From: stephenjones
Category: Amis
Date: 7/28/99
Time: 5:58:56 AM
Remote Name: 130.159.248.35
Lane says:
"I do believe myself that NT's stylistic departure was a feckless slap-in-the-face to typical Amis devotees."
I say:
Why do readers get upset when their favourite writers try something new? From talking to friends and reading this board I've noticed that for some reason "Money" and "London Fields" have come to be regarded as 'Typical Amis' and that when he doesn't produce another book in this vein then it's seen as a failure.
Now the problem with this view is that it's the form and style of LF an M that are seen as typical rather than the repeated that actually make a typical Amis novel. Stylistically and formally there is no such thing as a typical Amis novel while thematically they are all linked.
It's okay not to like all of Amis (for me the Rachel Papers is unreadable) but if you want to read a stylistically consistent writer then try Elmore Leonard or Jane Austen or some such. For me however one of the main attractions to Amis' writings is his stylistic diversity and willingness to experiment.
I, Nostradamus predict that Amis' next novel, featuring Big Mal from "Heavy Water and Other Stories", and, therefore, presumably written in a similar style, will be universally hailed as a return to form.
Incidentally does anyone here consider themselves to be a typical Amis Devotee?
PS. Lane, find your own voice or at least stop copying dead white guys. Honestly writing in-the-style-of 'the beats' is like writing like Chauce: They're both old forms that fail out of context and , more importantly, it makes you look stupid, which, from the above posting, you evidently aren't.