The news of Martin Amis's death came as an awful shock. Quite irrationally, I'd always thought of him as a young writer, even though I knew he was my age. And at my age, of course, people quite often die. Martin actually lived a little longer that his father – and surely no one was thinking of Kingsley as a young writer by the time he died...
There will be tributes and assessments everywhere today, I'm sure. I'm not going to join in, partly because I have read nothing of his for years, apart from his memoir Experience. I will only say that I'll always be grateful to Martin Amis for gifting me some of the most intensely pleasurable reading experiences of my life in those scabrous, flashy, ultra-stylised early novels – back in the day, when he and I were both young. RIP.
Sunday 21 May 2023
Martin Amis
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His London Fields is very good.
ReplyDeleteI was beginning to wonder why he had seemed to drop out of public life, but this obviously came as shock. I may try and read 'Experience' again, it seemed good 10 years ago...
ReplyDeleteI thought this interview with him was fascinating & full of thought provoking moments, in case you did not see it, (from ZMKC):
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/late-show-face-to-face--martin-amis/zvnqrj6