I reread The Alteration a couple of months ago (I love The Alteration). A friend who read it at the same time noted the sheer wealth of historical allusion. I thought there would be a list somewhere, but couldn't find it, though wikipedia is a decent crib for some of it. So I made my own. For those who have not read the Alteration, 1) read The Alteration, 2) it's an alternative history where the divergence from ours comes in the Reformation: Luther, Calvin and Thomas More are successively Pope ('The three Northern Popes') and Arthur, Henry VIII's (here, Henry the Abominable) elder brother has a son (Stephen II) who is restored to the throne by Catholic forces. Britain is therefore catholic and the church is triumphant. As a result, almost every historical figure (unless they are American) has been pressed into the service of the church, usually in painting one of them or composing for it. Amis spends much of his time amusing himself by having real figures pop up in unlikely places.
So here goes. Page references from the Vintage Classics edition and refer to their first appearance only.
Contemporary figures - it's set in 1976 (*denotes a any reference that's less than obvious):
- A.J. Ayer, Professor of dogmatic theology (119)
- Tony Benn, as 'Lord Stansgate', head of the Holy Office in England (122)
- Beria, Monsignor (8)
- Enrico Berlinguer, Cardinal and chief of staff to Pope John XXIV (109)
- Anthony Burgess, still a novelist, but who has met an unspecified bad end by the 70s (194)
- Francis Crick, a disastrous scientist (194)
- Philip K. Dick, who Amis has great fun with, making him an alternative history writer, whose Man in the high castle outlines 'our' history - or something close to it (25)
- Ian Fleming*, as author of the Father Bond novels - with a nod to Chesterton (78)
- [Paul] Foot, a policeman for the church, not a crusading journalist (126)
- Harry Harrison*, I think this is who is meant as the engineer who builds the channel tunnel, as an homage to his SF story on the issue (105)
- Himmler, Monsignor (8)
- Ernest Lough, singer, presented as the case for castration - his career faltered once his voice broke (50)
- Paulo Maserati*, the Papal 'inventor general' [There's no useful contemporary Maserati, but the link is clear] (194)
- [Corin] Redgrave, a policeman for the church (126)
- Keith Roberts, as another alternative history author - I'm told there's complicated reference about dancing, Galliard here doing duty for the real life Pavane. (132)
- Jean-Paul Sartre, Monsignor and Jesuit (though I've not actually found the reference)
- Tolkien*, or at least an author of Lord of the Chalices, (78)
- Harold Wilson*, reinvented as Pope John XXIV (109)
- John Wyndham*, as J.B. Harris - Wyndham's real name - author of The orc awakes (100)
- Fritz Wunderlich*, the castrato Federicus Mirabilis (9)
- Wolfgang Windgassen*,the castrato Lupigradus Viaventosa (9)
Historical references:
- Benedict Arnold, American leader. So significant, he gets the capital named after him (164)
- John Bacon, sculptor (16)
- William Bartholomew*, called Bartley here, but the writer of Hear my prayer (50)
- Beethoven, here dying young (28)
- Blake, though only as a painter of frescoes (8)
- Brunel, who Amis credits with designing the highest cathedral spires of the world (10)
- George Butterworth (201)
- Jefferson Davis, ambassador to England (63)
- Rudolf Diesel, whose eponymous invention is ubiquitous as electrical ignition is discouraged (13)
- Epstein, Anglicised to Epstone here, but still a sculptor (8)
- Gainsborough (7)
- Richard Grenville, knight and sailor, who fights at Lepanto, with not against the Spanish (109)
- Kenneth Grahame*, assuming that's what's meant by The Wind in the Cloisters (77).
- Hockney, referred to, maliciously, as 'excessively traditionalist, almost archaizing' painter (8)
- Holman Hunt, painter (8)
- Willem de Kooning, painter (78)
- Rudyard Kipling, the First citizen of 'New England' 1914-18 (56)
- Thomas Kyd, whose version of Hamlet is famous (14)
- Labelye, bridge builder, who builds here the London bridge he never did in reality (173)
- Michelangelo*, here 'Boonarotty', ie.Buonarroti, who kills himself when Luther, as pope, stops the construction of St Peter's (111)
- William Morris (8)
- Mozart, given both extra years and more compositions (8)
- Nelson, here famous for defeating the Turks at Lipari (200)
- Purcell, seemingly unaffected: there's a Dido and Aeneas here too (12)
- Edgar Allen Poe, a New England General (177)
- Satie*, though a piano maker rather than pianist (61)
- Schumann composer (30)
- Shakespeare, famous only in America, banned in England (152)
- Percy Shelley, who survived longer and led an expedition that burnt down the Vatican in 1853, but dismissed as a 'minor versifier' (199)
- Sopwith, engineer, but a builder of a channel bridge rather than aeroplanes (105)
- Jonathan Swift*, only a book Saint Lemuel's Travels (77)
- Zachary Taylor, one imagines still American President, certainly important enough to get a major New York bridge named after him (164)
- Tintoretto, the painter of the victory at Lepanto in Amis' and the real world (109)
- Turner, who paints a ceiling devoted to the restoration of Catholicism in England (7)
- Velluti, the most famous castrato in this version of history, as in ours (34)
- Weber, composer (30)
- Wagner, composer (201)
- James McNeill Whistler, though we only know he had airship named for him (177)
- Wren, architect (7)
- Yamamoto* (maybe), in Amis' world he's an architect. He's most likely the same as the real commander in chief of the Japanese navy (155)
There are a few others who may be specific individuals (e.g., Joshua Pellow, the 'archpresbyter'), but I think they are pure inventions. There are also references to places which suggest different roles for the individuals concerned, all in the US - Cranmeria, Hussville and Wyclif city - but not enough to go on.
What have I missed?
No comments:
Post a Comment