The Amis Papers

Content note: the novel raises issues of sexual violence, domestic violence, child abuse, child sexual exploitation and disordered eating.

Looking at Amis' London novel, or his darts novel, or his millenial novel (in the end-of-the-world sense not the avocado-toast-and-can't-buy-a-house sense).  And the 2018 film based on it.  On the way I discuss the strange parochialism of the metropolitan writer, how many levels of unreliable narration are present, and whether Amis hates the working class or just happens to write about its worst examples.
I also mention:

• Roger Lewis    The Life and Death of Peter Sellers,

• Susie Thomas on class and gender   

• The Martin Chronicles podcast

This episode discusses Amis's first short story collection, loosely themed on nuclear war and its aftermath, and concludes that the stories are unsatisfying. On the way I discuss what Amis might learn from Scooby Doo about narrative, the art of the literary backhanded compliment, and whether the Nuclear Age presents different challenges to the Age of Anxiety.

There is a brief mention of schizophrenia and suicide.

A detailed discussion of one of Amis's best books, exploring the strange appeal of John Self, what it is that the character Martin Amis takes from him as reward for winning a game of chess, and why Self's limited reading includes the obscure Shakespeare play Timon of Athens.  

The podcast covers the novel's treatment of themes including suicide and physical and sexual violence.

BBC interview 1984 with dramatisation featuring Mel Smith as Self  

The Guardian 100 best novels: Money

Facebook page for the podcast

A look at the science fiction Garden of Eden/ Frankenstein/ mad robot film Saturn 3 for which Amis wrote a screenplay, although nothing in the finished script bears much evidence of his style. It's chief interest is as raw material for the novel Money.

Something is wrong on Saturn 3 website

Industry Podcast episode on John Barry

We Hate Movies podcast episode 127: Blame It On Rio

A look at some of the film versions of Amis's books as a prelude to Saturn 3: Rachel papers (1989) and Dead Babies (Mood Swingers) (2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAJqCZQ2Yrs ,

Is Other People more of a mystery than the author intended? I present the evidence that Mary is dead, is in hell, or is in a life loop with a chance of redemption. Plus Amis's further thoughts on literature and life, and the emergence of the mature Amis style.


Facebook page

Books that matter review of Other People


"Narrative and Narrated Homicide in Martin Amis's Other People and London Fields," from Critique 37 (1995). By Brian Finney, California State University, Long Beach.

In Camera (No Exit) 1964


Craig Raine “A Martian sends a postcard home”


Allusions to Larkin in Amis’s work

This episode discussed Success, a tale of two brothers and sister trying to adapt to the adult world, by way of unreliable narration, urban landscapes, childhood trauma and attempted hedonism.

Links are made to the world of work as described in Joseph Heller Something Happened , and textual parallels to TS Eliot The Wasteland and Philip Larkin ‘Going’, ‘High Windows’, and ‘This be the Verse’.

https://www.facebook.com/AmisPapers

https://martinamisweb.com/discussion.shtml

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/an-amis-who-lives-in-his-own-world-1620442.html

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-age-of-acceleration-an-interview-with-martin-amis/

https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/martin-amis-how-the-sexual-revolution-helped-destroy-my-sister-sally-6790757.html

This episode explores Amis' second novel Dead Babies, an account of a drug- and sex-fuelled weekend at an Oxfordshire rectory which conceals a serious moral purpose. The podcast considers what the title means, why Quentin's reading helps explain the book's thesis, what Menippus has to tell us about the aftermath of free love, unexpected links to Philip Larkin, and a surprising postcript on the origin of the term 'blinkie'. Also mentioned is the podcast The Martin Chronicles and the research of Joanna Stolarek.

This episode looks at The Rachel Papers (1973) and explores what Charles Highway's tragic flaw is, what the Rachel papers are, and why Charles admires Norman so much. Contains some explicit language from the book.

This episode provides some context: a brief biography of Amis, my experience as a fan since the 1980s seeing his reputation rise and fall, and a reader's guide for those new to his work suggesting which to read first and which to avoid.