book review: House of Meetings

The book Koba The Dread is the equivalent of a well-articulated argumentative friend getting both increasingly louder and persistent in arguing their views. If Koba was a polemic on the crimes of Stalin and Lenin then Martin Amis uses another approach with House of Meetings.

Using a narrator who is a living embodiment of the horror that the Russian state inflicted on its own people the central figure never learns how to love. He learns how to lust and rape serving in the Red Army in the Second World War and he learns how to be jealous wasting away his hours in the camps.

Who is to blame for his anger and aggression? The state and its head that rule with hatred and establish a system of punishment and servitude. There seem to be two choices an individual faces – either to go with the flow and become aggressive or to try and take a Ghandi type approach and show that there is such a thing as pacifism and resistance. There is no option to contest innocence because no one is listening or looking to defend something that constitutionally does not exist.

In the prison camp the narrator, who is telling his life story top his daughter through flashbacks, recalls the time his brother arrived and tried to resist the system with a one-man protest that ultimately won him few admirers. Things changed when the House of Meetings was built and his brother became the hardest worker in order to win the prize of spending one night with his wife.

The jealousy that the other brother felt never went away and even after his brother died and he had raped the woman who many years earlier had gone to the house of meetings it doesn’t satisfy his yearning.

He sails down the river on a gulag tour to rediscover the House of Meetings and his own past. He is armed with an unread letter from his brother that he plans to read on his deathbed and as he nears the end he reads through an almost prophetic tale depicting the dangers of anger and lust. His brother accepts that his approach also failed because he died inside but the alternative to kill and snarl your way through was worse.

As the end comes the lessons that are passed from father and daughter are the same from the concluding arguments in Koba the Dread. A society led by people who were prepared to use terror, slavery, famine and death as weapons against their own people create monsters. At each level in society – in this case the camps – there are victims that reflect back the society that created them.

The moral of this story seems to be that declining population rates twinned with the apparent victory of the West have been both internal and external pressures that have highlighted the failure of Stalin and company.

Version read – Jonathan Cape hardback

House of Meetings - post IV

The book ends with the narrator screwed up in rage and waiting for death to come in the form of a syringe injected into the arm. He reads the letter that his brother had written to him before he died.

In that letter the true nature of the brothers are exposed. Both are destroyed by the state but one reacts by seeking solace in pacifism while the narrator resorts to violence. That violence was not only set down by his experience, as a rapist in the Second World War but is almost ingrained in his genes.

He seeks solace at the end by the idea that those genes are running into the sand because the Russian population is in terminal decline.

"I’m only doing what Russia is doing. And she tried it once before. Russia tired to kill itself in the 1930s, after its first decade of [Stalin]. He was already a cadaver, millionaire about ten times over, even before the Terror. But he did need Russians to go on producing Russian. And they stopped. After the starling census of 1936, the state jolted into action: crash kindergartenisation, maternity medals, a resolemnised marriage ceremony, the legalisation of inheritance, and the criminalisation of abortion. It was a general strike, of a kind; and the state broke it. What will the state do now?"

A review will follow soon…

House of Meetings - post III

Once a rapist always a rapist? It seems that the narrator is so determined not only to shock his daughter, to whom this book is a confession, but also himself. Left alone with his brother’s ex-wife, who he has coveted all his adult life he ends up raping her. That act leads to her suicide and it also pretty well puts a cap on a fateful life that has been destroyed by the state. The narrator might have outlived his brother, sister and his ex-sister-in-law but he is a dead man walking in a living hell of memories and the brutality of Russia.

A constant thread that pops up throughout the book is the episode of the school that was under siege with Chechen gunmen holding hundreds of school children hostage. This is seen as something that ended in a brutal way that reveals the underlying hatred the state has for its own people. But also there are suggestions it is all contrived by the state to fuel the paranoia about enemies within.

Presumably that story will be played out to climax with the last few moments of the narrator who seems to be nearing the end. He holds onto a letter that he promised to read before he died – presumably from his brother or the woman he raped – but in terms of redemption it is hard to see where any could come from – surely the metaphor for the Soviet system.

Last chunk tomorrow…

House of Meetings - post II

I didn’t manage to read a great deal of this book today. Part of that was because there is a tremendous difference between this and Powell. This is a book that has a central character that is working overtime trying to make you dislike him. At every opportunity when he could show some humanity to his brother in the camp he fails to do so.

Even after several years and all of the hardship he harbours nothing but jealously for his brother who is able to meet his wife in the House of Meetings for a night of passion in return for backbreaking work.

Even when the flashbacks stop and the narrative places the craggy old prisoner in a modern context he is still trying his hardest to provoke hateful reactions. There is real bile fuelling this book and having read Koba the Dread you sense the idea is to make the argument about the grotesque nature of the system by creating a character that is a living embodiment of everything that Amis hates about Stalinism.

