/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2041013]

Martin Amis on Christopher Hitchens:

"Every novelist of his acquaintance is riveted by Christopher, not just qua friend but also qua novelist. I considered the retort I am about to quote (all four words) so epiphanically devastating that I put it in a novel. The year was 1981. We were in a tiny Italian restaurant in West London, where we would soon be joined by our future first wives. Two elegant young men in waisted suits were unignorably and interminably fussing with the staff about rearranging the tables, to accommodate the large party they expected. It was an intensely class-conscious era (because the class system was dying); Christopher and I were candidly lower-middle bohemian, and the two young men were raffishly minor-gentry (they had the air of those who await, with epic stoicism, the deaths of elderly relatives). At length, one of them approached our table, and sank smoothly to his haunches, seeming to pout out through the fine strands of his fringe. The crouch, the fringe, the pout: they had all clearly enjoyed many successes in the matter of bending others to his will. After a flirtatious pause he said, 'you're going to hate us for this.' And Christopher said, 'We hate you already'."

[Anonymous No.2041016]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz1rhLnCrJQ

[Anonymous No.2041028]

>that feel when we've all become literary establishment hacks and neo-conservative pawns as England collapses around us like a bit of....oh sorry I've used up all my descriptive powers on On Chesil Beach's purple prose.

[Anonymous No.2041034]

>>2041028
I Enjoyed This Post

[Anonymous No.2041044]

>>2041034

Hopefully more than I've enjoyed Ian McEwan's post-Amsterdam descent into mediocrity.

[Anonymous No.2041058]

>>2041013
Source on this? I know it's from Martin Amis premptive obituary for Hitchens but I haven't been able to get a hold of it ever since they took it off the Guardian's website.

[Anonymous No.2041089]

>>2041058
It's small section of Martin's foreword to a book that came out earlier this year entitled "The Quotable Hitchens".

[Anonymous No.2041093]

What a dick.

[Anonymous No.2041095]

>>2041093
Have you ever heard of Hitchens before?

[Anonymous No.2041096]

>>2041044
Atonement was perfect, man. Why the hate?

[Anonymous No.2041104]

>>2041095
I've watched videos with him in. He has many good criticisms and, as everyone says, he has a way with words. But he also strikes me as a sadist who takes pleasure in making people feel awful about themselves. He uses his eloquence to seem conscientious, but it's clear he thinks it's so very clever to be cruel.

[Anonymous No.2041118]

>>2041104
It only seems cruel because the people he argues against are so entrenched in their belief. Just because their feelings are hurt by him doesn't make him any less right. There was a day when Luther's feelings were hurt by Copernicus for saying the Earth rotates around the Sun, that doesn't mean Copernicus was wrong for saying it.

[Anonymous No.2041122]

>>2041118
>And Christopher said, 'We hate you already'.
Nope. He's a dick.

[Anonymous No.2041124]

>>2041096

Atonement is the jetpack that you think will save him, but then runs out of fuel. I like it, but it's certainly not perfect.

I personally hold The Child in Time as his best work so think of that what you will.

[Anonymous No.2041127]

>>2041122
to be fair, the people he was talking to were probably pretty fucking hateable, i can honestly sympathize with him

>>2041124
guys, if you look closely, the best metaphor ever is in this post

[Anonymous No.2041131]

>>2041122
The post I was responding to was mentioning Hitchens' debates as a whole. As for him being a dick to a pair of manipulating assholes; tough titties.

[Anonymous No.2041134]

>>2041124
I don't have my copy with me right now, but the prose, man. It's fuckin' beautiful. The first 20 pages have some of the richest text I've seen this side of the '70s.

[Anonymous No.2041143]

Martin Amis on Hitchens cont.:

"He was on TV for the second or third time in his life, which takes us back to the mid-1970s and to Christopher's mid-twenties. He and I were already close friends (and colleagues at the New Statesman); but I remember thinking that nobody so matinee-telegenic had the right to be so exceptionally quick-tongued on the screen. At a certain point in the exchange, Christopher came out with one of his political poeticisms, an ornate but intelligible definition of (I think) national sovereignty. His host—a fair old bruiser in his own right—paused, frowned, and said with skepticism and with helpless sincerity:

'I can't understand a word you're saying.'

'I'm not in the least bit surprised,' said Christopher, and moved on.

The talk ran its course. But if this had been a frontier western, and not a chat show, the wounded man would have spent the rest of the segment leerily snapping the arrow in half an pushing its pointed end through his chest and out the other side."

[Anonymous No.2041148]

>>2041093
This guy again.

>>2041143
>'I can't understand a word you're saying.'
>'I'm not in the least bit surprised,' said Christopher, and moved on.

You see? He's a dick! And then Martin Amis:
>"Oh, he's such a dick! Isn't it wonderful!"

[Anonymous No.2041152]

‘Enjoying being insulting is a youthful corruption of power. You lose your taste for it when you realize how hard people try, how much they mind, and how long they remember….’
- Martin Amis, "The War Against Clichés"

[Anonymous No.2041156]

>>2041152
Is it really an insult if the other person is simply an idiot?

[Anonymous No.2041160]

>>2041156
Is it an insult to mock a blind man for being unable to see?

[reigns !!whOAF3vaEZR No.2041162]

>>2041156

If he really is an idiot why waste time pointing out the obvious? There is no need for insults.

[Anonymous No.2041163]

>>2041160
Blind individuals and unlearned ones are two completely different things. The unlearned one can amend his ways, and it's often his fault for being where he is to begin with. Don't try to muddy the water with stupid analogies.

[Anonymous No.2041164]

>>2041162
Idiots are more obvious to some than others.

[Anonymous No.2041167]

>>2041162
And to be perfectly honest, it was a rebuttal insult. The old man dished it out first.

[Anonymous No.2041168]

>>2041028

+1

[Anonymous No.2041172]

>>2041167
>>2041163
I wouldn't really call that an insult, especially since Amis stressed the guy's sincerity. If Hitchens expressed himself in a way that the guy genuinely couldn't understand, then good on him for being honest and saying so. I can see your point that he should have been more learned. But not everyone takes an interest in the things that Hitchens wants to talk about, and even with the best educations in the world, not everybody would.

[Anonymous No.2041176]

hitchens is sometimes entertaining

amis jerking him off never is

[Anonymous No.2042069]

I would rather read Amis to be honest

[Anonymous No.2042075]

>'We hate you already'."

SWAG

[Anonymous No.2042088]

with less frilly diction it could be a pretty decent anecdote i guess

[Anonymous No.2042095]

>>2041127
I did laugh at that metaphor after you pointed it out. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.2042097]

>>2042088
Agreed. Too many adverbs, too.

[Anonymous No.2042110]

You see guys, this is the way your start writing when you spend all of your time talking to academics, and never to real people

[Anonymous No.2042112]

>>2042110

this is how you write when you're a good writer. you don't like writing like this because you are a bad writer or you enjoy bad writers.

[Anonymous No.2042114]

>>2042110
This is the way you start writing when your father is a renowned, incredibly talented writer, and you grow up surrounded by talented writers and the intelligentsia your entire life

(kingsley amis most underrated author on /lit/? serious question)

[Anonymous No.2042120]

>>2042110
oh please, it reads like martin prince gone bad

[Anonymous No.2042125]

>>2042112
He's no Pynchon