I Spy Strangers by Kingsley Amis the Messiah of Comedy, author of at least ten masterpieces, such as the mesmerizing The Russian Girl http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-russian-girl-by-magister-ludi.html - 10 out of 10

 

I Spy Strangers by Kingsley Amis the Messiah of Comedy, author of at least ten masterpieces, such as the mesmerizing The Russian Girl http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-russian-girl-by-magister-ludi.html

10 out of 10

 

The Return of The Pink Panther

I Spy Strangers is the third short story in the collection and it shares with the first two some of the characters, the sardonic tone, criticism of privileged, foolish figures in the army – from The Memoirs we learn that glorious Kingsley Amis has been assigned with a signals unit, just like the personages we read about here, and has had his share of ghastly superiors, one general was abusing his position and we find his replica in My Enemy’s Enemy, where the goddamn schmuck commandeers the special envoy to take his dirty laundry, claiming he has official business, and to bring him cigars and wines from Brussels

 

With the end of World War II in Europe, service men were looking for the return home, wishing to avoid the conflict in the Far East, where Japan would still fight till the calamity of August 6, when the first atomic bomb would be launched on Hiroshima, with the exception of our Pink Panther aka Major Raleigh, the one who took center stage in Court of Inquiry – the second short story in the collection – when he has organized a court to punish young Archer, who had lost a useless engine, just to make a stupid point.

Major Raleigh does not wish the war to end, in fact, he dreams of being commissioned in a much more important role, to continue with his sadistic impositions on his men – one of the mirthful takes from the previous tale is summarized in ‘libido burnt feebly in Raleigh’s domain – however, they have some entertainment meanwhile

 

The narrative opens in…parliament, and for while I was so taken by the dispute as to assume that Hargy aka Hargreaves is the foreign secretary, addressing the opposition and some former enlisted men are sitting in that respectable chamber, in spite of the red flags that were there, such as individuals with low ranks in war reaching the top…the leader of the opposition could not have been a sergeant.

Furthermore, this would have been the head of the Tory party – incidentally, Kingsley Amis was one and he has in his autobiography a chapter on meeting Margaret Thatcher for dinner, telling her about his opus Russian Hide and Seek, in which they will have occupied a defeated Britain in 2035 http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/07/russian-hide-and-seek-by-kingsley-amis.html and she says something like ‘couldn’t you find some other subject with your crystal ball’ – and that does not work in reality

 

Think of outré Rishi Sunak, the current prime minister (though judging from Liz Truss, he may be out by the time this is posted on the blog) who does belong to a minority, the first person of color to reach the top position, but also a member of the elite, pampered and preposterous in interviews given before, he has always enjoyed a bubble, apparently, and he is not just rich, he is worth in excess of 700,000,000 pounds, and then his wealthy wife was not paying all taxes, as he was Chancellor of the Exchequer…

 

The political dialogue in the mock parliament (eventually, it dawned on this slow reader that this is a replica, simulacrum, not the real thing) is more than interesting, and although comically excessive at times for the period, it does strike one as reflecting on the realities we face now, when Russia has invaded Ukraine, the part of it it could manage with its incompetency, and the world is facing the threat of World War III – a missile has landed in Poland, and notwithstanding the fact that it was an accident, it does signify that something calamitous can take place any moment, and we can all be in trouble, as in game over…

In the mock parliament in the story we have on the one hand the soviet Union enablers (and we will certainly think of the Germans now, and their dependence on the Russian gas and the willingness to omit any evils committed, until we have reached this catastrophic point and Putin is cutting off the supplies to freeze people, invading a country, after taking Crimea, attacking Georgia) who are all out to seek cooperation and friendship with the communists , while they expect the Americans to get the hell out…

 

Yes, some would argue that they have had to cooperate with the Soviets, but we are more hardline in this part (East) of Europe, for we have suffered terribly at the hands of the Reds – who have killed more people than Hitler, if we combine Stalin and Mao, then it is many times more millions – and we feel that the accommodation should have been much different, however, there is no point to cry over spilled milk, and we need to look at the future, but the present shows us how wrong it is to neglect the vileness of Putin, his and other regimes, such as China, whose dictator has just scolded Trudeau for being open with the press…

I Spy Strangers refers to a procedure used in parliament and in this short story Major Raleigh gets expelled as a ‘stranger’ to the procedure and we do have some revolutionary talk in the replica that service men organize, where they talk about changing the situation, eliminating the deep divide which existed at the end of World War II between the aristocrats and the poor classes, mention is made of clearing out the House of lords, or at least putting it on a different basis – which something that is still pertinent, for this is talked about in The Economist (the best media source for analysis) and elsewhere, because they have men and some women with a privileged position, there numbers is huge, I think beyond six hundred, they are unelected, various governments name a few and their position is weird.

 

Major Raleigh is again outmaneuvered, for he wants to send some people to the Eastern front, to face the Japanese and continuous war (still fought before Hiroshima and Nagasaki), he is outraged by what he sees as a homosexual affair, but when he gives the list, with three names on it, he is more than surprised to see it returned and without the outcome he liked…announcement will arrive, and he will soon be the last man standing in the area, for the war is over now…

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world