Anthony Burgess’s “Earthly Powers” - A masterly work of literary fiction.

Anthony Burgess’s “Earthly Powers” - A masterly work of literary fiction.

There are authors whose books cannot be read at one go; even though the temptation is compelling to do so. It is not so much the story that grips, but the peerless prose and structure of the work itself. The author is in supreme command of his craft carving out sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph of incandescent description, precise dialogues, succinct emotional undertones and a sublime understanding of the art of writing itself. My tryst with literature is an old one; and in the course of my reading I have had the privilege of relishing works by several established and acclaimed masters; and many times discovered few unknown gems as well. The purpose of this essay though is to talk briefly about a book that I just put down: "Earthly powers" by Anthony burgess.

Before I get to that; I must say a few words on how I was introduced to Anthony Burgess. A year and a half ago, I watched Stanley Kubrick's (one of my favorite directors) controversial movie "The clockwork orange". It is an incredible movie which, in my opinion only a Kubrick could have executed with precision. So much of violence, a dystopian view of life, and almost a raw brutish morality pervaded the entire movie. It was then I realized that the story was based on a novel by the same name published in 1961 by Burgess. My curiosity was piqued: what kind of novel would it be that projected so much psychological intensity on screen? And then when I started researching the book, I realized that it was highly controversial, and many universities had publicly banned the study of this novel in colleges because of its tenor, language and violent theme. It has been my experience that anytime academecia gets offended by a particular work of art, then it is almost certain that the artist has in some way pushed the boundaries of his profession, and chances are high that the ejection from mainstream is more a reactionary mechanism than an unprejudiced view of the work as such. Now, I had to read it to find out what so was explosive in the book, and coincidentally, I found a tattered copy of it in a second hand book store very soon. The novel itself was only 200 pages or so long, but it was undoubtedly one of the most difficult reads in my life. Being a master linguist, Burgess had spawned a new Russian infused dialect called Nasdat (a curious combination of Russianish English). It took a while to understand what he wrote with characters slipping into this tongue ever so suddenly making it difficult to keep track of the transistion from plain English to Nasdat. But the curious thing is that, despite the hardship involved in reading it, the story took on a life of its own. The powerful, violent imagery of Burgess transcended the need for coherent prose. And page after page, Burgess lets loose his vision of anarchy in a world where violence and immorality have no balancing scales, and the story moves with tremendous zest and pace interspersed with brilliant insights. I had to read the book three times, before the language, story and author's vision came together. Burgess had written the entire work in a fit of inspiration within three weeks, and flipped it over to his publisher – literally a product of ecstatic outpouring. Little did he realize that his short work would be rated as one of the most original works of fiction of the last century. Shortly after this, I read his Enderby novels, Love life of Shakespeare, Napoleon symphony and a few others that I could buy on Kindle. The bug of Burgess had bitten me. His linguistic style and the overpowering inundation of his prose has kept me captivated during many a sleepless night.
I bought "Earthly Powers" four months ago. It is a tome of a book. In hard cover it spans around 650 pages. I still remember reading the first few pages last December on a cold wintery evening and pausing to take a deep sigh of aesthetic relief. I could sense that this could be Burgess’s most ambitious work. The first few paragraphs rumbled a with force, maturity and elegance not found in his previous books. Here was a man at the top of his craft - I could feel it in my bones… His main character Ken Toomey, a Homosexual (a rich and acclaimed novelist) is visited by a cardinal soliciting help to elect a pope, who also happens to be his Brother in law. With this modest beginning, Burgess weaves a tapestry of unfolding emotions, subplots, social, political and religious jottings, characters that literally come alive in our minds eyes with a few pointed brush strokes of immaculate pen; deep tragedy and subliminally comical situations handled with ease and effortlessness of consummate artist - Burgess takes us by the scruff of our necks on a journey of self-discovery into rationales, motives, purposes of human existence and weird perplexities of modern society. The Book is divided into 81 chapters; and each of it is a work of art by itself. I could not at any point in my reading go beyond two chapters at a time. It is not because, I couldn't; but I didn't want to. I preferred to bask in the luxuriant story telling ability of Burgess, savoring his language; chewing into his prose and power of expression, ruminating on his insights into human nature, introspecting with him on the nature of God and organized religion; struggling along with to understand ambiguities in Human sexual tendencies; falling along with his characters into abyss of Human flaws, and rising with renewed optimism under different circumstances - it kept me riveted every page. In the past few months, I have carried this book with me all over the place, though its bulkiness made it slightly uncomfortable to snug into my laptop bag – I just couldn't stop reading it.

I finished the last chapter last evening; and I kept holding the book in my hand - unwilling to keep it down or close it. As a reader, I have had similar experience with many authors and their works - but few that can compare to the intensity I felt for "Earthly powers". There was something compelling about it - a tangible quality that I am still trying to grope, define and digest. James Joyce's "Ulysses" , Thomas Wolfe " Look homeward angel" , Toni Morrison's "Beloved" , Margaret Atwood's "Handmaids Tale" are a few books among many others that immediately come to mind as I write , that have arrested me, held me in that rarified zone of literary ecstasy as this one did. That is the real power of literature. If an author can get his readers to succumb to his charm, drag them into a vortex of life that is otherwise unavailable, make them think and rejoice at the same time, leaven the story with brilliant prose and style - then such a work can then be raised to the pedestal of a classic, a work that will stand the test of time; and can forever be a source of joy and enlightenment.

As I keep wrapped the jacket around the book, and placed it back on my shelf - I knew, I will revisit it once more; sometime in the distant future. There are some chapters, some paragraphs that will continue to haunt and make me reread them. I am sure of it, and I look forward eagerly to that delectable pleasure, whenever that happens.

God bless…

Yours in mortality,

Bala