Dyslexia and Martin Amis

[David Flower]

i'm only on here because I needed to check on another superb win for Spurs ... but while i'm here .. I've been meaning ask why it is that our esteemed journalists and most frequent contributers here are always the worst spellers and users, of punctuation: Garth told me once but I've forboten the answear ")*

David

[howard male]

David the werewolf wrote -

I've been meaning ask why it is that our esteemed journalists and most frequent contributors here are always the worst spellers and users, of punctuation: Garth told me once but I've forboten the answear ")*

Martin Amis once wrote that when he was younger he spent some time working in a publisher's office reading through unsolicited manuscripts. He almost invariably found that the best writers work was full of spelling and punctuation errors whereas the rubbish was meticulously presented.

As for why, I would suggest that imaginative writing (and all writing, even music journalism, requires some imagination) and spelling/punctuation are dealt with by different parts of the brain and therefore one can be good in one area but not the other.

As one of the accused I'm constantly frustrated by the fact that however much I read, and however much effort I put into sorting this problem out, I never seem to get much better. This leads me to I suspect it's something similar to dyslexia and therefore I'm stuck with it. So don't mock the afflicted! :-)

[garth cartwright]

Howard's right on this one - i try and write correctly then post and see myriad mistakes. Dyslexia? A mild form definitely envelopes me. Whatever the word is for those who trouble with sums I've also got that too. Brain wired wrong!

[Ted]

Howard's right on this one - i try and write correctly then post and see myriad mistakes. Dyslexia? A mild form definitely envelopes me. Whatever the word is for those who trouble with sums I've also got that too. Brain wired wrong!

Let us not mistake cause and correlation. Being crap at spelling doesn't make you a good writer.

And Amis is a vile racist creep with very expensive teeth. I'd look elsewhere for opinions on good writing.

tw

[Rob Hall]

Ted: you speke my thorts, but so much moor eloqwently than I wat I cud.

[howard male]

ted woet -

And Amis is a vile racist creep with very expensive teeth. I'd look elsewhere for opinions on good writing.

- a naive assumption based on a tabloid-level consensus of opinion which only tells me you have not actually read the man's books, or if you you have, you haven't understood them.

Martin Amis is not a racist.

[Rob Hall]

Maybe not but, if your previous post is to be believed, he doesn't half spout some bollocks.

[garth cartwright]

Amis's writings on Islam over the last few years are stupid, consdescending and misguided. A racist? Perhaps. His father certainly revelled in the role and he appears to be growing into him.

But as it's said, you have to separate the talent from the individual - Salavdor Dali was a rotten human being but who would deny he was a 20th C master? - unfortunately here I can't swing around and claim that whatever Amis says he is a master writer cos ever since trying to read Money in the 80s i have found him unbearably smug and a real showoff - as with Rushdie he's one of those writers who seem to think 'why use one word when you can use ten?'

I've also tried to read London Fields and The Rachel Diaries, the former is extrmely condescending towards women/the working class (as well as being crap in general) while the latter is for public school wankers. Literally. Read an excert from one of his recent novels in The Guardian 2 years back and as with London Fields he obviously hides in his ivory tower cos his working class Londoners are pure Andy Cap with heavy manners. I rarely read UK literature - mainly cos the influence of Amis/Rushdie dominates so much of what we're offered. Contemporary American novelists just knock the crap out of the London literarati.

A racist? I'm not sure but he definitely appears to want to play to the hard right and is very ill informed in his arguements. A smug pretentious crap novelist who is completely overrated cos of his surname and connections? Indeed. And a complete and utter prat who simply can't shut up and has followed Chris Hitchins into kissing Bush-Blair ass so to raise his word rate amongst American publishers? Absolutely.

[David Flower]

blimey, steady on . Amis does indeed possess a sneering cynicism which can be very sharp and amusing, (and comes out unpleasantly too at times) but he is also a highly skilled writer of immense emotional range. His book 'Experience' is a profound and moving review of his relationship with family and father and of his emotional life in general. Including reflections on his cousin Lucy who was one of Fred and Rose West's victims. I would say required reading for anyone, like me, who's had issues with his father.

