I’m hit quite hard by the news of Martin Amis’ death. I had a whole other Counterforce planned out for this week, but I’d like to take some time to get my thoughts together about what his work meant and means to me. His books were such a huge part of my early 20’s. And made for great bonding experiences with friends who would become very close. I can remember where I was when I read each novel and the feelings they stirred up in me. The ambition too, to write that well. London Fields kicked things off in the summer of 1996, inspired to pick it up after learning of its influence on Britpop, and it proceeded to completely floor me with the life it exuded and how damn funny it was. Reading Success that winter break, finding it grim and uncomfortable. Ten years later, my girlfriend at the time convincing me to give it another go, saying it was her favourite. And I became very fond of it, especially as my first ever visits to London placed me near Moscow Road. The Rachel Papers, heartbroken that summer after college, and then Dead Babies, also wonderfully grim and wickedly hilarious. Backpacking around Europe the autumn that followed that same summer, taken in by Other People - “Don’t break”. Whereas very soon I would, but finding solace in an airconditioned English language section of a Madrid bookshop one afternoon, thrilled that Night Train had just come out. Spending an hour out of the heat reading it before purchasing. Money and The Information devoured on the T on my way to work at the bank in Downtown Crossing in Boston, cramming them in during lunchbreaks as well. And Experience, what a monumental memoir that is.
I realize these are all very personal reminiscences and offer almost nothing as to why these books should be read. Except... isn’t that what makes all this stuff – music, books, art, films – so meaningful to us? The place they have in our lives and their own particular hold on our emotional memory, that they were special enough to linger with us so long. I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts with Amis the past couple days and this rather strange, wonderful feeling has come over me, taking me back to being 22 and all the promise life held then. For writing to be that good, life to be that funny. Or at least lived with such vivacity. And although I believe I failed to live up to that, spending too much time dreaming about it all rather than bringing things out into the world, and now always playing catch up, the feeling still holds. And I’m very grateful to Martin Amis for redeeming part of my life in that way. For at the time, and certainly for many years afterwards, those days seemed very dark to me. The negative of the photo of that promise, left undeveloped by spending long days in bed ruminating on my own miserableness. But thinking now on what Amis’ books meant to me, I’ve been looking back through a much softer lens and appreciate it all so much more. So thank you, Martin Amis.
In Ian Winwood’s excellent Bodies (see my review of it here), he mentions Amis’ Inside Story and this intrigued me enough to take it down off the shelf. I had bought it a couple years ago when it came out, his last work as it would turn out to be, though Amis was already claiming upon its release that it was so. I owned the book, but hours within which to read being so preciously few these days, I still had not gotten around to opening it. So Sunday after I heard the news, I made sure to carve out some space within which to sit with it. And it is – as one would expect – great. I’m very much looking forward to carrying on.
A story I love - I had gone off Amis after House Of Meetings (see below) but when The Pregnant Widow came out, my grandmother couldn’t say enough good things about it. She and I always bonded over books and perhaps I was feeling nostalgic, so I gave it a go. And fell in love with his writing all over again. Though reading such scenes as with Gloria’s ‘face mask’ and why men shouldn’t eat fish, I was horrified to think that this was the kind of novel my grandmother was into.
My faith restored after The Pregnant Widow, I was very keen to review Lionel Asbo, even obtaining a review copy without having secured a review for it yet (what can I say? That was my first year as a journalist. I would be appalled to try that now.) The piece went to someone else, who I think gave the book an unfair shake – it was popular to attack Amis at the time. Searching my laptop I found what I had to say about it:
After Martin Amis’ return to form with 2010’s The Pregnant Widow, a 70s sex romp in the style of his early novels, one awaited Lionel Asbo’s release with trepidation. Was the warmth and humor – and above all, good read – of The Pregnant Widow just a fluke? After his existential breakdown in the late 90s, heralded with the horrors of Night Train, his writing quickly spiraled downward as he imported his own journalism nearly wholesale into Yellow Dog and, trying to make a point about the Soviet pogroms, created Russian characters for House Of Meetings that didn’t ring true as Russians. (It must be said that what Amis had to say regarding this came across much better in his non-fiction Koba The Dread: Laughter And The Twenty Million.) Would Lionel Asbo, a novel boldly subtitled 'State Of England', fall back to his laboring prose that insists on calling to our attention topics he needs us to be aware of, as well as the extent of his vocabulary? Thankfully no. Lionel Asbo is a delight, and Lionel Asbo himself is Amis’ best underworld character since London Fields’ Keith Talent. The novel is stylish, poignant, and enticing enough to carry the eye, as if Amis wants to show us the story, rather than how well he can write. And in this new, lighter, unself-conscious style we see that indeed he is a great writer. The book is also very funny, full of outrageous scenes and dialogue that will have one convulsing with laughter.
