The Amis Papers

Amis's foray into speculative fiction examines an alternative history in which England remains Catholic, the Papacy retains its hegemony, and young Hubert Anvil's soprano voice is so exceptional that his elders and betters propose to preserve it by castration.  His best novel of the 70s depicting life under a religious totalitarian government with at the core an adventure story.   Things mentioned...

Five old people live in Tuppenny Halfpenny Cottage and spend their time dealing with health problems, the prospect of death, and their irritating housemates.  A black comedy which leaves few characters from its aim (apart from what is probably the only positive depiction of an advertsising executive in literature).  Language note: includes a  homophobic slur and racist attitudes 1989 TV adaptation...

In 1936, among the residents of the modest houses of Riverside Villas is 14 year old Peter Furneaux, obsessed by model aircraft, jazz and the mysterious world of sex.  Amis builds a murder mystery around an evocation of very particular time, place and social context, taking the opportunity to parody the tropes of the crime novel while drawing heavily on autobiography and taking consequences seriou...

A morality tale set in late 60s London, often praised as a satire of young people these days and their older cheerleaders, but in fact an exploration of Henri de Montherlant's philosophy of the self-sufficient man who only engages with romance as a passing diversion.   Note on sound quality: heavy rain at times. Note on content: includes a discussion of racial slurs Links Henri de Montherlant  The...

One of Amis's best novels, worth reading, and worth reading unspoiled.  Maurice Allington, alcoholic and adulterer, runs a country pub near Cambridge abounding in ghosts and the presence of the supernatural entity the Green Man.  In this discussion I highlight Amis's adoption of the M R James approach to writing about ghosts, the dubious antiquity of pub names and the 'green man' sculptural motif,...

Amis presents a fairy tale in which a Sleeping Beauty is saved by love, dressed up as a satire of the ultra rich and 1960s talk shows.  Ronnie Appleyard, ambitious and selfish, meets Simona Quick, listless heiress, and struggles to prise her away from the influence of her autocratic mother Lady Baldock, while visiting Greece and the southern United States.  Ronnie finds his usually weakly-held con...

This episode looks at Amis's contributions to the James Bond literature - Colonel Sun , his continuation of the Fleming series, set in the Greek islands, and a critical review of Fleming's work as a whole.  I discuss whether the novel works as a Bond book (yes), whether Amis fans will find much of his usual pleasures (no)  (and on the way manage to get E M Forster's definition of story and plot co...

A change in approach, with a sort-of thriller in the near future, following an experimental army unit preparing to use a secret and terrible weapon.  But much of the story is about love, and Amis abandons irony while exploring whether the existence of God can be reconciled with the existence of suffering.   References R D Laing The Divided Self (1961) John Robinson Honest to God (1963) Dylan Thoma...

What is the Metropolitan Egyptological Society and why does it discourage public and media enquiries? It is impossible to answer this question without spoilers so I've included a warning at the point where all is revealed.  I discuss the co-author Robert Conquest, how the protagonists got stuck in unfulfilling marriages, whether womanisers like women as much as they claim to, the surprising availa...

The adventures, mainly amorous, of Roger Micheldene, soaked in sin, fat, rude, and angry, in suburban America, as he tries to persuade Helene Bangs to leave her husband for him.  Many readers mistake the target for the satire: it is Micheldene and the society that produced him that Amis is critiquing, although he does share some of his prejudices (especially about literature).  The discussion muse...

Kingsley Amis's longest, and some say his best, novel, recounts the tortuous relationship of innocent Jenny Bunn and lascivious Patrick Standish as they negotiate societal mores and personal boundaries in a pre-Pill world.  In this episode I explore the source and meaning of the epigraph "Go, gentle maid, go lead the apes in hell", whether the book can be read as an indictment of the male gaze, wh...

Amis complains about going abroad and foreigners (and expats) while his main ire is aimed at the literature tradition of English writers imbuing Mediterranean cultures with a deep understanding inaccessible to those without the means to travel.  Amis's least favourite novel, based largely on his own experiences when the family spent 3 months in Portugal as a conidtion of Lucky Jim winning the Some...

The tale of 'Unlucky John', trapped in an unsatisfying job and home life in Swansea, offered an escape route through an affair with a bored wife and her hard-partying friends.  In this episode I discuss the parallels with Amis's own life, whether anxiety about mortality is a plausible excuse for infidelity, and why farce requires sympathy with the protagonist to be funny.   Language note: I includ...

