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Experience: A Memoir

by Martin Amis

3.91 · rating details · 685 ratings · 65 reviews

Martin Amis is one of the most gifted and innovative writers of our time. With Experience, he discloses a private life every bit as unique and fascinating as his bestselling novels.

The son of the great comic novelist Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis explores his relationship with this father and writes about the various crises of Kingsley's life. He also examines the life and l...more

Paperback, 432 pages

Published June 12th 2001 by Vintage (first published 2000)

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

The Times Online 100 Best Books of the Decade (2000-2009)

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Jan 13, 2010

Lobstergirl rated it

Recommends it for: Lamar Odom

Shelves: own, memoir

It's probably appropriate that Experience and Speak, Memory are often compared, because Amis worships Nabokov, and you have to read them both with a pencil handy so you can underline and marvel over their brilliant sentences. But what I've read of both their fiction, while it provides the occasional chuckle, and in the case of Nabokov admiration, has left me cold, even queasy (yes, I have suspicions it's me, not Nabokov, though I feel fortified in learning on p. 119 that there's "something...more

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Dec 11, 2009

MJ Nicholls rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: novels, sassysassenachs

Martin Amis, you will discover, is a human punching bag for critics. Google his name or one of his books, and you will find an endless resource of Amis-bashing from broadsheets to boobrags.

The reason? Pretension. People perceive Amis as a conceited windbag who ranks himself amongst Nabokov, Saul Bellow and his father Kingsley in the pantheon of literary greats. The voice doesn’t help – that interminable transatlantic drawl with its considered hesitations and self-important emphases. ...moreMartin Amis, you will discover, is a human punching bag for critics. Google his name or one of his books, and you will find an endless resource of Amis-bashing from broadsheets to boobrags.

The reason? Pretension. People perceive Amis as a conceited windbag who ranks himself amongst Nabokov, Saul Bellow and his father Kingsley in the pantheon of literary greats. The voice doesn’t help – that interminable transatlantic drawl with its considered hesitations and self-important emphases.

The fact of the matter, of the fact of the matter (of the matter), is that Amis is a towering presence in the field of lit-crit: the sharpest and smartest Nero of criticism working in Britain right now, with almost four decades of experience under his belt.

Which brings me to Experience, a book that is not about lit-crit, that is not about literature, but which purports to be about Amis and his dad. Well, firstly, there is no book about Martin Amis which is not about lit-crit and the process of writing. After the first fifty pages – past the infinitesimal detail about his entrance into the litosphere – I got the impression Amis had been imprisoned in this role of literary executioner since birth. His entrance into the literary world is so casual, like a son automatically following in his dad's footsteps, that it is barely covered.

The novel is largely about Amis’s relationship with his father Kingsley Amis and his cousin Lucy Partington, cut down by Fred West at a bus stop at the age of 21. Amis writes about his father using an incredible amount of literary comparisons and footnotes, showing how much he learned of his father through his books, and quite how important ‘the book’ was in their lives – scarcely a day in the Amis household would pass without reference to the Greats.

As is to be expected in household of writers who count Philip Larkin as a cuddly uncle. Anyway, this book is fascinating and intimate. Amis was deeply affected by his cousin’s death, and her presence is felt throughout the whole novel, mirroring her impact on his life. Kingsley is evoked as a genius, wit, and a hilariously un-PC father, but also an adulterer, paranoid and lonely man.

Amis looks back on his youth with humour and contempt – including a series of spotty photos in the sleeve – and tackles the press who fondly hound him, and romanticises his dental agony as being a sign of greatness. There are the usual Amis preoccupations to be found here – Nabokov, Saul Bellow and his never-less-than-irritating mate Christopher Hitchens.

Even if you’re not a fiftysomething intellectual from a time when people had staunch political stances and voiced ‘radical’ opinions among the bourgeois highbrow crowd, you should find this memoir a touching portrait of an unconventional and privileged upbringing. The passages about his father's death are especially touching. Amis's most honest and lyrical writing is to be found here.

Or, you’ll find this a self-indulgent portrait of a man you have absolutely interest in whatsoever.

I rather enjoyed it, you know.(less)

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Jan 13, 2009

Andrea Carolina rated it

Shelves: ingleses, 2008, mas-alla-de-mis-espectativas, biblioteca-mia

La otra noche terminé de leer la autobiografía de Martin Amis aunque Martin Amis haya escrito su autobiografía como a los 45 años y aun este vivo. Al final el libro resultó bastante largo y un poco repetitivo a ratos, pero nunca decepcionante. Me quedan muchas cosas de ese libro, muchas cosas y profundas, vuelvo y digo que me siento realmente comprendida con las palabras, con las ideas con la historia y los sentimientos de este señor, comprendida en este punto de mi vida, vuelvo y digo que los l...moreLa otra noche terminé de leer la autobiografía de Martin Amis aunque Martin Amis haya escrito su autobiografía como a los 45 años y aun este vivo. Al final el libro resultó bastante largo y un poco repetitivo a ratos, pero nunca decepcionante. Me quedan muchas cosas de ese libro, muchas cosas y profundas, vuelvo y digo que me siento realmente comprendida con las palabras, con las ideas con la historia y los sentimientos de este señor, comprendida en este punto de mi vida, vuelvo y digo que los libros me llegan en los momentos precisos.
A pesar de su dramática o triste historia, no se que vida no es triste, el libro es divertidísimo, juro que pase del llanto en un párrafo a la carcajada en el siguiente párrafo, literalmente. Martin Amis es lo suficientemente ingenioso para saber cuándo burlarse de algo y cuando no, para saber cuando las cosas se tornan muy tristes y ahí hacernos reír, y también sabe que hay cosas en las que simplemente el humor no entra, no es bienvenido, no cabe por la puerta, porque como el mismo lo dice “la burla es el fin del sentimiento” y hay sentimientos que la burla o el humor no puede matar.

