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More About the Author
Product Description
Independent, October 17, 2006
One of: `The ten best Autumn Reads' chosen by John Walsh.
Times
"Brings to life its nameless protagonist's existence in the
post-war Russian labour camps"
post-war Russian labour camps"
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
A great novel start, excellent middle, but in the end back to typical Amis self loathing..
6 Nov 2007
Format:Hardcover
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.
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.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Fans of Martin Amis will recognize a narrative dynamic in HOUSE OF MEETINGS. This is fraternal competition, which manifests in the novels SUCCESS, MONEY, and THE INFORMATION as the hilarious but sad interplay between dependent men.
But in HOUSE OF MEETINGS, Mart gives his fans a twist. This time, he takes this same dynamic and imagines its expression between two brothers in Soviet Russia, the older a soldier brutalized by his experiences in World War II. In HOUSE OF MEETINGS, Mart asks whether this dynamic, which drove the lives of his characters in 1980's London and New York, could withstand years of slave labor in Stalin's Gulag.
One Amazon.com wag (the review has disappeared) called this book ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF MARTIN AMISOVITCH. Mart's fans who read HOUSE OF MEETINGS will see this comment is spot-on, since this novel explores such familiar Amis themes as male competition, loveless sex, retribution, and bad teeth, this time in heavy-handed Soviet society. It's fascinating stuff and the writing, especially in the first and last sections, is brilliant.
One word of warning: The experience of reading this book is similar to reading EVERYMAN, the latest from Philip Roth. I'd call each novel a short, flawless, and mesmerizing page turner. But neither book is happy reading, even with the guilt plagued narrator of HOUSE OF MEETINGS finally earning profound but ironic praise from his younger brother.
But in HOUSE OF MEETINGS, Mart gives his fans a twist. This time, he takes this same dynamic and imagines its expression between two brothers in Soviet Russia, the older a soldier brutalized by his experiences in World War II. In HOUSE OF MEETINGS, Mart asks whether this dynamic, which drove the lives of his characters in 1980's London and New York, could withstand years of slave labor in Stalin's Gulag.
One Amazon.com wag (the review has disappeared) called this book ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF MARTIN AMISOVITCH. Mart's fans who read HOUSE OF MEETINGS will see this comment is spot-on, since this novel explores such familiar Amis themes as male competition, loveless sex, retribution, and bad teeth, this time in heavy-handed Soviet society. It's fascinating stuff and the writing, especially in the first and last sections, is brilliant.
One word of warning: The experience of reading this book is similar to reading EVERYMAN, the latest from Philip Roth. I'd call each novel a short, flawless, and mesmerizing page turner. But neither book is happy reading, even with the guilt plagued narrator of HOUSE OF MEETINGS finally earning profound but ironic praise from his younger brother.
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It's sometimes easy to forget Amis's talent amidst all the bullcrap that gets written about him. He is an extremely talented writer who has become a target of lesser writers who write off his novels without seemingly reading them (see some of the negative reviews of 'Yellow Dog'). Never trust reviewers! Hee Hee!
Amis is a postmodernist writer with a conscience whether its the environment ('London Fields) or harming effects of capitalism ('Money') and in this 'short novel'he considers the prison camps of Stalin and the long term effects this imprisonment has on the narrator and his brother. Both brothers are in love with the same girl and the novel traces the fight to possess her but also the fight to stay alive and what humans are capable of when they are reduced to animal-like status.
Brilliantly written, moving, tragic and oddly contemporary in his observations of the abuse of power and injust imprisonment (Quantanamo anyone?) this is quality Amis. My only problem with being that I wished it could have been a little longer and I was sure there was meant to be two other stories with it? Where did they get to Martin?
Amis is a postmodernist writer with a conscience whether its the environment ('London Fields) or harming effects of capitalism ('Money') and in this 'short novel'he considers the prison camps of Stalin and the long term effects this imprisonment has on the narrator and his brother. Both brothers are in love with the same girl and the novel traces the fight to possess her but also the fight to stay alive and what humans are capable of when they are reduced to animal-like status.
Brilliantly written, moving, tragic and oddly contemporary in his observations of the abuse of power and injust imprisonment (Quantanamo anyone?) this is quality Amis. My only problem with being that I wished it could have been a little longer and I was sure there was meant to be two other stories with it? Where did they get to Martin?
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
First Impressions
Being an Amis virgin I must review my response to House of Meetings without reference to previous works. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Mick Read
Deep, rich and short book about the Gulag and more
+
The house of meetings is a hut where conjugal visits were allowed in the latter part of the Soviet Gulag era. Read more
The house of meetings is a hut where conjugal visits were allowed in the latter part of the Soviet Gulag era. Read more
Published 8 months ago by J. Vernon
A Hitski, not Amiski
A tale of Stalinism and brotherly love, House of Meetings is a book that, once it hooks you, never lets you go. Read more
Published 10 months ago by The Outsider
Disappointing
Martin Amis must have been feeling miserable when he wrote this book because misery seeps from every page. Read more
Published 22 months ago by P. Bird
NO! NO! NO!
House of Meetings Ok, Martin Amis is a talented writer but ...... what is it about the contemporary literary novel that the authors seem to regard the story as irrelevant! Read more
Published 22 months ago by J. P. Mckenna
an excellent bad book
There is so much of excellence in this terrible book, you really ought to read it. It is not, as Woody Allen said War and Peace was, "about Russia". Read more
Published on 7 Jan 2010 by E. Clarke
comic tragic love story
A story that begins by giving you the grey images you imagine of communist soviet union. The gulag as a background of a story of human degradation doted with spots of a love story. Read more
Published on 5 Jan 2010 by Nadia Ribeiro
Money is still his best
Money by Marin Amis was one of the best books of the 1980s, an almost perfect satire of that awful decade. Read more
Published on 27 Nov 2008 by David Hadley
Stunning read
Martin Amis' "House of Meetings" is a stunning read. A story, which sees two brothers in love with the same woman, which sees a decade spent in a slave camp in Siberia, which sees... Read more
Published on 14 Aug 2008 by Roland Freisitzer
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. Read more
Published on 19 July 2008 by S. ALLMAN
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