Love Beats Bad Poetry

By Paul Gray

Richard Vaisey, 46, lectures on Russian literature at the London Institute of Slavonic Studies and lives well beyond his professional means, thanks to the money inherited by his wife Cordelia. He has lived with her for 10 years, and in that time he has almost stopped noticing her theatrical gestures and her peculiar style of speech: "Never having cared to ask her about it, Richard had had fantasies of an Andorran nanny, a childhood in a posh Albanian household that had left no other mark, before concluding that Cordelia just spoke Cordelian, a pronunciational idiolect." When friends mock the way she says her name ("Nggornndeenlia"), Richard tries not to be amused.

Given the tensions that gibber and flap through most marriages, Cordelia's affectations seem rather venial, particularly since her wealth makes Richard's existence so cushy. But she and her husband live in the world of Kingsley Amis, where the rules of decorum are a lot stricter and funnier than in ordinary life. Cordelia just won't do, and The Russian Girl (Viking; 296 pages; $22.95) hilariously shows why.

The person who spurs Richard out of his marital torpor is Anna Danilova, a young Russian poet who arrives in London in 1990 on an apparent mission of mercy. Her brother, having served a sentence back in Moscow for currency violations, is still being held in jail. Anna's plan is to circulate a petition signed by prominent Western intellectuals that declares her to be a world-class writer whose relative is being persecuted by Soviet officials; they might then be shamed into releasing the prisoner. Since Richard is an established authority on the literature of her homeland, Anna asks him to help lead her campaign.

The request puts Richard in an uncomfortable spot. The more he sees of Anna, the more he likes her; the more he sees of her poetry, the more he detests it. He attends Anna's public reading at the institute, hoping her stuff will sound better than it looks on the page. As he listens, he finds himself in tears: "Different from other work of hers -- yes! Bad in a new way! Worse than before! Hopeless! Useless! What on earth was to be done?"

Richard's other ethical dilemma concerns Cordelia, who has decided that he and what she calls his Russian girl-friend are having an affair well before they in fact begin one.

A suspicious and possibly vengeful Cordelia is an even more unsettling companion than the normally daft one. Richard feels guilty for wanting to leave his wife and also for worrying about what his future would be like without her money: " ... all cafes, canteens, pubs, pavements, bus shelters, bus queues, buses."

Amis generates a good deal of suspense over how and whether Richard is to behave honorably. But the chief appeal of The Russian Girl is its gimlet-eyed presentation of a comedy of bad manners.