Lionel Asbo is above all a story about intelligence and its uses, and that peculiar case of smarts masquerading as stupidity, where all one’s brainpower is called upon in order to keep up the appearance of idiocy. Des Pepperdine, who at the beginning of the novel can barely punctuate a sentence, takes to computer, library and school (much frowned upon in the rough London borough of Diston) to widen his horizons. Whereas Des’ uncle, Mr. Lionel Asbo, goes to great mental effort to stick to his principle of “never learn”, often repeating “You know where you are in prison”. When Lionel wins £140 million pounds on the lottery (the news received while he’s finishing another stretch of time behind bars, of course), his opportunities to exploit this doctrine are boundless. His overblown antics – drinking Dom Perignon by the pint, spending nearly £2000 on lunch for one - are now national news. This makes for great commentary on sensationalist press though we do, all the same, find ourselves waiting for what laughs his ridiculousness will bring next. It’s also a story about love and family, and one of growth. For Des, as he strives to make his life functional, can’t help but remained tied to his uncle, and Lionel, with his newfound wealth, finds his own capacities stretched past limits he had never expected.
The writing itself is wonderful. Re-reading those older novels now, the technique is as visible as the words themselves, but here, as with The Pregnant Widow, the artistry and architecture flow along unobtrusively with those words as a whole. “Exorbitant eyes” is clever without making a point of it. Short, evocative descriptions of the atmosphere pepper the text – “the air was dotted with spores of moisture that couldn’t quite become rain” or “hangings of mirrored cigarette smoke” – pointing to a bigger picture, a larger state of England in which this narrative is just one small part. Pornography is dealt with, but not in the heavy-handed manner of Yellow Dog. We can laugh here as Lionel is tossed out of one of London’s most expensive hotels for watching “filth in the business centre”, with the sound up no less! Amis also references pop culture for the first time. Lionel’s brothers are named John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Stuart, while each part’s epigram features the twist, “Who let the dogs in?” And the pacing leading to the gruesome denouement is superb – steady, teasingly taking its time, with subtle hints of fiasco and haunting scents of Tabasco.
Possibly Amis’ best work to date. Certainly his most readable.
I saw Amis speak in London at the time of the book’s release and he was the exact opposite of what the press had made him out to be - charming, generous, and of course very very funny.
Thinking back to those summers of 1996 & 1998, this week’s Seven Songs are ones I was listening to then that also held for me a future full of promise
SEVEN SONGS
Pulp – ‘Glory Days’. I get chills every time I hear this. As he is so capable of doing, Jarvis gets everything about life right with this one.
The Replacements – ‘Can’t Hardly Wait (Tim Version)’. This just ROCKS. That variant inflection of the main riff, the furious lead line, the different lyrics, the rawness of it.
Wire - ‘Map Ref. 41°N 93°W’. I have often said this is the best pop song ever written.
James – ‘Destiny Calling’. James were back with this new song to support their Best Of that summer of 98, an optimism for being a ‘freak’ and trying to sort out where to sail your own ship towards.
Amon Düül II – ‘Sleepwalker’s Timeless Bridge’. One pictures wandering with wonder through enchanted mists. A great dreamy 70s rock song
Brian Eno – ‘Here Come The Warm Jets’. There’s nothing quite like this, is there?
The Jellybeans – ‘I Wanna Love Him So Bad’. I have always loved this song, and it made many a mixtape at the time. I remember reading an early interview with The Jesus & Mary Chain where they said ‘One day we’ll make Shangri-La’s records’. Well, I thought, one day I’m gonna make Jellybeans records. I have such fond memories of my mother playing this and ‘Baby Be Mine’ when I was young. And the first time I met my Swedish friend Jens, an avid record collector to put it mildly, such was my enthusiasm for this great girl group that he tells me whenever he comes across a Jellybeans 7” he thinks of me. I love that.
I’m also collecting all these Seven Songs lists here on a monster Apple playlist