Mart worships Tony Curtis's prose

MARTIN AMIS SAID: "Joyce. Kafka. But they don't speak to me with the immediacy that Tony Curtis does. When you finish a Nabokov novel, you want to write like Nabokov. When you finish a Curtis novel--a long Curtis novel--you don't want to write at all. Because you feel it's all gone, you know. It's all been done. You feel you couldn't even write the instructions on an aspirin packet when you've read Kid Andrew Cody & Julie Sparrow."

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Entertainment

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• martin
• amis

[cantab98]

There is a tense competition currently being waged between Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers for 'Most Cretinous Interviewer'. From my humble perspective, it's a dead heat.

[smoocher6]

Why have we never seen Amis & Hitchens together in debate?

[bfoaliali]

@smoocher6 they once had a discussion together about anti-semitism . . . it is on youtbe.

[britteach]

What a painful interview. Clearly Charlie Rose didn't read the novel and probably doesn't read fiction. You can see on Amis's face and delayed reaction to some BS Rose was dishing that he would have to indulge the old man. I guess I expected more from Charlie Rose, but after this interview the only difference I can see between him and say, Jimmy Kimmel, is the cut of their suits.

[Broatch6]

London Fields is not the easiest of books to read but its that. rare thing...the book thats worth re-reading not once or twice ...but dozens and dozens of times...the same can be said of The Information...Martin Amis can entertain, amuse and inform and constantly startle with language way beyond the reach of any one else.

[cantab98]

@Strattonus (continued) Real interviewers who exceed that humble standard are people like Jeremy Paxman, Melvin Bragg, Jon Snow, Kirsty Wark, and Tom Sutcliffe, to name only those who come quickly to mind. These latter individuals, in marked contrast to our beloved CR, share one important thing in common: they actually read more than the newspaper and ask intelligent questions.

[cantab98]

@Strattonus A fair question, Strattonus. I don't ask for much from interviewers. A basic knowledge of the subject being interviewed is always a good start, as is a knowledge of that person's work. By these humble standards, I think that the likes of Oprah and Jerry Springer carry greater intellectual capacity than does our dear C. Rose.

[Strattonus]

@cantab98 Really? Name a quality interviewer?

[YouzTube99]

@smoocher6, that would be interesting.

All I can find at YT is this:

v=KXUh4FUicxE

which is an excerpt of a 'conversation' that is almost entirely a Amis monologue on the subject of anti-semitism with a bit of Saul Bellow sprinkled in.

[tonireed1]

my writer is henry james but only his 'ambassadors'. those that have an immediate knowingness of people of space, of sublime feel. perception way beyond street smarts.earthy kind of mystics--that get the feel of the soul breeezing through with an intuitive's awareness of invisible play. are there any whistler salon types out there? sometimes all there is are thoreau and james. respond if you are there!