I would have more time for this type of book if their suggested dystopias had actually existed at any point outside of their authors’ imaginations. Regarding both Amis and Attwoods’ imaginings, we all know which world religion has previously created (and still creates) this sort of violent, oppressive, totalitarian dystopia: and it’s not one of the Christian churches.
Isn’t the point of utopias and dystopias, since Thomas More penned the first specimen of the type, exaggeration for effect?
Last edited 1 year ago by Ferrusian Gambit
Simon Denis
1 year ago
Very clever no doubt, but one must dispute the basic Amis equation of Art or Liberty. It is no more than the basic Whig rationale for the Reformation and flies in the face of the facts. The English Reformation was imposed; brought in its train more repressive legislation than has ever been imposed before or since – although under the new Puritans of Woke, that is changing – and involved a good deal of very savage bloodletting – crushing the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1537, the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549 and the rising of the Earls in 1569. This is not to mention the brutality of the “Rough Wooing”, 1545 – attacking still Catholic Scotland – or the ongoing persecution of Catholics which claimed the lives of at least two hundred victims over Elizabeth’s reign. Then there’s Ireland.
The only reason the Protestants could not impose an Amis-like totalitarian regime was because the Catholics resisted them – and vice versa. In other words, it was neither the church nor its opponents which ended the religious monopoly and brought freedom – it was the failure of either to defeat the other which did that. Our liberty is an accident, from which subsequent Liberal theorists – such as Locke and Mill and Tocqueville – derived a pattern. Amis, for all his brilliance and the skill of his book, forgot that and swallowed the triumphalist Macaulayan myth.
And the Amish reject the modern world! So what does that prove? The key to enlightenment was not Protestantism itself but the fact that the religious monopoly was broken and that the Protestants were incapable of replacing it with a religious monopoly of their own – which is what they wanted to do. None of this required the brutality of England’s botched and imposed Reformation.
Oh, and by the way – there was opposition to steam locomotion in Britain, too – not from Catholicism.
Last edited 1 year ago by Simon Denis
Franz Von Peppercorn
1 year ago
Well it’s great we live in a society where children are not “altered” anymore to appease a rigid ideology.
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago
Thank you for this article. Most of the writing of Kingsley Amis I like very much. Although I haven’t read The Alteration, but will make the effort to do so now. Sounds reminiscent, in a way, of another forgotten counterfactual classic, Pavane by Keith Roberts.
Not read either. I am still on Amiss junior. I guess I have work to do.
Off topic. I was watching a documentory on Kate Bush the other day. A couple of men, Paul Gambaccini for one, referred to the combination of sexuality and sensuality in her performances. I was surprised by that as I see no sexual provocation at all, (which is unusual in a singer trying to make her way in the world of pop), only a hightened, and extraordinarily beautiful, display of the sensual. I mentioned it to a female friend, who shrugged and said some men cannot tell the difference. Apparently not.
Have to agree with you re Kate. Sensual, definitely, but it’s a reflection of the modern obsession to see the sexual in everything so the sensual gets lost. I have a love-hate relationship with His Dark Materials. They’re fantastic stories that gripped even my adult imagination but I deeply disagree with his anti-Christian worldview and his use of Catholic imagery grates. It’s odd that one can enjoy a story so much yet hate its worldview.
PS: Hope you see my reply. I still have to remember to go to my Account to see if anyone replied to my comments!
Are you being ironic by making my point for me? Anyway what physical attributes? She couldn’t thrust her cleavage at you because she didn’t have one to thrust. You’re thinking of Dolly Parton again aren’t you? Beware, you will go blind!
Very interesting. I have always loved alternate history as a genre
Richard Ross
1 year ago
It should be said by someone that The Reformation was not, as Amis and this reviewer suggest, an abandonment of great art or music. Is there a greater musical genius than the ardent Protestant, J.S. Bach? What Catholic produced greater art than the Protestant Rembrandt? and these are not outliers.
