Greetings,
format_quote Originally Posted by
crayon
I've got the book, and I'm really excited to start reading it. Has no one here read it before?!
It's been out of print for several years, I think. I would have read it otherwise, as I'm a big fan of Anthony Burgess' work.
I didn't know he was thinking of converting to Islam at one stage, although it's eminently possible. He was brought up a Catholic, lapsed in early adulthood, and then resumed the faith of his family after reading James Joyce's
A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man. He was always interested in religion, and it is a prominent theme in two of his best books:
The Kingdom Of The Wicked, which is a novelised treatment of the history of early Christianity, and
Earthly Powers, one of whose main characters becomes Pope during the course of the book.
1985 sounds interesting, although I'm not sure it took any great foresight for someone in 1978 to determine that Muslim population in the UK would continue to rise. Being Burgess, though, there's bound to be more to it than that.
Peace