A detailed look at Kingsley Amis’s first published novel, covering the role of luck, whether as an Angry Young Man he wants systematic change or just a better place for himself, and the characteristic KA internal monologue reflecting moral ambiguity and confusion as a new form of expression.  Also discussed are the song from which the title derives, the long shadow of military service, whether rel...

Moving onto the work of Kingsley Amis, some recommendations on where to start ( Lucky Jim and The Old Devils ), a discussion of his biography and political development, and the value of his work as a social history of the 50s-70s. Books mentioned: Zachary Leader  The Life of Kingsley Amis The Letters of Kingsley Amis

Martin Amis's final collected journalism volume has its interesting moments, including a tempering of his love of Nabokov, doubts about Jeremy Corbyn, and thoughts on Larkin and Germany, which I contrast with Barbara Pym's as described in Paule Byrne's biography The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym .  In this episode I also look back on the novels as whole, including a discussion of  Shifts by Chris...

We reach Amis's last book, an exercise in autofiction that combines autobiography, a discussion of Philip Larkin's politics and love life, moving accounts of the deaths of Christopher Hitchens and Saul Bellow, and a fictitious years-long frustrating affair with Phoebe Phelps.  If that sounds like a mess then you're not wrong, but there are some very good bits.  I explore his advice to writers whic...

Amis's contribution to the Careers Fair of Auschwitz stays mainly with the guards, exploring the lives and morals of those engaged in delivering the Final Solution.  I discuss why Shakespeare and Auden seem out of place, and Amis's view of the significance of 1942.   Jenny Frazer The fictionalising of Auschwitz       The Tobolowsky Files episode 34: a good day in Auschwitz

Another attempt at a state-of-the-nation comic novel, but this time feeling detached, as if Amis is no longer up to date with British society. In this discussion I refer to "Who let the dogs out?" by the Baha Men, Evelyn Waugh's  Vile Bodies (1930), whether Mean Mr Mustard makes sense as an 80s nickname, and Lionel Blair's cultural footprin t. Amis is groping towards a point about nature and nurtu...

A long hot summer in Italy - it's 1970 and Keith Nearing is 20, working his way through the canon and thinking about sex with his companions.  A sprawling novel about the reconfiguration of social mores in the aftermath of the sexual revolution - not for nothing does it start with Larkin's Annus Mirabilis.  In this discussion I highlight Katha Politt's criticisms of the depiction of female charact...

Amis's short Russian novel takes us through history from Stalinism to Putin's failed state, while following a lifelong love triangle between two brothers and Zoya.  Content note: the book and the podcast include descriptions of sexual assault and reference self harm.  I mention Adam Curtis's  Russia 1985-1999: Trauma Zone (available in the UK on BBC iPlayer) and Kingsley Amis's novel Jake's Thing...

Amis's second short story collection is diverse in subject, style and antiquity - including  a science fiction story that reveals that Earth is unimportant and doomed, a fantasy where poets make big money film deals and screenwriters starve, and a commentary on the way that society has left the old rules of status and masculinity behind, featuring Big Mal Bale who reappears in Yellow Dog.  There a...

The publication of Yellow Dog was greeted with dismay by the papers, writers and fans. "Embarrassingly bad" was the memorable description by novelist Tibor Fischer.   Tibor Fischer review   Parts are aggressively unpleasant- the tedious brutality of old-style London gangsters, the extravagant cynicism and hypocrisy of the tabloid journalists, and the grimy business of the pornography industry, but...

Carol Morley's 2018 film adaptation of Night Train places the action in New Orleans.  The podcast discusses how the book's mystery has been altered to make it more of a conventional noir , why it was filmed in 'Covid style' with empty rooms and few people, and why the viewer may find the ending unsatisfying.   Worth watching if you like the book; there is a spolier section at the end of the episod...

We jump across the Atlantic to a modern noir, with a disillusioned alcoholic cop investigating the death of her beautiful and successful friend.  A comic novel light on jokes, with an emphasis on the meaninglessness of existence and the impossibility of happiness.  The podcast ponders whether a work that shows the police as bigoted, lawless and incompetent counts as "copaganda", where the phrase "...