Tag Archives: Money: A Suicide Note

The World Is Getting Less Innocent

26 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by in Current Events, Interview, Literature

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Martin Amis

“I, in common with many writers, feel that there’s a great convulsion of stupidity happening in the world. Mostly to do with television. People know a little about a lot, and put very little effort into accumulating knowledge and culture, and when they do, it’s almost like a sort of consumerism of culture…

But with regard to feeling disgust, I think every writer — even the blackest writer — actually loves it all. I suppose it is temperamental, but I don’t sit around feeling disgusted. I feel enthused.

Many of us think the world has reached its nadir, its low point. But in fact this era will be lamented, just like the last. That’s the paradox.

What you can say about the world is that, while it may not be getting any better, it’s getting infinitely less innocent all the time. It’s like, it has been to so many parties, been on so many dates, had so many fights, got its handbag stolen so many times. So the accumulation is what makes the world seem at its worst, always. Because it’s never been through as much as it’s been through today, the earth.”

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From an interview with Martin Amis in 1984, discussing his acclaimed novel about consumerism and excess, Money: A Suicide Note.

I’m glad to report that you, the consistent reader of this blog, most likely do not fall into that wide category of people who put minimal energy into absorbing culture and knowledge.

Watch the short discussion with Amis below:

Read previously posted excerpts from Money here:

Martin Amis

There’s Only One Way to Get Good at Fighting

New York

In L.A.

Thailand Plane

That Head-on-Heart Stuff

Young Martin Amis

Can You Remember Where You Left Those Keys?

Can You Remember Where You Left Those Keys?

25 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in Literature

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Young Martin Amis“Memory’s a funny thing, isn’t it. You don’t agree? I don’t agree either. Memory has never amused me much, and I find its tricks more and more wearisome as I grow older. Perhaps memory simply stays the same but has less work to do as the days fill out. My memory’s in good shape, I think. It’s just that my life is getting less memorable all the time. Can you remember where you left those keys? Why should you? Lying in the tub some slow afternoon, can you remember if you’ve washed your toes? (Taking a leak is boring, isn’t it, after the first few thousand times? Whew, isn’t that a drag?) I can’t remember half the stuff I do any more. But then I don’t want to much.”

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A reflection from John Self, protagonist of Martin Amis’s hilarious riot-of-a-novel Money: A Suicide Note.

Read other excerpts from the book here:

Martin Amis

There’s Only One Way to Get Good at Fighting

New YorkIn L.A.

Thailand PlaneThat Head-on-Heart Stuff

That Head-on-Heart Stuff

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Humor, Literature

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Thailand

“After all we are only human beings down here and we could do with a lot more praise and comfort than we actually get. Earthling reassurance — it’s in permanently short supply, don’t you think? Be honest, brother. Lady, now tell the truth. When was the last time a fellow-Earther let you rest your head on their heart, caressed your cheek, and said things designed to make you feel deeply okay? It doesn’t happen often enough, does it. We’d all like it to happen a lot more often than it does. Can’t we do a deal? Oh boy (I bet you’re thinking), that head-on-heart stuff, whew, could I use a little of that.”

__________

To help you over the mid-week blues… some words spoken by John Self in Martin Amis’s hilarious novel Money: A Suicide Note. Can’t we do that deal?

The picture was taken this summer in Thailand, as our plane banked into the island airport at Ko Tao.

In L.A.

24 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Literature

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New York

“In LA, you can’t do anything unless you drive. Now I can’t do anything unless I drink. And the drink-drive combination, it really isn’t possible out there. If you so much as loosen your seatbelt or drop your ash or pick your nose, then it’s an Alcatraz autopsy with the questions asked later. Any indiscipline, you feel, any variation, and there’s a bullhorn, a set of scope sights, and a coptered pig drawing a bead on your rug. So what can a poor boy do? You come out of the hotel, the Vraimont. Over boiling Watts the downtown skyline carries a smear of God’s green snot. You walk left, you walk right, you are a bank rat on a busy river. This restaurant serves no drink, this one serves no meat, this one serves no heterosexuals. You can get your chimp shampooed, you can get your dick tattooed, twenty-four hour, but can you get lunch? And should you see a sign on the far side of the street flashing BEEF – BOOZE – NO STRINGS, then you can forget it. The only way to get across the road is to be born there. All the ped-xing signs say DON’T WALK, all of them, all the time. That is the message, the content of Los Angeles: don’t walk. Stay inside. Don’t walk. Drive. Don’t walk. Run! I tried the cabs. No use. The cabbies are all Saturnians who aren’t even sure whether this is a right planet or a left planet. The first thing you have to do, every trip, is teach them how to drive.”

New York

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Words spoken by the riotous John Self — protagonist of the hilarious novel Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis.

The photographs were taken several years ago in N.Y., not L.A.

There’s Only One Way to Get Good at Fighting

06 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by in Literature

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Martin Amis

“There is only one way to get good at fighting: you have to do it a lot.

The reason why most people are no good at fighting is that they do it so seldom, and, in these days of high specialization, no one really expects to be good at anything unless they work out at it and put in some time. With violence, you have to keep your hand in, you have to have a repertoire. When I was a kid, growing up in Trenton, New Jersey, and later on the streets of Pimlico, I learned these routines one by one. For instance, can you butt people (i.e. hit them in the face with your face — a very intimate form of fighting, with tremendous power to appall and astonish)? I took up butting when I was ten. After a while, after butting a few people (you try to hit them with your rugline, hit them in the nose, mouth, cheekbone — it doesn’t much matter), I thought, ‘Yeah: I can butt people now.’ From then on, butting people was suddenly an option. Ditto with ball-kneeing, shin-kicking and eye-forking; they were all new ways of expressing frustration, fury and fear, and of settling arguments in my favour. You have to work at it, though. You learn over the years, by trial and error. You can’t get the knack by watching TV. You have to use live ammunition. So, for example, if you ever tangled with me, and a rumble developed, and you tried to butt me, to hit my head with your head, you probably wouldn’t be very good at it. It wouldn’t hurt. It wouldn’t do any damage. All it would do is make me angry. Then I’d hit your head with my head extra hard, and there would be plenty of pain and maybe some damage too.

Besides, I’d probably butt you long before it ever occurred to you to butt me. There’s only one rule in street and bar fights: maximum violence, instantly. Don’t pussyfoot, don’t wait for the war to escalate. Nuke them, right off. Hit them with everything, milk bottle, car tool, clenched keys or coins. The first blow has to give everything. If he takes it, and you go down, then you get all he has to mete out anyway. The worst, the most extreme violence — at once. Extremity is the only element of surprise. Hit them with everything. No quarter.”

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From the novel Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis.

I love this quote for the same reason I relish the novel from which it comes: it expresses a brutish bravado in beboping, musical English. That special synthesis of brash tone with light and vibrant language is what makes Amis the master stylist that he is.