A is for Amis

So tonight i went along to St. Micheal's Church in Bath to sit down and listen to the author Martin Amis speak.

When i was 16 and fresh from school, i found employment difficult. There was a recession on at the time you see, and besides, i was a lazy bastard who was nowhere near mature enough to realise that you had to work. Unless outrageously talented or fortunate, there really was no other way to get money. The library was a good friend to me over this period, but my choice of fiction was limited to only horror. Stephen King and James Herbert were the kind of thing i'd read, but it soon became boring. Stephen King takes 300 pages to establish character, James Hadley Chase can do it in a few sentences. So whilst perusing the shelves looking for interesting titles, i decided what the heck, i'd start at the very beginning.

A for Amis. I'd heard of Martin Amis, but couldn't tell you why. I picked up London Fields and thought it sounded kind of interesting. I took it out that day and spent the rest of the week transfixed by it's prose. It was, and remains, one of the most important books i've read. London Fields shoved me away from the adolescent thrill of horror books and into something more real. Something that i learned later was known as "kitchen sink". It was London Fields that no doubt set me up to become a huge fan of Mike Leigh films, themselves a big influence on me.

So after London Fields it was Money, Other People, Dead Babies and the ever glorious Time's Arrow. Amis became my new favourite person. Perhaps if i were in the internet age at that time, i would have been even more infactuated, as Wiki would no doubt have furnished me with some of the stories surrounding Amis, as he is a bit of a cad, and a lot of a character. All i had was the typically moody author pose on the back of the library books i'd take out.

He looked intelligent, intense, broody, and not without his charm. The local library had quite a good selection of his books, but as soon as i got off my ass and started working, i located and purchased the other books of his i'd been desperate to read.

So time passed and i moved on to other authors like Kurt Vonnegut and Iain Banks. Still a new Amis novel was met with excitement, but it felt like his best books were behind him.

Cut to today and i find myself feeling like the 16 year old that quizically prised London Fields from the shelf nearly two decades ago. Not sure what to expect, but having the idea that it'll be something good.

Amis is a small man. I can sympathise with him. I was also surprised by his attire. This is the guy who secured a one million pound advance for his novel, The Information, and his suit looked like it'd been lifted from the racks at the British Heart Foundation. His glasses were dangling round his neck, as if he was admitting that like a lot of old folk who had lost their faculties, he was constantly losing them and therefore needed to keep them around his neck at all times. While his physical appearance may have been disappointing to me, as i was used to seeing the pictures of him as a younger man on his book's jackets, his intellect was no less sharp.

Sure he speaks like an upper class gentleman, but i wanted and expected exactly that. It's refreshing to hear someone THINKING before they speak, and i found myself eagerly awaiting his tongue and vocal chords to mould the result of whatever his brain was firing out.

The audience was an interesting cross section of people. There were the trendy literary studenty types there. Amis teaches writing at Manchester University, and all i can say is lucky old them. I was born into a working class household, and despite what people may try and tell you, the class divide is still there, it exists and influences. Sometimes it's just harder to spot. The working classes shouldn't be intelligent for some reason, its considered very bad form. To this end, i often feel threatened by those i consider more intelligent than i, in case they attempt to use that intelligence against me. Of course i'd try and hold my own, but being working class it'll probably just end in clenched fists and thrown insults.

There were also the old boys there. I find them highly entertaining. They wear hats like it's the 30's and adopt the same kind of accent as Amis. They are a dieing breed and i'll miss them when they're gone. I look forward to being old and wearing a trilby. Being old grants you permission to say and do as you please, because everyone already assumes your best days are behind you.

In fact age was a constant theme tonight. Amis has turned 60 and is very conscious of the fact. He interestingly states that people now live to see their talent die before they do. He is, of course, quite right.

So at the close of the night you could go and get your books signed by him. I'd taken along my beat up copy of London Fields for him to sign, and eagerly waited to meet the man who had so influenced my choice of reading matter for many years. My encounter with Amis lasted no more than 30 seconds. 25 of which i felt embarrassed, as i approached the desk with my books to be signed, i dropped one on the floor and it slid under his desk. I fumbled about picking it up but any hope of grace was gone.

It didn't matter. I have fulfilled an ambition, and had a good night. Yes i'm a geek but fuck you, you're a geek too. If you give a shit what hair product you use, what car you drive, what music you listen to, what magazines you read or what tv programmes you curdle your brain with, then i consider YOU my friend, a geek, as you are just as particular about things as i am.

The sad truth is i rarely read fiction anymore. This world is a big place, full of things i really don't understand. Through reading i hope to acquire knowledge, but i'm already smart enough to know that it'll take more days than i have free or even than i'll be alive to learn everything i'd like to learn. A part of me now sees fiction as a waste of time. I could be learning something in the time taken to read a novel. Perhaps Amis' new offering will prise me out of that mindset. He said a very interesting thing tonight, he said that movies are external and novels are internal. I agree with that. The problem is, i'm not interested in knowing the internals of most authors, its hard enough to know the internals of yourself.