More tomorrow…

House of Meetings - post I

Having read Road to Calvary it seemed like a small leap to The House of Meetings by Martin Amis. This is a memoir of a survivor of the gulag system and written as a testament from a father to a daughter.

The man telling the story seems determined to inspire some sort of disgust in his daughter as he talks about raping his way across German in the second world war and the jealously he harboured for his brother’s wife. In an ironical way it is this later emotion that causes more problems.

The narrator’s brother turns up at the camp and although they have each other the closeness of a family member seems to provoke odd feelings in the narrator. The description of the life of the camp is seen through his brother’s eyes and his brother’s experience. The reasons for the narrator’s own imprisonment is sketched in between showing life in the gulag from a new entrants point of view.

There are flash forwards to when the narrator is taking a gulag tour in post communist times but this is about the dark places that a human being can be forced to go to and so there is probably worse to come.

More soon…

book of books - Koba the Dread

This is an angry book by a very well read Martin Amis who uses his knowledge to challenge communist supporters both living and dead. It starts by questioning why his own father has communist sympathies wen there was easily enough information around to reveal the true monstrous nature of Stalin's regime. As a result it keeps a memoir type feel but there is also a history lesson being given here by a teacher that is positive he is right and that intends drilling the facts into you until you nod in agreement.

Plot summary
Given the popularity of Stalin's regime amongst the liberal left in the 1930s, when the Gulag was well into its terrible stride and the show trials and red army purges had been publicised in the West Amis has to ask how anyone could sympathise with the Russian regime. He recalls how his father had a communist soft spot for around 12 years and how he used to have interesting conversations with anti communists including friends who were historians. Martin Amis was to mimic those debates with his own generation, particularly Christopher Hitchens. But the real story here is the constant drumming in of the facts about the show trials, horrors of the Gulag and the scant regard for human life not just felt by Stalin but also by Lenin, who some of the liberals also held up as a great role model. It ends with the argument having been proved by the details that have come out since the death of Stalin and the breaking down of communism but there still continues to be a lingering determination by some to use the phrase comrade and glorify the past.

Is it well written?
Most history books are dry, fail to get off the fence until the conclusion and rarely if ever make it personal. This book does all three and shows that it can be done. At the time of its publication I recall seeing Amis interviewed by people quite happy to take a pop at the way this book had been written along with the content. But you have to doff your cap to him he has done his research, throws quotes galore at you and is quite capable of defending his corner. It is a horrifying read because of the facts and figures but the possibility of ending by recalling his own sisters death and talking about his daughter shows just how well the memoir and the historical have been combined.

Should it be read?
As an example of how wider history can weave into family histories this is a great example that deserves to be consumed. As a book showing just how history can rouse anger this is one of the most enjoyable I have ever come across. But the problem is that is comes with the name Amis on the cover and like all major brands people either like him or loathe him. If you can remain indifferent, if that is possible, and put to one side the occasional arrogance and name dropping, then this is a solid attack on Russian sympathisers for a regime that consigned millions to their deaths.

Summary
Whether it's twenty million or more there can be no doubt that Stalin was a monster.

Koba the Dread - post V

The end of this book is very personal with Amis mourning his sister and writing to his dead father and although not directly related he expresses the feelings that so many felt in Russia of loss and hopelessness. But he still manages to have a final pop at his friend who has communist sympathies which he believes cannot be supported by a right-minded informed individual.

Bullet points between ages 230 - 277

* Stalin was someone that wanted to humiliate his enemies as well as kill them and in the end the way he himself died was riddled with some sort of justice with his own doctor in chains and his stroke depriving him of the chance to use his power

* Then having gathered all his evidence Amis writs to Christopher Hitchens the communist sympathiser he described working with at the New Statesman at the start of the book and hammers home his point that there was no point at which it was a glorious revolution and it was always a murderous regime

* He then tells the moving story of his sister’s funeral and how he misses her and then ties that back in with the feelings of those who missed loved ones that died in the terror and how although Stalin said one death was a tragedy and one million a statistic all of them were tragedies

* He finishes by writing to his father telling him that although he saw the light eventually he was wrong to support Stalin for around 12 years and in so doing challenges a liberal generation that was suckered into turning a blind eye to the brutality of the regime in the USSR

A review will follow soon…

Koba the Dread - part IV

There are questions being thrown at you all the time as Amis works through the war years and the final chapter of Stalin’s life. Was he a madman? Deluded failing to accept reality? Was he a coward or a fighter? Did he really understand that some of those old communists around him understood it was all a lie?

Most of the answers are given by Amis who uses numerous sources to back up his assertions but of course this is history and there are always different interpretations.

