by Martin Amis
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by Martin Amis
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by Martin Amis
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by Martin Amis
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by Martin Amis
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Amazon.co.uk Review
At one point in this remarkable book, Martin Amis refers to a phrase he coined in a 1983 newspaper piece on Saul Bellow. "Higher autobiography", intended to convey a fork taken by late 20th century literature, lingers on the palate long after the final page, awash with pictures of his various children. He is no longer "the kid", as Bellow puts it to him after the death of father Kingsley in 1995, and this generational shift is sharply in evidence within the quietly smouldering pages of Experience. Shunning orthodox chronology for more satisfying linearity, Amis explores the issues that have dogged his life and his reputation for too long. Though he is angry--mostly with the English media--the tone of the book is one of patient memorial and reconciliation, with most obviously Kingsley, and his own manifestations, but also with his "missing"--the cousin, Lucy Partington, a victim of Fred West's "prepotence", and the daughter, Delilah, by an earlier relationship. Gossip column titbits are confronted head-on: divorce, the change of literary agent, the falling-out with Julian Barnes, the row with Kingsley's biographer Eric Jacobs and, of course, the Teeth (actually deserving of a full set of capitals; the hardest heart would flinch and whimper at the reconstructive surgery he endured, ignorantly disparaged as "cosmetic").
At one point in this remarkable book, Martin Amis refers to a phrase he coined in a 1983 newspaper piece on Saul Bellow. "Higher autobiography", intended to convey a fork taken by late 20th century literature, lingers on the palate long after the final page, awash with pictures of his various children. He is no longer "the kid", as Bellow puts it to him after the death of father Kingsley in 1995, and this generational shift is sharply in evidence within the quietly smouldering pages of Experience. Shunning orthodox chronology for more satisfying linearity, Amis explores the issues that have dogged his life and his reputation for too long. Though he is angry--mostly with the English media--the tone of the book is one of patient memorial and reconciliation, with most obviously Kingsley, and his own manifestations, but also with his "missing"--the cousin, Lucy Partington, a victim of Fred West's "prepotence", and the daughter, Delilah, by an earlier relationship. Gossip column titbits are confronted head-on: divorce, the change of literary agent, the falling-out with Julian Barnes, the row with Kingsley's biographer Eric Jacobs and, of course, the Teeth (actually deserving of a full set of capitals; the hardest heart would flinch and whimper at the reconstructive surgery he endured, ignorantly disparaged as "cosmetic").
The revelation of the book, however, lies in the body of the book, in its weave and stitching. Copious footnotes adorn most pages, not digressive but novelistically collusive to a self-defeating desire to "speak without artifice". A book of love, it is also one of the funniest books ever to wear the cloak of death and mortality so constantly. Money was a novel, says Amis, about "the fear that childlessness will condemn you to childishness". This volume, about how many people leave a room compared to entering it--to quote a recurrent theme--exorcises that particular fear, and a more general dread that has perpetually haunted his prose. Experience, pitched between his splendid journalism and his fiction, is a wake-up call to those who have too easily dismissed his work. It is a considerable, haunting work. --David Vincent
Review
Martin Amis is one of the most widely written-about of contemporary novelists, admired and hated in almost equal measure, and therefore his own account of his relationship with his father and an often hostile media, the real story behind his expensive dentistry and the highly-publicised split with Julian Barnes, his reaction to the murder of his cousin Lucy Partington by Fred West and his first meeting with his daughter Delilah Seale at the age of nineteen make for fascinating reading. This is, however, not a conventional autobiography, but a series of intricately-layered stream of consciousness memories of the experiences which have shaped his life and writings. Though often clever, the narrative structure with its innumerable digressions and footnotes can be confusing, and conceals Amis's lack of candour about such subjects as his marriages and why he apparently showed no interest in a daughter of whose existence he had known for years. The comments on his great literary influence Saul Bellow, on Philip Larkin and on contemporary writers such as Salman Rushdie are always stimulating but never fully developed, and really the best and most honest parts are about his relationship with his father Kingsley Amis, and his last days. Indeed, it is Kingsley Amis rather than his arrogant, pompous and chippy son who is the hero of this book. This is not the 'ruthlessly honest' memoir of the blurb exploring 'the geography of the writer's mind', but another exercise in fiction, one where Amis's attributes as a novelist - the command of language, the toying with ideas, the artifice - are on full display. Review by Andrew Lownie (Kirkus UK)
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