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The Evolution of a Monster in a Portrait of Soviet Life |
| Section: BOOK WORLD / REVIEWS |
| Author: Sudip Bose |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/2007 |
| Size: 1,215 Words, 7,327 Characters |
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HOUSE OF MEETINGS
Martin Amis
Knopf, $23, 256 pages
In an essay on "The Golovlyov Family" by the Russian writer Shchedrin, the eminent V.S. Pritchett wrote: "Certainly the characters are all wretched or unpleasant, and the reader of novels who professes that strange but common…attitude to literature: 'Would I like to meet these people?' must leave the book alone." And yet, Pritchett argued, Shchedrin's book is not "the gloomiest of the Russian novels," but rather a work of such power and severe realism that by its end, "we are moved beyond description."
Can the same thing be said of House of Meetings, Martin Amis' new novel, set mainly in Soviet Russia? Without question, its principal character is as wretc...
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... historical events and personal tragedies he recounts. We're never quite sure that he hasn't gleaned the facts of his narrative from newspaper clippings and history texts, rather than from experience. This is unfortunate. For though House of Meetings might haunt us, it ultimately fails to make us believe--and worse, I think, to move us.
Copyright © 2007 The Washington Times, LLC.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
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Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
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