People ask me if I ever thought of writing a children's book. I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book,' but [here he shakes his head] the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable.
I first heard about his insulting view of children's authors on Twitter this morning, and when Googled, I found this great response from author Lucy Coats. So....I decided to go figure out who the hell Martin Amis even is, because I've never heard of him.
He has apparently penned some of Britain's best-known literature... Money in 1984 and London Fields in 1989. Okay.... still not ringing a bell, but I was just an English lit major in college at that time, so why would I have read him? Ahem. Moving on... on Wikipedia I found a quote from his publisher regarding one of his works, The Pregnant Widow (2010), a novel that is supposed to be oh-so-groundbreaking-and-written-by-him-someone-who-doesn't-have-brain-damage:
The 1960s, as is well known, saw the launch of the sexual revolution, which radically affected the lives of every Westerner fortunate enough to be born after the Second World War. But a revolution is a revolution - contingent and sanguinary. In the words of the Russian thinker Alexander Herzen: The death of the contemporary forms of social order ought to gladden rather than trouble the soul. Yet what is frightening is that what the departing world leaves behind it is not an heir but a pregnant widow. Between the death of the one and the birth of the other, much water will flow by, a long night of chaos and desolation will pass. In many senses, including the literal, it was a velvet revolution; but it wasn't bloodless. Nor was it complete. Even today, in 2009, the pregnancy is still in its second trimester. Martin Amis, in "The Pregnant Widow", takes as his control experiment a long, hot summer holiday in a castle in Italy, where half a dozen young lives are afloat on the sea change of 1970. The result is a tragicomedy of manners, combining the wit of "Money" with the historical sense of "Time's Arrow" and "House of Meetings".
*blank stare*
Okay, then. That sounds like fun.
And defnitely not written by someone with any issues to share with the class.
So...on that note... I think I will go back to revising EMERALD CAVE, my silly little middle grade book filled with magic and bad guys and family and love, and I'll go back to writing my first draft of SIX DATES WITH JENNA, a young adult novel full of a new forbidden love, growing up and choosing your destiny. And then after all of that, I will continue revising STOLEN SPRING, my adult paranormal mystery, and then I'll even finish THE LEGEND OF BILLY BEAD, a ghost story of redemption and forgiveness.
Because I just can't figure out how to write about the pregnant bloodless velvet waters, or whatever the hell Amis believes to be so freakin' important, due to all of the brain damage swimming around in my head. *sigh*
Happy reading, happy writing.... and peace always...
:-)
"the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable."
ReplyDeleteHe wasn't just insulting children's authors here, but *any* author who writes with a specific audience in mind...ie, all genre fiction writers.
The irony of it is that he feels restraints on his creative freedom are intolerable, and yet merely by stating he can't imagine writing for a specific audience he limits his own work.
Whatever dude. *shrugs*
Exactly - and the more I read about "his work" the less I was jazzed about reading anything he's written, and that's fine. God knows I don't have time to read everything under the sun. LOL
ReplyDeleteIt was just interesting how he made this statement on a show with a rather wide audience. He apparently had a bee in his bonnet about something!
Happy writing, Jamie!
Cynthia