Submitted by Steven Augustine, Jan 8, 2007 20:47

By framing Amis's technical dilemma as that of a writer illuminating the gulag via the inappropriate lens of a love triangle, doesn't the reviewer do a better job of describing his misreading of the book than of Amis's mishandling of his theme? For it's the other way around, of course: the love triangle is the major arc of the novel; the gulag is the context, not the story. The reviewer approaches the book with a fixed idea of what all books featuring gulags should be; how they must behave...the decorum they should observe; the proportions they should adhere to. This reading seems justified, perhaps, until one remembers that enlightening us about everyday life in actual gulags is not Amis's brief; for that we read a memoir...we seek historical accounts. Amis is story-telling, in The House of Meetings (and other of his books), on the broader topic of human behaviour. His false notes in this light are not so many.

Give the novelist some credit here for the courage of his ambition. It's not a perfect book but it's far from the ill-advised gaffe that Kirsch would have us believe; Kirsch might be 'happier' sticking to plainer, more pious fare. If writing a novel requires a prodigious feat of the imagination, as Amis demonstrates, a decent review must entail at least a twinkle of same.

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