgess was himself heterosexual, to all appearances.)

This novel is considered by most critics to be Burgess's crowning achievement, although it is not nearly as well known as his novel A Clockwork Orange. It certainly does reveal him to be a man of great erudition, but that just doesn't make it all that interesting to a reader like me.