Saturday 5 July 2008

 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Liz Anderson

Liz suggests


Back to top form

Thursday, 28th September 2006

Christ, look at my hands. The size of cheeseboards, no, cheeses, whole cheeses, with their pocks and ripples, their spread, their verdigris. I have hurt many men and women with these hands.

Before reflecting on his drunken bad temper and his habit of leaving big tips:

Around dawn, I started physically preventing certain people from leaving the bar and had to be moved the next day, in a blizzard of swearwords and twenty-dollar bills.    

The novel’s greatest strength, however, lies in the narrator’s ability to tease affection from us even as he reveals the most shocking things. He was a serial rapist during the second world war, and later, in the prison camp, was inhumanly brutal towards other inmates. But even when he makes perhaps his most shocking confession of all, and we see him as he is — a man whose moral development could be retarded in seconds — he commands a curious degree of sympathy, someone who asks awkward questions of us. There are echoes of Lolita, a novel about a paedophile which delights intelligent, sensible readers, who, if the story were not fictional and joyously penned, would ordinarily be sickened. Here the crime is different, but the effect is similar.

In Letters to a Young Contrarian, Amis’s friend Christopher Hitchens writes, on comedy:

A rule of thumb with humour: if you worry that you might be going too far, you have already not gone far enough. If everybody laughs, you have failed.

Martin Amis divides critical opinion in this way; not everyone laughs or applauds. House of Meetings may perpetuate those divisions, but if it fails to unite all readers, it succeeds admirably as a novel nonetheless.

 Previous page  1 | 2 | 3 | 4

More articles from: Simon Baker | this section

Subscribe now

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Comments

Post a comment


Your comment:*

Your name:*

Your email address:*
(We won't publish this)

*Required information

Please click the button only once - your comment will not be published immediately


In this section

Et tu, Scott? Bush’s press aide turns on his boss

James Forsyth

James Forsyth talks to Scott McClellan, former press secretary to the President, about his new book attacking the Bush administration, its methods and its deceits

The Law Lords are right to resist the government

Lord Lloyd of Berwick

Lord Lloyd of Berwick says that the government’s emergency legislation to overturn their lordships’ ruling on witness anonymity is part of a ‘gradual usurpation’ of our liberties

I was starstuck by David Cameron

Steven Berkoff

In the week of the Spectator Summer Party, Steven Berkoff recalls another of our celebrations at which he sought out the Tory leader and forgave his confusion of Brando and Dean

Glasgow East is Brown’s dirty little secret: a hideous, costly social experiment gone wrong

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson reviews the week in politics

Brown’s security strategy is the worst of all worlds

David Davis

It’s draconian, expensive and ineffective, says David Davis. All the evidence shows that the Prime Minister is eroding our civil liberties pointlessly

Related articles
Spectator recommends

Sky - Official Site

Build your own Sky package online. Sky TV, Broadband & Talk only £16.

IT Careers and Training at Computeach

Typical IT salary in the UK is £39K. Get fantastic IT training to find a career in IT. Apply today.


Spectator classifieds

ROME CENTRE

PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique

City Breaks. ROME and PARIS

ROME and PARIS: over 350 holiday rentals apartments listed: visit  www.romanreference.com  and  www.parisreference.com or call +39 0648 903612.

Jewellery. RUFFS (Estd. 1904).

Goldsmiths by Design Welcome to Ruffs!  You have found a company of Goldsmiths that specialises in the manufacture, amongst other