While the other members of his 1980s gang - Barnes, McEwan, Rushdie, Ishiguro - have all bagged a Booker, Amis remains relatively trophy-less. So why have the big literary awards eluded him?
Like many I love Money, London Fields & The Information but when I wrote a chapter of a PhD on pornography in literature and focussed primarily on Yellow Dog it became apparent that, while I saw it as ground-breaking if flawed, it attracted much journalistic and academic ire. Conversations with colleagues dissuaded me from teaching it on the grounds of perceived sexism, structural illegibility, etc. But to add my answers to the question .... 1) YD is among many Amis high-concept, pun & joke based novels with plots which don't really end, just rather judder to a halt; 2) he may be our Dickens but he seldom writes with warmth.
The short answer is probably… Money didn’t make the shortlist in 1984, and if you look at that shortlist only the Barnes and Ballard novels are remembered. Flaubert’s Parrot should have won, but in hindsight Money’s absence from the shortlist looks odd.
In 1989 it would be hard to argue that London Fields should have pipped The Remains Of The Day, but again not being shortlisted stands out. There was publicity at the time around two of the judges digging their heels in against Amis, and it was unfortunate that it later transpired that Maggie Gee hadn’t understood the novel, and was mistaken in her objections.
Agree that The Information is the best of the trilogy. Looking at what else was in the running in 1995 that is perhaps a clearer case of daylight robbery.
The Booker process always has had odd outcomes, which is part of the charm.
You're right that London Fields was blocked by Maggie Gee and Helen McNeil. The then Booker administrator Martyn Goff said it was ‘an incredible row… they should have been outnumbered as the other three were in agreement, but such was the sheer force of their argument and passion that they won.’
Re 1984, I can't agree that only Ballard and Barnes are remembered! Indeed, perhaps unusually for a shortlist almost 40 years old, all six of the novels are still in print, and David Lodge's Small World and Penelope Lively's According to Mark have even been elevated to classic imprint status! Also, the 1984 winner, Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac, has never been out of print since it won, and you could say that her uncompromising female narrators are more influential in literary culture now than they were then.
It's a pleasure to snub Martin Amis. Never has the trajectory of a more arrogant wanker been so deservedly abridged. The sad spectacle of an enormous talent tethered to a puny soul, so rich in wit, contempt and self-pity and so lacking in heart. The hollowness of Amis, his blindness to human variety, his deficit of kindness, generosity and sympathy...why even discuss him at this point? It just exercises our own facilities of contempt.
Like many I love Money, London Fields & The Information but when I wrote a chapter of a PhD on pornography in literature and focussed primarily on Yellow Dog it became apparent that, while I saw it as ground-breaking if flawed, it attracted much journalistic and academic ire. Conversations with colleagues dissuaded me from teaching it on the grounds of perceived sexism, structural illegibility, etc. But to add my answers to the question .... 1) YD is among many Amis high-concept, pun & joke based novels with plots which don't really end, just rather judder to a halt; 2) he may be our Dickens but he seldom writes with warmth.
The short answer is probably… Money didn’t make the shortlist in 1984, and if you look at that shortlist only the Barnes and Ballard novels are remembered. Flaubert’s Parrot should have won, but in hindsight Money’s absence from the shortlist looks odd.
In 1989 it would be hard to argue that London Fields should have pipped The Remains Of The Day, but again not being shortlisted stands out. There was publicity at the time around two of the judges digging their heels in against Amis, and it was unfortunate that it later transpired that Maggie Gee hadn’t understood the novel, and was mistaken in her objections.
Agree that The Information is the best of the trilogy. Looking at what else was in the running in 1995 that is perhaps a clearer case of daylight robbery.
The Booker process always has had odd outcomes, which is part of the charm.
You're right that London Fields was blocked by Maggie Gee and Helen McNeil. The then Booker administrator Martyn Goff said it was ‘an incredible row… they should have been outnumbered as the other three were in agreement, but such was the sheer force of their argument and passion that they won.’
Re 1984, I can't agree that only Ballard and Barnes are remembered! Indeed, perhaps unusually for a shortlist almost 40 years old, all six of the novels are still in print, and David Lodge's Small World and Penelope Lively's According to Mark have even been elevated to classic imprint status! Also, the 1984 winner, Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac, has never been out of print since it won, and you could say that her uncompromising female narrators are more influential in literary culture now than they were then.
It's a pleasure to snub Martin Amis. Never has the trajectory of a more arrogant wanker been so deservedly abridged. The sad spectacle of an enormous talent tethered to a puny soul, so rich in wit, contempt and self-pity and so lacking in heart. The hollowness of Amis, his blindness to human variety, his deficit of kindness, generosity and sympathy...why even discuss him at this point? It just exercises our own facilities of contempt.