Reformation and Renaissance were, roughly speaking, alternate and parallel answers to the problems in the mixing of Humanism and Christianity. There is a line of descent from the Renaissance to the French Revolution to Napoleon, and another from the Reformation to the Declaration of Independence and the British abolition of the slave trade.
And indeed the Renaissance was later repudiated to some extent by the Catholic church as pagan sensualism, which is why the counter-reformation was so doggedly Baroque and large parts of Catholicism and Anglo-Catholicism fell so hard for the Gothic revival.
If something speaks to my soul I don’t ask what religion the creator is, and Bach and The Prodigal Son speak to my soul, as do countless works from the world over.
I love that in Amis’ scenario the Sistine Chapel has a Turner ceiling.
David Yetter
1 year ago
“…a wish that the Protestant Reformation had either never happened, or else had not led to a permanent schism — and that the English church had stayed firmly within the fold of undivided Christendom.”
A bit late for that when the Protestants got their start. The Latins has set up on their own in the 11th century, leaving the other four Patriarchates of the ancient and undivided Church (and a few autocephalous churches, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Georgia at that time) to carry on without the Patriarchate of Rome. Of course, if you really want undivided, you probably should go back to the late 4th century before the Assyrian Church of the East split off over the decision of the Third Ecumenical Council and the Copts left over the decisions of the Fourth.
Dermot O'Sullivan
1 year ago
Try ‘The Old Devils’ if you are in need of a laugh.
Zorro Tomorrow
1 year ago
Pavane by Keith Roberts https://amzn.to/3OjeVCT where QE 1 is assassinated and England is beholden to a dictatorial Rome. Steam is king with petrol engines limited to 150cc or less.
Only now reading this have I related it to Brexit. Only today do I wonder if Remainers are Catholic, the dominant religion in major EU countries.
I would have more time for this type of book if their suggested dystopias had actually existed at any point outside of their authors’ imaginations. Regarding both Amis and Attwoods’ imaginings, we all know which world religion has previously created (and still creates) this sort of violent, oppressive, totalitarian dystopia: and it’s not one of the Christian churches.
Isn’t the point of utopias and dystopias, since Thomas More penned the first specimen of the type, exaggeration for effect?
Very clever no doubt, but one must dispute the basic Amis equation of Art or Liberty. It is no more than the basic Whig rationale for the Reformation and flies in the face of the facts. The English Reformation was imposed; brought in its train more repressive legislation than has ever been imposed before or since – although under the new Puritans of Woke, that is changing – and involved a good deal of very savage bloodletting – crushing the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1537, the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549 and the rising of the Earls in 1569. This is not to mention the brutality of the “Rough Wooing”, 1545 – attacking still Catholic Scotland – or the ongoing persecution of Catholics which claimed the lives of at least two hundred victims over Elizabeth’s reign. Then there’s Ireland.
The only reason the Protestants could not impose an Amis-like totalitarian regime was because the Catholics resisted them – and vice versa. In other words, it was neither the church nor its opponents which ended the religious monopoly and brought freedom – it was the failure of either to defeat the other which did that. Our liberty is an accident, from which subsequent Liberal theorists – such as Locke and Mill and Tocqueville – derived a pattern. Amis, for all his brilliance and the skill of his book, forgot that and swallowed the triumphalist Macaulayan myth.
The Popes in the early 19th century were desperately trying to ban steam locomotives within their fiefdom of the Papal States.
And the Amish reject the modern world! So what does that prove? The key to enlightenment was not Protestantism itself but the fact that the religious monopoly was broken and that the Protestants were incapable of replacing it with a religious monopoly of their own – which is what they wanted to do. None of this required the brutality of England’s botched and imposed Reformation.
Oh, and by the way – there was opposition to steam locomotion in Britain, too – not from Catholicism.
Well it’s great we live in a society where children are not “altered” anymore to appease a rigid ideology.
