Books - Earthly Powers

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	Books - Earthly Powers

Earthly Powers (ISBN 014006091X) is a 1980 novel by Anthony Burgess, generally considered to be his masterpiece. On one level a parody of the airport blockbuster, it is a work of great complexity and erudition.

Plot elements

On his eighty-first birthday, the homosexual 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.

Episodes and events in the novel include The Great War, the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, Toomey's break with the Roman Catholic Church, which regards his homosexuality as a sin, his sister Hortense's marriage to composer Domenico Campanati, Domenico Campanati's brother Don Carlo's ascent to Pope, gay rights, censorship, the rise of fascism in Italy, Hollywood, World War II, Nazi Germany, Malaysia, a Saint Nicolas legend, divorce, terminal illness and euthanasia, ecumenism, exorcism, a cult and post-colonialism in Africa.

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