Experience

_Experience_ is a memoir so filled with vital detail and humanity that I really did not want it to end. Amis is charming but also unapologetic, a quality that few writers can genuinely claim. The book's scope is impressive because aside from Amis's life, it chronicles the lives of his immediate family members, his father in particular. There are a number of fascinating elements to draw in his readers--profane and hilarious letters written mostly in his late teens that serve as chapter entrees, the story of his one stint as a film actor, the parallel discussion of his cousin Lucy Partington's violent death, the affectionate portraits of his parents and friends--Christopher Hitchens and Saul Bellow, most notably. Also some of the most memorable lines I've read: for one, his description of some mouthfuls of bad teeth as a "bag of mixed nuts and raisins." This is a memoir that challenges and charms us; here Amis is at his most wry and funny and moving.

This is a memoir structured like none you have ever read. You don't read about Martin Amis' life, you "experience" it. The occasional letters home written while he was in school anchor the structure. The letters are bracketed by his fierce criticisms of his own past writing styles.Mr. Amis has brilliance, humor and intellect, all bursting like fireworks off the page. He also has quirks that he freely indulges. You have to get past his obsession with his teeth. (Yes, teeth.) He can start on any subject and get waylaid by dental experiences he has had. You almost forgive him these tirades, as he describes them so vividly. No one who has served a sentence or two in a dentist's chair can help but agree "the drill, capable of making your vision shudder." Then there is the issue of his phantom obesity. He continually worries about the past, present and future size of his "bum," yet every single photo in the book depicts a slim boy/youth/man called Martin Amis.One of the strongest areas in the book is his loving tribute to his family, particularly his father, the renowned Kingsley Amis. The family is eccentric-twenty years after his parents' divorce, Kingsley moves in to the upper story of his happily remarried ex-wife's residence where she cares for him the rest of his life. The reason for this move is Kingsley does not and will not stay alone at night. His sons take this as an absolute given and grown up Martin and brother Philip discuss whether they will have to move in with Dad to quell the night frights.Mr. Amis' descriptive powers are a marvel as they drop effortlessly through his narrative, such as, "There is a slushy crush outside the British Airways terminal. Everyone is enlarged, fattened, baggy with impedimenta, with winter coats, padded, air-bubbled, taking up a lot of space, and bumping into one another." He gives you instant mental snapshots and then races off to something new. Some parts of his life he takes for granted you must know and never bothers to enlighten the reader. A photo of Saul Bellow, the author holding a baby and an attractive woman standing by his side is captioned "---For structural reasons, the baby I am wielding cannot be named." Mr. Amis never sheds any light on who this baby is or what the "structural" reasons are.Though the author can be a cynic, waspish and impatient; his best portraits are of those people he admires and loves. His mentor Saul Bellow and close family friend, poet Philip Larkin, are marvelously well drawn and prescient. Martin feels Larkin was horribly maligned by his biographer, Andrew Motion and does what he can by drawing a poignant portrait of his father's dearest friend. This book draws you in until you are completely absorbed and involved in Martin's usually frenetic, but always interesting life. Highly recommended, particularly for anyone interested in modern English literature.

This memoir surprised me. I have always liked the works of Kingsley Amis while enjoying those of his son, Martin, somewhat less. (But not invariably - I very much liked London Fields and the Information.) This is possibly due to my misunderstanding of his work. I always came away feeling somehow hurt by the cynicism (if it was that) and the slurpily sexist overtones. These impressions now dismay me. The Martin Amis who wrote Experience seems to be an ardent, compassionate and thoughtful man; good company in any situation calling for wry self-abnegation (those teeth!) and fierce devotion. This is full of delights: screams (of laughter and horror), drinks, youth and the loss of it, life and the loss of it, self-recognition (the point of experience). Surprised and very, very pleased.

I think that Martin Amis has never written more beautifully than he does in `Experience'. This is saying a lot. In the last twenty years no other writer -- not even John Updike -- has displayed a comparable love of language: what Sebastian Faulks calls Amis's 'disciplined literary exuberance'. I think the 'disciplined' part is something a lot of people overlook in talking about Amis's linguistic acrobatics. Amis never eschews lucidity in his writing; every word is carefully chosen, every adverb and adjective absolutely spot-on. 'Experience' shows Amis turning his prose on himself, and his family, particularly his father; yet the book isn't a conventional memoir. James Wood, in an insightful review, wrote of the book as `an escape from memoir...an escape into privacy.' Rather than trace in detail the life of a successful writer in the post-WW2 world, the advances and the interviews, Amis has tackled the universal theme of innocence becoming experience; of Youth becoming Age and ultimately Death. This is not to say that Amis has gone super-solemn. `Experience' is full of wonderful set-pieces (including a wonderfully funny account of Christopher Hitchens laying into Saul Bellow over Israel's foreign policy) and his father's tidal-wave wit is everywhere. But at the heart of `Experience' sits the understanding that Death is inescapable, yet not impossible to accept. Kingsley's death - the most moving part of the book - removes the intercessionary figure that stands between Martin and Death; yet it also makes him realise how precious and important life is, and how lucky writers are in being able to leave their best work behind them. I should say that `Experience' does have its annoyances. There are too many footnotes, interesting though some of them are; and Amis appears to be leaning more and more on the ellipsis as a literary device, and diminishing returns are starting to creep in. But these are minor cavils. `Experience', I believe, will pass the sternest test of literary value: it will reward re-readings in the years to come.