Bullet points between pages 170 – 230

* Stalin purged through the army at such a high profile rate that it was clear to everyone in Europe that Russia would potentially not be in a position to defend itself if it was attacked

* But when the war does start Stalin is paralysed and the question of his strength of character is called into question and despite him being described by Churchill as a great leader there were millions of lives wasted as Stalin worked out how to win

* He went back on certain policies realising that people would not lay down their lives for socialism so religion and ranks in the army along with all of the awards and military honours reappeared but the purges and prison sentences continued

* Amis then widens it to look at the impact Stalin had on writers with Gorky being compromised and then destroyed by the system along with other poets and writers that were killed for having talent

* Another terror was coming just before Stalin died with the enemy of Hitler ironically picking up where he had left off and starting an anti-Jewish campaign that was honing in on doctors just around the time Stalin died

More tomorrow…

Koba the Dread - post III

The content starts to focus on the life and upbringing of Stalin and covers his relationship with Lenin but all through this there are constant references to the horrible excesses of the regime and a haranguing voice that is shouting out: ‘how could you be so stupid and support these monsters?”

Bullet points between pages 100 – 170

* Stalin creeps up on the Lenin regime disturbing the leadership with his brutal behaviour handling Georgia and heading for a final split with Lenin but he is put in charge of Lenin’s medical care and makes sure that he is not isolated

* Trotsky makes a few mistakes and Stalin rises with a determination and a willingness to destroy his rivals at quite a pace and the purges begin and the volume of people fed into the camps is phenomenal with whole families going into captivity

* There are references to some of the most famous Gulag memoirs with the experience and the language of those incarcerated is limited to reducing them to idiots with doctors losing their ability to talk and think

* Those who voted against Stalin, expressed an opinion against him were destroyed and he almost willingly destroyed the lives of his two sons and even made the life of his daughter difficult although she survived him unlike Stalin’s two wives

More tomorrow…

Koba the Dread - post II

This book is about a tragic subject but is written with real anger. Admittedly it is an informed anger but it is constant and it is refreshing. There are so many dry history books that cover the gulag system or the excesses of Stalinism but none have the determination to highlight it like this one. You are either informed, aware of the horror and against it or some sort of blind obsessive who is determined to support the regime run by monsters.

Bullet points between pages 42 – 100

* The first part of the book comes to a point where it has made it clear that Lenin was quite capable of not only ordering mass murder but seemed to have it in for the intellectual class in Russia and set out to destroy them

* This means that even from the start those who were infatuated with the Russian experiment were mistaken and were backing a monstrous regime that was quite happy killing its own

* But at the heart of this attack on different types of people – intellectual, politically aware as well as criminal – were the camps and a system of torture that meant its victims often had just a matter of months to live

* Then there are the inevitable comparisons that can be made with Hitler and Stalin and the determination they both had to wipe out entire races of people with the difference being that Stalin had a wider number of targets and the violence was random

* Although both dictators had a great deal in common in terms of their background the key advantage that Stalin had was time and he was able to destroy more lives because he was able to sit there until 1953 and keep the killing machine going

More tomorrow…

Koba the Dread - post I

Having read The Madhouse where Stalin and Lenin come in for some re-examination and are revealed to be the brutal architects of a systems that is capable of destroying people it seemed apt to stay in that mode. A quick tour of the charity shops in Blackheath on Sunday threw up the £3 gem of Koba the Dread by Martin Amis.

When this book came out it caused quite a fuss with Amis being seen as swiping at a liberal generation that supported Russia and communism when it was running into trouble. The question is whether or not those supporters of Stalin’s regime, among them Kinglsey Amis, Martin’s father for a while, knew the truth about the monsters they cheered on from the safety of the UK. The case against ignorance starts from the very first line.

Bullet points between pages 1 – 42

* Amis starts this historical memoir by quoting from a Robert Conquest book about the great famine that claimed 20 million lives and was deliberately allowed to continue by Stalin pointing out that this was not the actions of a society that was led by a benevolent leader

* Then it enters memoir territory with Amis recalling the conversations between his father and Conquest and the flirtation his father had with communism despite all the things that were happening ranging from the show trials to the gulags

* But the duping of an intellectual class was not isolated to just a few and there were other from the Bloomsbury set that went over and met Stalin and were convinced that communism was fantastic

* Conquest stood largely alone, along with émigré writers who knew what life was really like, and stood against the pro-soviet tide but then things started to change and the reality hit home and most turned against Stalin

* But even before Stalin there was a case to be made that Lenin was an inhumane obsessive who was happy for plenty of blood to be split along with Trotsky who also liked executions

* Those writers that painted fuzzy warm heroic pictures of Lenin came in for criticism by their contemporaries and in blunt fashion from Amis here in the text reminding you there are both sides to the story and the opinions still continue to divide

More tomorrow…