I have ready to be read Money (1984) _It will be my first Martin Amis' novel. With this said, that is, that I have no account nor prejudices of this writer, let me comment on the interview I assisted at The Bloomsbury Theater last Monday, An Evening with Martin Amis. And let me call this commentary AM, that is: Martin Amis, ante meridian.
Amis is an unhappy man, I am afraid. He mentioned something about his wife during the conversation, and I remember I thought "God keep her close to him for many years". He seems just the man who does not want to be alone, and getting old is all about it. After so many years of creative writing, controversy, of having one's name in all manuals of English literature around the world, life has spare no recognition, and the trip is now more hostile than ever, looking like a stiff road, across the endless desert, without trees. "Is there anything there after all my searches", Amis might wonder, and my answer is this: "Praise God to spare your wife next to you for ever".
He argued during the course of the interview that evil is more dramatic and effective for the novel that goodness; that mean and distorted characters are far more juicy and beloved to the reader than the virtuous ones; that perhaps only Tolstoy has been able to "swing" with happiness, being tragedy and pain the true motors of drama. From the audience the question came: "have you thought of giving happiness a try in your novels?" But, the answer is a self-evident rhetoric question: what kind of happiness might convey an unhappy writer?
I disliked and profoundly disagreed with his standpoint about the United States lifestyle. Someone asked: "what do you like about New York? What don't you like?". He does like the weather (sic) and he does not like the taxes, the private sector, and all this classical string of things. I guess he has traveled around the world even long before I was born, but only recently he has lived for hardly a year in a country he seems not to know and that he despises as a refugee. Why did he abandon England? Moral decrepitude? He missed the whole point. During the interview, he told in certain detail that when someone phones you in the States by mistake, he would say: "Oh, terribly sorry... Excuse me and have a lovely afternoon". In the UK, without uttering a word, the person would hang up. Apparently, the English audience found this account laughable. I guess Amis made it laughable. But this is exactly the most rotten point. The first two words you learn in any language is "please" and "thank you". You heard of the English gentleman, of modals and manners, but I feel this is becoming history, a long-time forgotten tradition. Ideas to Change the World: Come and Tell Us your Idea to Change the World. This is the type of megalomania that affects the English world. It is quite simple: teach back your children to say "please", and to say "thank you".
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
Amis is an unhappy man, I am afraid. He mentioned something about his wife during the conversation, and I remember I thought "God keep her close to him for many years". He seems just the man who does not want to be alone, and getting old is all about it. After so many years of creative writing, controversy, of having one's name in all manuals of English literature around the world, life has spare no recognition, and the trip is now more hostile than ever, looking like a stiff road, across the endless desert, without trees. "Is there anything there after all my searches", Amis might wonder, and my answer is this: "Praise God to spare your wife next to you for ever".
He argued during the course of the interview that evil is more dramatic and effective for the novel that goodness; that mean and distorted characters are far more juicy and beloved to the reader than the virtuous ones; that perhaps only Tolstoy has been able to "swing" with happiness, being tragedy and pain the true motors of drama. From the audience the question came: "have you thought of giving happiness a try in your novels?" But, the answer is a self-evident rhetoric question: what kind of happiness might convey an unhappy writer?
I disliked and profoundly disagreed with his standpoint about the United States lifestyle. Someone asked: "what do you like about New York? What don't you like?". He does like the weather (sic) and he does not like the taxes, the private sector, and all this classical string of things. I guess he has traveled around the world even long before I was born, but only recently he has lived for hardly a year in a country he seems not to know and that he despises as a refugee. Why did he abandon England? Moral decrepitude? He missed the whole point. During the interview, he told in certain detail that when someone phones you in the States by mistake, he would say: "Oh, terribly sorry... Excuse me and have a lovely afternoon". In the UK, without uttering a word, the person would hang up. Apparently, the English audience found this account laughable. I guess Amis made it laughable. But this is exactly the most rotten point. The first two words you learn in any language is "please" and "thank you". You heard of the English gentleman, of modals and manners, but I feel this is becoming history, a long-time forgotten tradition. Ideas to Change the World: Come and Tell Us your Idea to Change the World. This is the type of megalomania that affects the English world. It is quite simple: teach back your children to say "please", and to say "thank you".
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
I read Money by Amis a couple of years ago. It was quite funny and had some nice lines- one about the london sky being like dirty dishwater has always stayed with me. But just at the mention of Tolstoy I recall how I found the book rather too shallow. Personally I rarely empathise with evil main characters. Its a stylish book i think but also a shallow one which didn't move me. I think he identifies himself with Nabokov and Saul Bellow but I prefer Bellow myself. As modern literary misanthropes go Houellebecq is the best for me. Nice blog by the way
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