He wrote Rachel Papers very early when only 23 or 24, so that comes into it. Trying to score was probably his big preoccupation at the time! 'Money' at least is a classic. Like most British novelists of standing he's desperate to write the big theme novel which for some reason eludes Brits and which the Americans do manage better.

He is married to the interesting write Isabel Fonseca whose Bury Me Standing is a great book on Gypsies I thought. What did you think Garth? And they appear to live happily in Uruguay , which a racist probably wouldn't.

Lastly, though no great indicator, I once years ago queued to have him sign my first editions and he was both funny and friendly

David

[Ted]

Amis's writings on Islam over the last few years are stupid, consdescending and misguided.

I completely agree with nearly all of that Garth. It was London Fields that finished me with Amis too.

Someone who descibes himself as " a little bit racist" and then comes out with this stuff qualifies as " a racist" in my book.

Oh and to return to the original subject (please, please) thanks for the original post. I managed to get some tickets and am looking forward to it more than any recent gig.

[howard male]

I'm with David on this one, and find the other posts here on the subject of Amis ridiculously overblown. I too went to a few Amis signings years ago and always found him self-effacing, amusing, and charming, in the best sense of the word.

Just about all of the man's books are flawed (with the exception of 'Money' and 'Experience') but, Garth, if you're of the 'why use one word when you can use ten' school of thought, then that's just a question of general taste rather than aesthetic judgement. I happen to find that Amis, on a sentence to sentence basis, is one of our most emotive writers. His powers of description nearly always vividly conjure the scene for me (just as Nabokov's prose does) which would be physically impossible were he just using the one word rather than the ten he so obviously needs.

As for trotting out the lame old 'he's sexist too' line. Amis is a satirist. He readily admits all his characters are two dimensional grotesques. His gifts don't lie in the area of creating fully rounded, warm-hearted people with tediously real problems (which is what makes so much home-grown literature so dull). He therefore treats women with the same sharp pen as he does men - in this respect he gives them absolute equal rights!

In conclusion, it's interesting that, even with the level of almost pathological hatred Garth seems to have for Amis, he couldn't, in good faith, hurl the charge of racism at him too. This tells me that my instincts about the man are correct.

[David Flower]

Garth's comment "I rarely read UK literature - mainly cos the influence of Amis/Rushdie dominates so much of what we're offered" made me laugh.

One of our own ranks whose musical tastes are wilfully niche and left-field cannot get past the Amis and Rushdie influence? I suggest Garth gets a new spade for Christmas and trys digging a little deeper!
The Americans are so much more profound, insightful and culturally enriching? Hang on a mo, that's the other topic we've been exploring.... I thought we'd decided they're all TV morons.

Xmas quiz: name me one Kiwi author (if that's not a racist question!)

David

[Rob Hall]

Xmas quiz: name me one Kiwi author

Why? What would it prove?

[David Flower]

wouldn't prove anything at all. Merely a cheap shot as I'm amused by Garth's blanket and rather hostile write-off of the modern British novel and fashionable praising of the Americans.

[NormanD]

Xmas quiz: name me one Kiwi author (if that's not a racist question!)

I don't understand the "racist question" bit. Keri Hulme comes from Christchurch, NZ , and won the Booker Prize about 20 years ago for "The Bone People". Mind you, with Portillo now chairing the panel and S. Rushdie having won the prize twice, this literary award may now have flawed value.

As for Amis:

"There's a definite urge - don't you have it? - to say the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. What sort of suffering? Not let them travel. Deportation - further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children."

You can read the fuller debate, pro and con, if you look on The Guardian website. It's informative to read the various articles by Terry Eagleton, who effectively kicked the debate off by expressing his disgust at the above quotation from Amis Jnr.

Whether Amis is a racist or not makes no difference to me. He is merely a well-paid cheer leader for attacks on Muslim people. To hold everyone from one faith responsible for the political crimes of a far-right minority from that same faith is indefensible. I wish he had the sense to know when to keep his mouth shut. He's helping no situation.

Frankly, I can't be bothered with Amis Jnr and debating his merits as a writer means nothing to me anymore. I've long lost interest in him. Rushdie, however, could have been a far greater writer than he now is. "Midnight's Children" will be remembered as a great book, long after the writer has given up.