Author Martin Amis discusses his relationship with his father and his memoir, "Experience." Join us on Patreon! / manufacturingintellect Donate Crypto! commerce.coinbase.com/checkou... Share this video!
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'Smells of the lamp' (2:59): Said of a literary production manifestly laboured. Plutarch attributes the phrase to Pytheas the orator, who said, “The orations of Demosthenes smell of the lamp,” alluding to the current tale that the great orator lived in an underground cave lighted by a lamp, that he might have no distraction to his severe study. (Dictionary of Phrase and Fable 1898)
"Your father's death stood between you and this book." "Well, that's one way of putting it." Even if Martin hadn't replied like that, anyone could tell that is an appalling expression. Dumb enough, and pretty insensitive.
27:40 "It hasn't happened before, that two writers are stacked (father and son) like that" - well, not quite, there's Alexandre Dumas and Alexandre Dumas fils.
Well, no, it took less than a decade for Mart to become his own Wildean portrait of himself, hidden in the attic, yet splashed all over Media, startling the hell out of us...
Martin is generally sensible and generous , but he and his father also had a mean side in which they could be cruel - in particular in relation to Monica Jones, long-time partner of Larkin. He (Martin,), did indulge in rather too much self-publicity in the end. A writer should say what he has to say in his writing. Preferably in metaphor without giving himself away -as in 'Lucky Jim', But hardly anybody reads that now alas.
