NP: House of Meetings by Martin Amis/ new crowley

[mikebailey]

sounds good...Martin Amis is somebody whose books' covers I've never cracked...

on another note, Crowley (not the Nookshaft, but John Crowley the living
novelist) has at long last published book 4 (not Aleister Crowley's "Book 4"
nudge nudge wink wink) of his _Aegypt_ tetralogy...title: Endless Things

available from the usual suspects

I would be very surprised if I like it better than book 1, but also
very surprised if it isn't a wonderful read

(sort of how I stand, mutatis mutandis, on Pynchon and Vineland)

peace out //
oh, and - great work, ad hoc host persons, thanks for carrying on!!!


On Sat, 5 May 2007, bekah wrote:

> Just finished House of Meetings,  an incredible,  powerful, violent,
> horrific, mesmerizing book by Martin Amis.  It's really not like
> anything else he's ever written - he's totally serious.
>
> The overarching theme may be what happens to love  when murder,
> torture, rape, slave labor, starvation and general brutality are the
> order of the day and virtually, but not absolutely,  necessary for
> survival.
>
> House of Meetings is essentially a letter by an unnamed Russian
> narrator as he travels from his adopted home in the  US back to a
> labor camp in Siberia where he was interred under Stalin.   The
> letter is to his step-daughter, Venus, and in it the narrator tries
> to explain his life as a Soviet soldier in WWII and a prisoner in a
> Siberian labor camp afterward.  He tells her all about his life and
> loves while he broad-brushes (but doesn't hide)  his crimes.
>
> lAmis tries to convince the Venus to wear the "Eastern eyes" of
> Joseph Conrad for the tale but I'm not sure if this is so that she
> will harden her sensitivities or if it's to request she not condemn
> him too much - possibly both.  She, and we?,  should accept the
> brutality in order to forgive him his part.
>
> The story the narrator relates focuses on the complex love/hate
> relationship of the narrator for his pacifist brother, Lev,  and also
> for a flamboyant and promiscuous woman named Zoya who marries Lev.
> The title of the book is from the name of the building where conjugal
> visits are allowed.
>
> The characters are never really fully developed, the structure is
> shredded and the themes of love, forgiveness and redemption are never
> quite resolved,  but the narrative style is superb and the book
> succeeds.   In many ways "House of Meetings" reminded me of a
> combination of William Vollmann (Europe Central) and Phillip Roth
> (American Pastoral); Vollman because of the Russian setting,   Roth
> because of the intimate and immediate nature of the personal conflict.
>
> There seem to be a lot of layers of meaning in this book, so it's
> probably begging for me to read it again.  (g)   And it has the sort
> of encyclopedic feel that makes me want to goon  Google marathon.
> Fwiw, many people, places, incidents are absolutely historical or
> literary (Amis wrote a non-fiction about Siberian labor camps a few
> years ago)  while others are purely fictional.   There were times
> when the literary references,  especially to Dostoevsky,  and
> historical references seemed to be a bit overdone.
>
> "We were very late, you see, to develop a language of feeling; the
> process was arrested after barely a century , and now all the implied
> associations and resonances are lost.  I must just say that it does
> feel consistently euphemistic - telling my story in English, and in
> old-style English. English, what's more. My story would be even worse
> in Russian. For it is truly a tale of gutturals and nasals and
> whistling sibilants."   (p. 15)
>
>
> Bekah
>
>
>
>