From: Gooch
Category: Amis
Date: 8/5/99
Time: 11:55:26 AM
Remote Name: 129.219.247.97
EXCERPT FROM BLAKE MORRISON'S INTERVIEW OF KINGSLEY AMIS:
Which novelists did he read, then? "I remember my professor's wife in Swansea saying: 'I don't read novels anymore,only biographies.' Silly old cow, I thought, but now I don't read novels either. The only one who's any good is Martin Amis."
Were there really no others? "George Macdonald Fraser. But Larkin, Betjeman, Elizabeth Taylor, they've all died on me." No Americans? He groans. Roth, Bellow, Mailer? He buries his head in his hands. "It's no coincidence that the founding father of American literature, Edgar Allan Poe, spelt *death* in italic capitals followed by three exclamation marks, just to let you know he was making an Important Statement. But as J.L. Austin said in another context, importance isn't important, truth is."