EARTHLY POWERS by Anthony Burgess; Simon & Schuster; 607 pages; $15.95
Anthony Burgess's versatility is indisputable. He is a novelist, playwright, composer and linguist, as well as a critic whose dissenting views on modern culture have frequently boiled over into newspapers and magazines. But Burgess, 63, is no club Tory grumbling behind his Times and Spectator. He is a rugged, independent Christian humanist who confronts an age that has depersonalized and secularized his values. Such novels as The Doctor Is Sick, Devil of a State and A Clockwork Orange are not only cautionary satires...