Thank you for this article. Most of the writing of Kingsley Amis I like very much. Although I haven’t read The Alteration, but will make the effort to do so now. Sounds reminiscent, in a way, of another forgotten counterfactual classic, Pavane by Keith Roberts.
Pavane gets a hat-tip early on in The Alteration, along with The Man In The High Castle
This sounds like the inspiration for Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.
It’s a much better description of that kind of society than Pullman.
Not read either. I am still on Amiss junior. I guess I have work to do.
Off topic. I was watching a documentory on Kate Bush the other day. A couple of men, Paul Gambaccini for one, referred to the combination of sexuality and sensuality in her performances. I was surprised by that as I see no sexual provocation at all, (which is unusual in a singer trying to make her way in the world of pop), only a hightened, and extraordinarily beautiful, display of the sensual. I mentioned it to a female friend, who shrugged and said some men cannot tell the difference. Apparently not.
Have to agree with you re Kate. Sensual, definitely, but it’s a reflection of the modern obsession to see the sexual in everything so the sensual gets lost. I have a love-hate relationship with His Dark Materials. They’re fantastic stories that gripped even my adult imagination but I deeply disagree with his anti-Christian worldview and his use of Catholic imagery grates. It’s odd that one can enjoy a story so much yet hate its worldview.
PS: Hope you see my reply. I still have to remember to go to my Account to see if anyone replied to my comments!
Yes I have read it! I will have a crack at Dark Materials.
Kate Bush had big eyes, luxurious hair and physical attributes that only a gay could ignore.
Are you being ironic by making my point for me? Anyway what physical attributes? She couldn’t thrust her cleavage at you because she didn’t have one to thrust. You’re thinking of Dolly Parton again aren’t you? Beware, you will go blind!
Not sure this will help, but Paul Gambachini is gay.
Makes his comment all the more mysterious.
Very interesting. I have always loved alternate history as a genre
It should be said by someone that The Reformation was not, as Amis and this reviewer suggest, an abandonment of great art or music. Is there a greater musical genius than the ardent Protestant, J.S. Bach? What Catholic produced greater art than the Protestant Rembrandt? and these are not outliers.
Reformation and Renaissance were, roughly speaking, alternate and parallel answers to the problems in the mixing of Humanism and Christianity. There is a line of descent from the Renaissance to the French Revolution to Napoleon, and another from the Reformation to the Declaration of Independence and the British abolition of the slave trade.
And indeed the Renaissance was later repudiated to some extent by the Catholic church as pagan sensualism, which is why the counter-reformation was so doggedly Baroque and large parts of Catholicism and Anglo-Catholicism fell so hard for the Gothic revival.
If something speaks to my soul I don’t ask what religion the creator is, and Bach and The Prodigal Son speak to my soul, as do countless works from the world over.
Wir sind alle Bruder, nicht wahr?
I love that in Amis’ scenario the Sistine Chapel has a Turner ceiling.
“…a wish that the Protestant Reformation had either never happened, or else had not led to a permanent schism — and that the English church had stayed firmly within the fold of undivided Christendom.”
A bit late for that when the Protestants got their start. The Latins has set up on their own in the 11th century, leaving the other four Patriarchates of the ancient and undivided Church (and a few autocephalous churches, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Georgia at that time) to carry on without the Patriarchate of Rome. Of course, if you really want undivided, you probably should go back to the late 4th century before the Assyrian Church of the East split off over the decision of the Third Ecumenical Council and the Copts left over the decisions of the Fourth.
Try ‘The Old Devils’ if you are in need of a laugh.
Pavane by Keith Roberts https://amzn.to/3OjeVCT where QE 1 is assassinated and England is beholden to a dictatorial Rome. Steam is king with petrol engines limited to 150cc or less.
Only now reading this have I related it to Brexit. Only today do I wonder if Remainers are Catholic, the dominant religion in major EU countries.
Oh dear.
Terrific book (The Alteration) – thanks for the tip
Amis has always been one of my favorite authors, and to me The Alteration was his best work.