The Alteration (New York Review Books Classics) By Kingsley Amis

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Rating: 9.2 (1955 reviews)
Author: Kingsley Amis

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4,2

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BOOKER PRIZE–WINNING AUTHORSet in a world in which the Reformation failed, this award-winning science fiction tale is “one of the best . . . alternate-worlds novels in existence” (Philip K. Dick) In Kingsley Amis’s virtuoso foray into virtual history it is 1976, but the modern world is a medieval relic, frozen in intellectual and spiritual time ever since Martin Luther was promoted to pope back in the sixteenth century. Stephen the Third, the king of England, has just died, and Mass (Mozart’s second requiem) is about to be sung to lay him to rest. In the choir is our hero, Hubert Anvil, an extremely ordinary ten-year-old boy with a faultless voice. In the audience is a select group of experts whose job is to determine whether that faultless voice should be preserved by performing a certain operation. Art, after all, is worth any sacrifice. How Hubert realizes what lies in store for him and how he deals with the whirlpool of piety, menace, terror, and passion that he soon finds himself in are the subject of a classic piece of counterfactual fiction equal to Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. The Alteration won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best science-fiction novel in 1976.

At this time of writing, The Ebook The Alteration (New York Review Books Classics) has garnered 8 customer reviews with rating of 5 out of 5 stars. Not a bad score at all as if you round it off, it’s actually a perfect TEN already. From the looks of that rating, we can say the Ebook is Good TO READ!

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When you come across the name Kingsley Amis (1922-95) you don’t expect to find it associated with science fiction. A novelist, poet, and literary critic, Amis is probably best known for his first published novel, Lucky Jim, which appeared in 1954. The book won a major literary award and is frequently included on reading lists in English literature classes. His much later novel, The Alteration, published in 1976, is far less likely to be recommended reading for college students. But it has somehow captivated William Gibson, one of our era’s leading lights in science fiction. And, reading it, I can understand why.In his introduction to the 2013 reprint edition of the novel as a New York Review of Books Classic, Gibson refers to it as “one of the finest, most rigorously executed of all parallel-world novels.” Someone like myself who’s less familiar with literary jargon is likely instead to term it an example of alternate history, which indeed makes more sense to me. An alternate history of the Church, to be precise.An alternate history of the churchAmis’s tale is set in 1976, the year of its publication. But the roots of the story lie in the early sixteenth century. In 1517, priest and theologian Martin Luther famously kicked off the Protestant Reformation, triggering centuries of often-bloody conflict between Catholics and Protestants. But in The Alteration, Luther instead has cut a deal with the Vatican and become Pope Martin I. The consequences that flow from that accommodation are dramatic.Science is a dirty wordUndeterred by civil strife, the Church has mustered the strength to suppress the scientific revolution and thus the Enlightenment. Science is a dirty word in the world of this novel.The Pope is the world’s most powerful personEngland has remained Catholic, and its vast empire continues to heed the word of the Vatican. Only in the Republic of New England, where English Schismatics have congregated, has a spirit of innovation taken hold. Yet they all ultimately must answer to the Pope, the world’s most powerful person.An endless holy war between Rome and the TurksRome is perpetually engaged in a Holy War with the Turks over territory in the Balkans.London houses just one millionUrbanization has been limited by the pull of tradition throughout the countryside. For example, London is a city of little more than one million people (as opposed to the 7.5 million who lived there in the 1970s).“A world lit only by fire”Yet the world of 1976 in The Alteration is a world lit only by fire, to steal a phrase from William Manchester‘s magnificent 1992 study of medieval Europe and the Renaissance. And horse-drawn vehicles are still common on the streets and roads along with diesel-powered trucks, taxis, and “express-omnibuses.” Trains (“railtrack trains”) connect the cities.Is ten-year-old Hubert to be “altered?”The protagonist of The Alteration is ten-year-old Hubert Anvil, the star soprano of the choir at a Benedictine monastery in England. Hubert’s fame is so great that the director of the Sistine Choir has come to hear him sing. And Hubert now becomes the subject of intense interest from the Abbott to the boy’s parents and the Pope. The question is whether he is to be “altered,” that is, to be subjected to surgery that will castrate him to preserve his voice forever. And Amis adroitly builds suspense as the contending forces jockey for advantage. The Alteration is a deeply satisfying excursion into a past that might have been. It’s an alternate history of the Church, but it’s also a touching story of a young boy’s life in a dystopian tyranny.

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