The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis 10 out of 10

10 out of 10

Having had an accident this morning, in fact just about two hours ago, thinking of the Anti –Death league appears to have another significance – it becomes more important, albeit it was not something quite life threatening, with yours truly cycling there isn’t much if anything to protect one from the cars…this one was an Uber no less, and he was not looking as he turned the corner to the right…well, he was actually mindful of what might come from the left and thus ignored the damn cyclist that he run over…I let it go, because he was regretful in the second phase, after an initial aggressiveness towards bikes and the fools using them in general, on their roads, for this is how drivers see this…

This book has a lot to offer, even if this does not appear to be one of the Great Master’s best, for a list of the magnum opera that the under signed has read, admired immensely you could look at the end of this note, I will only mention the ravishing, hilarious, spectacular Lucky Jim http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/05/lucky-jim-by-kingsley-amis.html rated as one of the best comedies and one of the All-TIME 100 novels https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/all/ where it interestingly sits together with Money, by the son of the brilliant Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis.

The narrative takes place in and mostly around a British Army camp, which is preparing for a formidable operation, called Apollo – from the well-known Ancient Greece god, who was the patron of beauty and magnificence, but unbeknownst to yours truly, he was also the divine figure spreading the plagues and diseases – that will involve army personnel travelling to China, abducting dispatchers and others there, taking them to a one person tent, inoculating them with a plague that has been tested and elaborated in such a manner as to provoke psychological as well as physical, literal devastation, in that it is deadly, easily catching and the symptoms are horrible to experience and to be seen by others, with barking like manifestations during breathing, which becomes almost impossible.

One would naturally think of the Coronavirus and the disaster it has brought to the world and furthermore, the idiotic conspiracies that surround the origin and the spread of this calamity…early on, in February, we were sitting and sweating in the hammam – ou sont les neiges d’antan, these have been closed since march and there is no opening in sight, perhaps for the next year or so, until a vaccine is available even here – and we were talking about the virus and then one of the multitude that embrace conspiracy theories, elaborated on the notion that this is surely a weapon, some nefarious groups have launched it and that I am naïve to reject this and actually all these theories together as stupid and vicious.

The book is not silly in that it purports the plan of an army to use weapons of this kind against the enemy, indeed, China is the target in the novel and we will soon see what they have in store for the rest of the world, after they have taken Tibet and imposed their tyranny there, caged the Uighurs and placed them in huge camps, build up artificial islands in waters that belong to others, bullied the world, even if this virus is their fault, in that it appeared in a wet market and they had known how dangerous these places are and then they had kept mum, lied about it for long enough to have this plague conquer the world…

Lieutenant James Churchill is as close to the hero of the book as one can get and he is supposed to participate in operation Apollo, as he meets Catharine Casement, the patient of a lunatic asylum, after she had been abused, beaten and traumatized by her husband, falling into the hands of another weird, mad man, doctor Best, the one who has one explanation for all the mental, psychiatric problems that men and women may or may not have, repressed homosexuality is what explains the world of pain and spiritual suffering for this doctor-that should be a patient – I think I have read somewhere that psychiatrists tend to have issues and then they have to take up an analyst themselves periodically, because dealing with trauma on a regular basis affects one’s psyche, spirit and mind.

James Churchill and Catharine Casement fall in love and their beautiful romance is one of the main elements, perhaps the keystone of the story, only the problem is that she has a nodule that turns out to be cancer and the explanation given by the man involves another theme of the book, which also deals with religion, both the Christian and the Hindu faiths, for Churchill is very mad with God, if he exists he has brought about a lot of suffering, decapitation, the cancer that could kill the love of his life and then that whole apocalyptic mission he is supposed to participate in and wants no part of, once he finds what the diagnosis is, he just lies on the bed and does not care for anything anymore, and Captain Moti Naidu is one of those who try to wake him up and make him live again, mentioning the arrogance, the lack of modesty and individualism, self-obsession that are specific to us in the West, and they are in contrast with the Eastern cultures and faiths, which put emphasis on the collective and not the individual, as we do in the West.

As the Army unit prepares for the secret and dystopian operation Apollo, there are quite a few events taking place in and around the camp, from the manifests of the Anti-Death League, a movement that is self-explanatory in its title, to the poem against religion and god that is sent to the army chaplain, William Ayscue, and finally, to the sabotage and presence of enemy agent or agents, signaled by the suspicions of Captain Brian Leonard, the security officer, who is certain from one point on that Doctor Best is the spy he is looking for and his theory is given more than weight, an appearance of firmness once the atomic shotgun is missing and furthermore, it is used…this would be an invention that will probably not come to life, given its danger for the soldiers and the civilian population, although there is such a thing as the tactical nuclear weapons, smaller if also very deadly bombs that can be used to destroy enemy forces, but without the impact of the well-known H and other weapons that transform large areas into dust.

The Anti-Death League is surely the work of a phenomenal creator, but this reader admires more these other novels, exhilarating magnum opera:

Girl, 20 http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/07/girl-20-by-astounding-kingsley-amis.html

The Old Devils http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-old-devils-by-kingsley-amis-97-out.html

Stanley and the Women http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/02/stanley-and-women-by-kingsley-amis-10.html

Ending Up http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/07/ending-up-by-kingsley-amis.html