Slog - Comments on Martin Amis and Mohamed Atta http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and It's appropriate that responses to Sept. 11 from filmmakers and writers are proliferating during the unbelievably weird trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, who doubtless will spawn some kind of takeoff himself. The latest comes from Martin Amis, whose new book, coming out in the fall, imagines The Last Days of Mohamed Atta in a short story: As explained by his publisher, Jonathan Cape, the tale can be summarised like this: "Accompanied by one of the 'muscle' Saudis, Mohamed Atta drove to Portland, Maine, on 10 September 2001. Noone knows why. In 'The Last Days of Mohamed Atta', Martin Amis provides a... Copyright 2007 Fri, 14 Apr 2006 12:05:55 -0800 Sat, 15 Apr 2006 11:20:04 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by Superfurry Animal At this point, Amis is like the fat Elvis -- over-the-top, garish and tasteless, but still so phenomenally talented that it's impossible to look away.


No gold lamé, though.

]]> Superfurry Animal http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097048 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097048 Arts Fri, 14 Apr 2006 12:08:53 -0800 Comment by Andrew I love how all the author photos show Martin Amis sneering, or possessed of a steely, imposing seriousness. I saw him read in Seattle a few years ago, and he's the most harmless little man you could ever imagine.

I've never been able to get into Amis's fiction, but his essays and reviews are great (as is his memoir, which is a bizarre mixture of pathetic self-deception and lovely prose). I love any writer who'll employ a paragraph-long tennis analogy to compare Nabokov to James Joyce.

]]> Andrew http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097124 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097124 Arts Fri, 14 Apr 2006 12:43:26 -0800 Comment by fnarf Can't hold a candle to his daddy, though.

]]> fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097178 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097178 Arts Fri, 14 Apr 2006 13:06:33 -0800 Comment by Superfurry Animal I find Kingsley kind of meh and toothless. Lucky Jim was all right, but nothing to write home about. For me Amis is like an intellectual Irvine Welsh. And yes, Andrew, his nonfiction is phenomenal.

]]> Superfurry Animal http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097374 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097374 Arts Fri, 14 Apr 2006 15:01:33 -0800 Comment by fnarf Well, except Kingsley Amis could write English sentences. Welsh can't. Amis the senior's the best British novelist of the past half-century is all, and by a wide margin the most talented alcoholic of his time.

His son in his fiction is for the most part a technique bore. His nonfiction is frequently good, though.

]]> fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097433 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097433 Arts Fri, 14 Apr 2006 15:51:39 -0800 Comment by Superfurry Animal I call you out, FNARF! A bare-knuckled Amis showdown. You bring the flabby dead one and I'll bring the flabby, snaggle-toothed live one.

]]> Superfurry Animal http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097530 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097530 Arts Fri, 14 Apr 2006 17:10:06 -0800 Comment by fnarf Bring it where? Here? I've got about a hundred of his books down in the basement; you want me to drag them up and type some passages?

OK, I'll start. From On Drink (1972): "Any drink traditionally accompanied by a bit of fruit or vegetable is worth trying with a spot of the juice thrown in as well".

Or, later on in the same book, talking about the Metaphysical Hangover (as opposed to the Physical kind, dealt with in previous paragraphs): "When that ineffable compound of depression, sadness (these two are not the same), anxiety, self-hatred, sense of failure and fear for the future begins to steal over you, start telling yourself that what you have is a hangover. You are not sickening for anything, you have not suffered a minor brain lesion, you are not all that bad at your job, your family and friends are not leagued in a conspiracy of barely maintained silence about what a shit you are, you have not come at last to see life as it really is, and there is no use crying over spilt milk."

Your turn.

]]> fnarf http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097946 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c097946 Arts Fri, 14 Apr 2006 21:21:42 -0800 Comment by Superfurry Animal All righty then. From The Information:


"The visit to the electrician's would additionally involve him in a visit to the bathroom (to shave: he was by now far too mired internally to let the world see him with his surface unclean; he too much resembled the figure he knew he would eventually become: the terrible old man in a callbox, with a suitcase, wanting something very badly — cash, work, shelter, information, a cigarette).


And on the same page:


"These days he smoked and drank largely to solace himself for what drinking and smoking had done to him — but smoking and drinking had done a lot to him, so he drank and smoked a lot."

]]> Superfurry Animal http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c099189 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/04/martin_amis_and#c099189 Arts Sat, 15 Apr 2006 11:20:04 -0800