Searching for Tibor Fischer

SINCE THE 1992 publication of his debut novel, "Under the Frog," British author Tibor Fischer has earned a reputation as a luxuriously satirical and erudite writer. "Under the Frog," which chronicled the exploits of a semipro basketball team in communist Hungary, was short-listed for the Booker Prize. "The Thought Gang" (1994) was a caper novel about a Cambridge philosopher who robs banks, while "The Collector Collector" (1997) was a bawdy art-historical romp narrated by a piece of pottery.

Ideas telephoned Fischer, 44, who hits town tomorrow to read from his new novel, "Voyage to the End of the Room" (Counterpoint), to talk about the morality of comedy and his recent rumble with Martin Amis.

IDEAS: Oceane, the central character in "Voyage to the End of the Room," decides the world is "one large machine constructed to tribulate you" and retreats to her apartment in a London-like city, where she stages elaborately faked trips around the world. She finds contemporary life as dismal and as meaningless as Gyuri, the protagonist of "Under the Frog," did. So why do critics claim you've become more cynical over the years?

FISCHER: That has mostly to do with "Don't Read This Book If You're Stupid," a recent collection of my stories that is -- I admit it -- pretty bleak. But the world is an amoral place, I think, and most good literature reflects that . . .. Also, while British readers may enjoy comic protest writing about postwar Hungary, they are only too aware of how impossible it is to live in London today -- my joke is, "It's like Mogadishu, without the sunshine" -- and they read books to escape their own lives, not wallow in them.

IDEAS: One critic called "Voyage" a collection of anecdotes and essays on human nature that "exist for their own sake, with the story and characters as mere delivery system."

FISCHER: I wanted to explore the human tendency to settle into a comfortable coffin, and needed a plot only in order to shake Oceane up a bit. So I'm guilty as charged -- I set out to write "Voyage" in an anecdotal style. It's more a meditation than a novel. That said, I hope it's an entertaining and dynamic meditation.

IDEAS: You tribulated literary London recently by panning Martin Amis's new book. Yet you also praised Amis, saying, "No one can mobilize the English language like him." Several non-British characters in "Voyage" chastise Britons who lack linguistic inventiveness.

FISCHER: There are two types of writer -- those for whom plot is paramount, and those who, like Amis, place language on parade instead. I'm with Amis, and so although in "Voyage" I do have laughs at the expense of foreigners -- so did Shakespeare -- I also allow characters for whom English is not their first language to express dismay when someone British doesn't know an arcane piece of English vocabulary: "It's your language," they say.

Tibor Fischer will read at WordsWorth Books in Cambridge tomorrow, beginning at 7 p.m.