Product Description

Martin Amis's new novella is both pertinent and provocative, and sure to be a bestseller

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37787 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-04
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

The Sunday Telegraph
`Amis engages compellingly and eloquently with the "Russian Soul"'

Sunday Herald
`This is the most enjoyable Amis novel for some time'

The Times
`Martin Amis is always essential reading'

Customer Reviews

Dull
M.Amis is one of the great writers and this is still great writing - to some extent. Unfortunately, I found it dull, and though short, not quite short enough. There is no sense of the awfulness of the Gulag, and the character drawing is vague.

at least it's short
Sadly, the best thing about this novel is its brevity. And I say that as someone who has enjoyed Amis's novels in the past (eg, Money, Success, London Fields - the latter being my favourite). I expected to be shocked and enlightened by the realities of the gulag and the nature of Soviet communism (which Amis correctly identifies as a form of fascism, post-Lenin), but instead I was mostly bored by Amis's baroque linguistics. Basically, IMNSHO, it's overly-literary and all a bit poncey.

A great novel start, excellent middle, but in the end back to typical Amis self loathing
With House of Meetings Martin Amis has at last put down his distorting lens. With the unarguable reality of his subject matter - the Siberian gulag - what is left to distend? Only the faint but imperishable joys of human imagination can grace such a heartless state inspired depravity. And here, at last, Amis serves himself a dish greatly to his relish and taste. Utilising wonderfully subtle hyperbole, he creates a Russian alter-ego whose self-awareness unshackles the author's usual authorial straightjacket.

Sensitive yet violent, his narrator symbolically represents that strange ambiguity of Russian power, whether personal or political. In a language of rich beauty he discovers where all is lost, in a sense everything else is gained and rare for Amis, not least a voice of buoyancy.

But be warned, in the gulag the writer is still in his element. In place of the usual narrative morbidity we have the refined voice of a resilient brute whose ultimate act of destructiveness somehow represents the withering insecurity of the Amis paranoia. This closes up an otherwise excellent book in a typical fetish of `male anxiety' and justifiable self-loathing.

In sum great writing, even a great book; but sadly let down by the author's flawed finale squeezing out its loftier potential. The arch miserablist remains intact.