From: jules
Category: Amis
Date: 7/17/99
Time: 12:49:53 AM
Remote Name: 205.188.198.31
All I can contribute to this thread is that The Man told me when he was typing the final "re-writing" of *London Fields* on a cold, grey afternoon in London- November 8, l988- that in it he was going to "turn post-modernisn on its head."
Martin philosophized about the characters, good and evil, in the novel. (Taken from my notes & tapes) A literary moralist, Amis revealed how closely he identified with his protangonist, a young American writer, (Samson Young<<analyze that name, will you) strategically living in trendy West London. A writer [Samson] who finds writing a novel morally wrong in that you invent these "people" and "then you punish them like a god would." Amis explained how he gets around this uneasiness and turns post-modernism on its head."
Amis: "Well, that strikes me as true about babies, they're both heaven and hell-- at the same time. ...What appeals to me in this book, the good child, is the daughter of the villan, and the bad child is the son of the good character. It's the first time I've tried to make [one] do it seriously...a good character. It's a very hard thing to do. "
Anyway, am tired now just returned fom Victoira, BC. Will write more from the notes I transcribed from the LF tapes later,
Meanwhile, take it from there... and i believe you have already.
Julie Clinch ("truth is stranger than ficiton"...)