anagram Martin Amis novel

anagram Martin Amis novel

Undoubtedly, the Englishman Martin Amis (Oxford, 1949) is one of the most respected writers today, so any new Spanish edition of his work is highly anticipated. In The House of Meetings, the author shows off a resource that seems to enjoy such as letters, and with a character gives a glimpse of Stalinist Russia.

The novel is narrated in first person by a protagonist who will never know the name. This man tells his story to Venus, his daughter. The story starts out like the map of life, but throughout the text is mutating into almost a confession from a man who has suffered and been made to suffer.

The main character is a former Red Army soldier who has committed almost all the existing war crimes (except killing children) and then was taken prisoner by his own government. The story focuses on the hardships they lived in a camp during Stalin's rule. In the same gulag is reunited with his brother Lev, almost his exact opposite: sensitive, quiet and poet.

What unites the brothers not only blood, but love, Zoya. But while the actor has not had more than a platonic relationship with this woman, her brother Lev is married to her in the "free world." Hence the title of the novel: The House of the meetings was the space where marital visits occurred for detainees.

It is an interesting novel, especially as Amis has been involved in maintaining historical accuracy (he himself has confessed that he had to study hard to write the book.)

While not the texts that I really liked Amis, I must stress that it is not unusual for a novelist first line is dedicated to a topic little discussed as the prison camps during Stalin's rule (although addressed the history of the agent in Koba the dread). The highlight of the novel is that the author delves into the hierarchies that existed in the gulags, detailing the life there, and demystifying the concept that stipulates that all prisoners were good against the evil police.

The House of Meetings - Editorial Anagram - $ 78 (Argentina) - 255 pp.

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