Martin Amis Dies, Aged 73

Martin Amis Dies, Aged 73

Hello Gentle Reader,

Martin Amis was a literary rock star amongst and member of a generation of formulative postmodern British writers, who capitalized on the waning postwar dwindling modernists of the early 20^th century, to explore a fragmented and ironic age that followed. This pack of writers includes: Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens, and the younger Will Self. Amis is the son of the famous Kingsley Amis (author of the "Lucky Jim," and the Booker Prize winning "The Old Devils,"); despite their shared literary career, Kingsley Amis is reported to have treated his sons work with disdain. Martin Amis is famously stating that he could pin point exactly at what paragraph and clause of his novel "Money," that his father set it twirling through the air, accusing Martin Amis of breaking the general literary rules, inferring his own authorial voices within the writing, and succumbing the to the blatant principles of celebrity or perhaps more acutely: self-indulgence. Despite this disinterest and even infuriating negligence, Martin Amis came to be considered the shining star of the next generation of British writers, replacing the comedy and traditional writers like his father, Kingsley Amis. Instead, these writers understood the very nature of reality, society, politics, and intellectual discourse had changed dramatically at the closure of the Postwar years. The debut of the exposure of the Holocaust, the debut and deployment of the atomic bomb, the red scare, the entrenchment of the Cold War, and the ever-present threat of nuclear fallout and annihilation, it became clear the old world had concluded. The rules of engagement no longer existed, and these new postmodernists would begin to encapsulate, document, and record this new reality within their work. As a writer, Martin Amis, was the kind of writer who was all too aware of the pitfalls and prurience of celebrity and fame. His famous novel "Money," encapsulated this sense of celebrity culture perfectly, and remains one of the best celebrity novels to date. Then came his famous novel: "London Fields," capitalizing the acerbic wonders of "Money," and introducing further fragmentation and disorientation as one tumbles down the ironic hole of the postmodern. "London fields," is a novel of unreliable and unlikable characters and caricatures. Those inclined for a fit of nostalgia, might fan themselves now, remembering the decadence, radiance, and excess of purposeful transgressive literature back then. The kind which had purpose, but have since become bleached and chemically plagiarized to the point of sterilized that any purpose or outrage of commentary is peeled away to only be another foray into unrestrained solipsism. In his later years, however, Amis's literary pursuits became less paramount, as the author appeared to court controversy and his public persona of charmless curmudgeon. On another note, the cinematic adaption of his novel "Zone of Interest," debuted at the Cannes Film Festival has been generously received.

Rest in Peace, Martin Amis.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
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Stay Well Read

M. Mary