The narrator in Martin Amis' House of meetings: alluding to Russia or eluding it

The story in House of Meetings is captivating and might still be exotic for the native English-speaking readers since the narration unfolds in Russia, to be more exact - in the Soviet Union during the post-war period. The main character makes an eclectic and extravagant figure being in his ‘high’ eighties and a survivor of the infamous Norlag labour camp where he was put for ‘political crimes’. A former soldier, he is not timid at all to confess having ‘raped his way across what would soon be East Germany’. This anonymous man is involved in a love triangle with his half-brother Lev and Zoya, a Jewish woman nicknamed ‘the Americas’, ‘a natural target for denunciation and arrest’. The personages, the setting, the small details are all designed to introduce the reader to a fascinating interpretation of the tragic and bloody history of twentieth century Russia, the theme obviously much beloved by the author who turned to it earlier in his non-fictional Koba The Dread". Laughter and the Twenty Million. This interpretation, stylistically and artistically excellent, yet has little to surprise a modern Russian reader in terms of dealing with the Russian history as it is written in a bashing manner and offers an approach to the events which has been much popularized in the West as well as domestically. Therefore, this article is generally dedicated to defining the key points that might reflect the author’s vision of the Russians, which may also give an idea to the understanding of the Russian phenomenon by the English in general.

The main character of the novel (also being the narrator), introduced as a Russian, indulges in the introspection of his sins largely explained by the fact of being Russian and living in Russia; the country itself referred to as of 2004, is portrayed bearing the responsibility for the so-called Russian cross (a demographic situation):

If what they say is true, and my country is dying, then I think I may be able to tell them why. ... the conscience is a vital organ, and not an extra like the tonsils or the adenoids [Amis 2006 : 1].

Relating his story of being wounded at war, the narrator opens up on his in a way perverted attraction to his brother’s wife Zoya, which he specifically calls Russian love:

When you get a wound as bad as that, for the first hour you don’t know whether you’re a man or a woman (or whether you’re old or young, or who your father was or what your name is). Even so, an inch or two further up, as they say, and there would have been no story to tell - because this is a love story. All right, Russian love. But still love [Amis 2006 : 1].

Further on, as the main character keeps moving North on a tour towards the place of his former imprisonment, his aggravation explodes with more theories and explanations of breeding monster Russia. The monsters expected to be seen are those of the past camp horrors and also those that come inborn with the country’s vast territory:

The Siberian expanse, the olive-green immensity—it would frighten you, I think; but it makes Russians feel important. The mass of the land, of the country, the size of the stake in the planet: it is this that haunts us, and it is this that overthrows the sanity of the state... You have a sense, too, that you are looming up over the shoulder of the world and heading toward an infinite waterfall. Here be monsters [Amis 2006 : 11].

Another noteworthy episode describes the storming of the school in Beslan that was captured by terrorists in September, 2004. As a result, out of 1128 hostages 333 were killed including 186 children. The omniscient elderly predicts the deadly outcome on the first day of this undertaking, right from his own experience of Russian way of dealing with problems:

Today saw the beginning of the siege of Middle School Number One, in North Ossetia. Some of the children happened to be watching when the gunmen and gunwomen came over the railway track in their black balaclavas—and they laughed and pointed, thinking it was a game or an exercise. Then the van pulled up and out he climbed, the killer with the enormous orange beard: "Russians, Russians, don't be afraid. Come. Come . . . Why is it that we are already preparing ourselves for the phenomenon understood by all the world—Russian heavy- handedness? For what reason are our hands so heavy? What weighs them down? [Amis 2006 : 11]

Last but not least, in the exposition of the novel the character provides a rare comment on the phonetic peculiarities of his supposed-to-be mother tongue, that is Russian:

We were very late, you see, to develop a language of feeling; the process was arrested after barely a century, and now all the implied associations and resonances are lost. I must just say that it does feel consistently euphemistic—telling my story in English, and in old-style English, what's more. My story would be even worse in Russian. For it is truly a tale of gutturals and nasals and whistling sibilants [Amis 2006 : 12].

Such intricacies in the judgements and clear-mindedness as for his mother land, his compatriots and his own tongue present quite an incomprehensible combination which is difficult to imagine evolved in a Russian, until the narrator drops an eyeopening confession about himself:

Oh, and just to get this out of the way. If s not the USSR I don't like. What I don't like is the northern Eurasian plain. I don't like the "directed democracy," and I don't like Soviet power, and I don't like the tsars, and I don't like the Mongol overlords, and I don't like the theocratic dynasts of old Moscow and old Kiev. I don't like the multi-ethnic, twelve-time -zone land empire. I don't like the northern Eurasian plain. Please indulge the slight eccentricity in my use of dialogue. I'm not being Russian. I'm being ‘English’[Amis 2006 : 12].

Thus, basically the story stops being an interpretation of Russia by the Russian and turns into an interpretation by the ‘English’ or by a Russian who feels English. Allusions to a variety of processed ‘factual’ material supposedly elude profound insight in the matter for the narrator appears to be an outsider narrating the story of the land he is by nature alienated from not only due to his hatred, fear and humiliation, but due to simply ‘not being Russian’. This creates a perception paradox, since it presents a big question whether the main character is originally perceived by the native speakers (the main target audience) as a prophet in his own land or not; whether the main character manages to feature himself as an original Russian elite thinker and honorable rebel or keeps a somewhat ambiguous status, which could allow the native English reader break through the great writing ability of Martin Amis, his exquisite language, intricate plot and for a moment doubt the pathos of the novel.