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The Alteration Kingsley Amis 9780881844320 Books

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The Alteration Kingsley Amis 9780881844320 Books

Amis' darkly-disturbing novel of an English choirboy faced with castration to preserve his soprano voice shows the expertise developed writing earlier works like "Lucky Jim," "That Uncertain Feeling," "The Anti-Death League," and "The Green Man." Its alternate-history scenario has as one of its diversion-points the elevation of a certain German cleric to the See of Rome: Martin Luther became Pope Germanian I, and the Protestant Reformation never happened. Amis doesn't need to tell us; this information slips subtly into a conversation between two agents of the "Holy Office," a kind of English inquisition: Monsignors Henricus and Lavrentius.

Or, to give them their childhood names, Himmler and Beria.

As in Keith Robert's "Pavane" (Pavane), the result is a Catholic Church with a potent reach over almost the entire Western world, and a 1970s English culture that feels strangely medieval. The "heretical" reformation that happened in the American colonies is a distant and taboo topic of whispers among the school-boys in the choir, shared along with "science" (another taboo) and their "Counterfeit World" and "Time Romance" (science fiction and alternate history) novels after lights out in their dormitories.

Hubert and his family struggle with the prospect of his invitation to join the ranks of castrati. Counseling him to decline are his school chums, his mother, his composing teacher, and an intriguing American family at that country's embassy in London. Even another altered man tries to convince Hubert's father to withhold permission. But the appeal of the change is strong; as an altered singer, Hubert can expect to command great fortune and temporal power to replace his manhood.

The strongest voice against the change comes from within Hubert himself. A growing attraction to the American ambassador's unruly daughter, and a chance observation of a stable-hand's encounter with a serving girl give him a new perspective on the cost of his proposed future.

Gripping action, subtle humor and a keen eye for the persistence of human faults in any society give this tale extra strength. There's a reason it won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science-Fiction Novel in 1977.

Liner Notes:
* I was pleased to find a couple of "TR" novels named in the schoolboys' illicit library: "The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick, and a Keith Roberts novel named "Galliard." The Dick story is not the one we know (The Man in the High Castle) about a Nazi victory in WWII (which conflict never happened in the world of "The Alteration"), but instead is a strangely-real account of an England in which "the Holy Victory never happened," and thus Henry VIII's reign eventually produced a culture with science, electrical devices and flying cars. "There are always flying cars," scoffs one of Hubert's school chums.
* My advice: skip the Introduction by William Gibson to avoid spoilers, but read it after you finish the novel. Gibson makes some excellent points about the more-disturbing elements of Amis' counter-factual world.
* Watch for the moment when Hubert's feelings about America change. It's shattering.


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The Alteration Kingsley Amis 9780881844320 Books Reviews

I quite enjoyed the Alteration. It's a simple enough alternate history book, sufficiently complete thematically to hold together well. the ending was a good twist as well. if you enjoy the genre, don't let this one get away.
THE ALTERATION is the fourth Kingsley Amis novel I've read. The first three--Lucky Jim (New York Review Books Classics), THAT CERTAIN FEELING, and The Old Devils (New York Review Books Classics)--are similar in important respects they explore the hilarious shenanigans of heavy drinking men as they pursue women; they occur in the UK in the mid-twentieth century, when his characters, who mostly muddle through, are nonetheless concerned about their careers and money; and there is lots of scheming. IMO, Amis's grasp of such men and the world they inhabit is pitch-perfect and credible, even when their stories cross into bedroom farce (John Lewis in TCF) or hinge on the sexual exploits of a sixty-something Lothario (Alun Weaver in TOD).

In THE ALTERATION, Amis develops a different dynamic. In this case, he has written an alternate history set in in 1976, in which England is dominated by an autocratic Catholic church, electricity is considered profane, science is distrusted, and the relationship of people to the church has not really evolved much since the Middle Ages. Meanwhile, the protagonist in THE ALTERATION is an innocent and pious a 10 year-old musical prodigy with a beautiful voice, who the Catholic Church wants to turn into a castrato. In Kingsley's alternate world, this procedure is known as an alteration.

