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Saving the novel’s plot from a certain predictability is the fact that Anna, like Harry’s brother Freddie in The Folks That Live on the Hill, is not a good poet. ) This is a situation that Richard understands, yet ultimately chooses to accept. In turn, Anna senses Richard’s true opinion of her work and accepts it as well. Although not his final novel, The Russian Girl represents in many ways the culmination of Amis’s fictional career. More sharply focused than many of its predecessors, it forces its protagonist through very difficult moral and intellectual choices.

Adding to the surreal atmosphere of the novel is a mysterious character called Prince, whom Mary/Amy keeps encountering. Prince seems to fulfill many roles: He is a policeman, perhaps also the man who attacked her, and a kind of tutelary spirit, an awakener, under whose guidance she discovers her own identity. Other People was written according to what is known in Great Britain as the Martian school of poetry, a point of view in which no knowledge about human life and society is assumed. This technique is intended to allow the most mundane things to be examined in a fresh light.

He seeks escape from these fears by turning to sex, drink, and practical jokes, but this behavior leads only to further boredom, unsatisfied longing, and ill health. Also contributing to the somber tone of the novel are secondary characters such as Dick Thompson, Seaman Jackson, and Graham MacClintoch. ” MacClintoch complains that, for the unattractive, there is no charity in sex. Jenny’s ideals are further diminished when she attends a party with these men. The conversation anticipates the emotional barrenness of later novels, in which love is dead and in its place are found endless games.