House of Meetings

I finally got around to reading a couple of the novels that have piled up on my bookshelf. I buy them because I think I'm a reader, but then, in the cold hard light of day I realise that there are many other things I prefer doing with my spare time - piano, sleeping, daydreaming, reading magazines... I like the idea of books, and I really like that feeling of having read something. I love talking about books. This last one particular, it makes me feel cultured and sexy. Which, as many of you know, I'm not.

I read "Salmon farming in the Yemen", which was much lighter than I had expected. And all the better for it. I identified strongly with the emotionally-repressed protagonist (he's like me, but a bit fishy) and I especially loved some of the language that was used to describe the riverbanks in scotland. His wife was hilarious.

Then I waded through "House of Meetings". There are some things I really love about Martin Amis. Give us some examples, I can hear you cry. Ok.. This one from "Night Train", not a great book, but it has this bit about our heroine:

"I was a bad drunk too, the worst, like seven terrible dwarves rolled into one and wedged into a leather jacket and tight black jeans: shouty, rowdy, sloppy, sleazy, nasty, weepy, and horny."

And in "The Information", there's a passage where he talks about domestic servants, maids, who've arrived as though in crates from Vientianne and Bogota, with names like Ming and Atrocia. Atrocia??!!?? I liked it so much I almost persuaded my best friend to name his daughter that.

But the other thing I really remember about The Information was that towards the end I just couldn't care less what happened, I'd lost interest. I didn't care about the characters and the story was... well, I don't know. Have you read The Information? What did happen in the last chapter? I read it, but I couldn't tell. The language is fizzing all over the page, as it does, and it all seems terribly significant but you can't actually figure out what's happening. I still have no idea. And I don't care much.

I got to within about 20 pages of the end of 'House of Meetings' and realised that I'd lost interest. And I'm quite strict when it gets like that. I just put it down.