So how does Amis perform in this alternate world with a boy protagonist? IMO, the alternate history was cleverly imagined and internally consistent. And in writing this alternate history, Amis had the chance to deride the real England of 1976 ("...the tiny incident stood for much of what was to be seen and heard in England careless, bumptious, over-liberal, negligent of order.") But how about Hubert Anvil, the boy with the angelic voice? IMO, nope; too intelligent, too able to engage adults on issues, too clear in his reasoning. He's a consistent, albeit ingenuous, note of falsity in an otherwise amusing book.

Hubert's personality actually touches on the BIG weakness of this novel. TA is one of those novels where characters define themselves through conversation. "You mean to say that..." "If we do this does it mean that..." "What you're telling me is that..." You get the idea the characters in this novel are created through their conversation, not their action. Furthermore, the characters are basically mouthpieces for the King, who came out on the right side of all issues in this book, even though he was known as a curmudgeon and reactionary at this phase in his life. Face it Amis believed in science and personal decision and saw how tyranny operates.

Regardless, this is a good, not great book, and recommended for fans of Kingsley. But in the future, I plan to read DIFFICULTIES WITH GIRLS and TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU, where Kingsley Amis operates in his sweet spot.
Amis' darkly-disturbing novel of an English choirboy faced with castration to preserve his soprano voice shows the expertise developed writing earlier works like "Lucky Jim," "That Uncertain Feeling," "The Anti-Death League," and "The Green Man." Its alternate-history scenario has as one of its diversion-points the elevation of a certain German cleric to the See of Rome Martin Luther became Pope Germanian I, and the Protestant Reformation never happened. Amis doesn't need to tell us; this information slips subtly into a conversation between two agents of the "Holy Office," a kind of English inquisition Monsignors Henricus and Lavrentius.

Or, to give them their childhood names, Himmler and Beria.

As in Keith Robert's "Pavane" (Pavane), the result is a Catholic Church with a potent reach over almost the entire Western world, and a 1970s English culture that feels strangely medieval. The "heretical" reformation that happened in the American colonies is a distant and taboo topic of whispers among the school-boys in the choir, shared along with "science" (another taboo) and their "Counterfeit World" and "Time Romance" (science fiction and alternate history) novels after lights out in their dormitories.

Hubert and his family struggle with the prospect of his invitation to join the ranks of castrati. Counseling him to decline are his school chums, his mother, his composing teacher, and an intriguing American family at that country's embassy in London. Even another altered man tries to convince Hubert's father to withhold permission. But the appeal of the change is strong; as an altered singer, Hubert can expect to command great fortune and temporal power to replace his manhood.

The strongest voice against the change comes from within Hubert himself. A growing attraction to the American ambassador's unruly daughter, and a chance observation of a stable-hand's encounter with a serving girl give him a new perspective on the cost of his proposed future.

Gripping action, subtle humor and a keen eye for the persistence of human faults in any society give this tale extra strength. There's a reason it won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science-Fiction Novel in 1977.

Liner Notes
* I was pleased to find a couple of "TR" novels named in the schoolboys' illicit library "The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick, and a Keith Roberts novel named "Galliard." The Dick story is not the one we know (The Man in the High Castle) about a Nazi victory in WWII (which conflict never happened in the world of "The Alteration"), but instead is a strangely-real account of an England in which "the Holy Victory never happened," and thus Henry VIII's reign eventually produced a culture with science, electrical devices and flying cars. "There are always flying cars," scoffs one of Hubert's school chums.
* My advice skip the Introduction by William Gibson to avoid spoilers, but read it after you finish the novel. Gibson makes some excellent points about the more-disturbing elements of Amis' counter-factual world.
* Watch for the moment when Hubert's feelings about America change. It's shattering.