Author Martin Amis examines his new book,"The Information" which depicts the ego and envy of the literary world. Join us on Patreon! / manufacturingintellect Donate Crypto! commerce.coinbase.com/checkou... Share this video!
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This interview should be in a museum, the irony of it is so thick and perfect. Amis wrote The Information as a reaction to the fact that people are more interested in novels than in novelists. The interviewer asks all about the Amis's life, and isn't interested in the least in the novel itself. Then, in the end, he reads, as an afterthought, in a rushed manner, the novel's first paragraph -- and we see in his eyes, in his reaction, in his soft mumbling repeating those words from memory, that there is where Amis's interest lies, in what he wrote, in what he wrote about.
Hey this is pretty amazing, thanks for the upload, is that a southern accent on Charlie that hasn't been washed away yet from years of being a presenter?
Watching Martin here, from the vantage of a quarter decade on, it seems to me that the next novel, the one that would pose the next obstacle or challenge, never really materialised, and we had Yellow Dog, the House of Meetings, the Zone of Interest, and the Pregnant Widow, instead. What got in the way? Life, and deaths, as attested to by the memoir Experience. I believe he still might come good with a magnum opus that deals in a life lived from the perspective of a life about to be over, and maybe this is what Inside Story is trying to work up to. Even so, he had a damn good run, and the Information remains a terrific work.
I'm afraid that, after a brilliant run that ended with the patchy 'The Information' and the end of his close friendship with Julian Barnes and Pat Kavanagh (who died of an aggressive cancer not long after; see her marvellous wooden headstone in Highgate Cemetery) he lost his mojo. One or two books are decent but 'Lionel Asbo' is the worst of s not great bunch. Great talker, good fun and always interesting. I can understand why he had it with our dear England!
I was going to day a second volume of autobiography but he got in the fictional one. Still could be as ''Experience' may be his best since 'London Fields '
Just finished The Information. The cover, quotes and reviews all portray it as a serious work of literary fiction to be pondered and discussed but it is genuinely one of the funniest books I have read in years. Every other page I found myself actually laughing out loud. Towards the end of the book the two main characters are on a plane in a severe storm. Amis describes the pilot literally defecating himself while wearing white trousers. “This patch of (ahem) started life as an islet, a Martha’s Vineyard that soon became a Cuba, then a Madagascar, then a dreadful Australia of brown. But that was five minutes ago and no one gave a (ahem) about it now.” Tell me that that is not hysterical. I have read comedy books that are far less funny than this. Indeed, the vast majority run out of steam after the first couple of chapters or so. London Fields and Money are also really funny. Amis is a great author.
The fact that someone is criticised for writing a satire on the scourge of materialism and then grabs the biggest 'advance' on offer isn't envy it's commenting on hypocrisy and humbug.