Debería haber más escritores o mas historias bien escritas que hablen de relaciones entre padres e hijos. Parece que las relaciones entre hijo (hombre) y padre, o hija (mujer) y madre, siempre han sido más conflictivas y difíciles que las relaciones entre los dos géneros opuestos, y no digo que el señor Amis haya tenido la mejor relación con su padre, pero al menos a mi me cambia la perspectiva de lo que pueden ser las relación entre padres e hijos. Me deja pensando en esa forma finalmente tan amorosa, comprensiva en que trata a su padre sin dejar de ser muy sincero, directo y honesto con el todo el tiempo hasta cuando se estaba muriendo, la sinceridad con su padre pareciera cruel, pero Martin Amis es solo como un niño que dice la verdad.

Con respecto a la violacion y el asesinato de su prima, me parece valerosa la forma en que lo confronta y lo asume, me gusta como habla de temas tan delicados, innombrables en cualquier sociedad del mundo, puede que no haya hablado mucho al respecto en su libro, pero deja claro que en su vida confrontó en profundidad tal hecho asqueroso, y lo deja a uno pensando esa forma en que le pone la cara a la muerte, a la oscuridad, a lo no concebible, y tiene tanta pero tanta razón cuando dice que hay hechos en la vida que no se trata de aceptarlos sino de darles credibilidad, y se pasa la vida no tratando de aceptar un hecho sino de creerlo porque son tan atroces que cuesta demasiado creerlos.

Son muchas las cosas de las que habla Martin Amis en su libro Experiencia, de los amigos, de los hijos, de las madres, de los padres, de la inocencia, de los antisociales, de la adolescencia, de crecer, de los libros, poco habla del amor y que alivio, ya muchos escriben del amor. Queda claro que según el titulo de este libro “la experiencia” es lo mejor que nos puede pasar, pero cuando Martin Amis habla de experiencia se refiere a vivencias duras, profundas, muy reales, de esas que cambian la vida y ya no lo dejan a uno igual jamás.

Martin Amis se consolida cada vez mas como uno de mis autores favoritos sino el favorito, ya me compre uno de sus últimos libros La Casa de los Encuentros, única novela de amor escrita por el, y siendo la única de amor no se hará esperar mucho, dice Amis que nunca había sufrido tanto escribiendo un libro como ese. La otra vez leí que el New York Times lo calificaba como el escritor que escribe sobre historias miserables, como si las vidas miserables fueran algo tan lejano de nosotros, yo me rio, la gente se cree que no tiene vidas miserables porque es la cosa mas difícil de admitir en el mundo, además estamos rodeados de miseria humana, pero ese es el gran valor de Amis y de la buena literatura, que es capaz de ver, escribir y adentrarse en las miserias del ser humano.
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Nov 21, 2008

Manny rated it

I think this is my all-time favourite autobiography. Beautifully written, packed with wonderful anecdotes, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny and sometimes deeply moving. What more can you ask for?

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Jul 05, 2011

Ethan rated it

The title, it turns out, is a caveat emptor.

I went in expecting a look at MA's life as a writer in his twenties, thirties, and forties--the Granta/Booker heydays, nights out, friends, foes and lovers. You know, summer reading fun.

I got perhaps fifty pages on tooth pain, tooth anxieties, trips to dentists, and ruminations on the dental problems of famous novelists.

And discussions about a murdered cousin (and with it, the obvious hope that the weight of that ter...more

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Jun 18, 2011

Jenny rated it

I've read a couple of Martin Amis' books and several of his dad's. Somehow, after London Fields, I decided there was something about him I didn't quite care for. But then a review of another biography compared it to this one and said how good Amis's was and so I put it on my Kindle and read it at the writers' retreat. I found myself laughing out loud quite often (always a good thing)and I enjoyed his thoughts about writing and literature especially in the first part. The second part is mainl...more

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Aug 01, 2009

F.R. rated it

· review of another edition

To be honest I’ve always preferred the novels of Amis Sr to Amis Jr. Although I haven’t dipped as extensively into Martin’s work as some of my contemporaries, nothing I’ve read so far has matched – say – ‘Lucky Jim’. Indeed I think the younger Amis’s books would benefit from him taking a page at the beginning to write: “My name is Martin Amis and I am very clever.” Once those two facts have been clearly established he wouldn’t need to bang on about them in the prose and we’d no doubt have much m...moreTo be honest I’ve always preferred the novels of Amis Sr to Amis Jr. Although I haven’t dipped as extensively into Martin’s work as some of my contemporaries, nothing I’ve read so far has matched – say – ‘Lucky Jim’. Indeed I think the younger Amis’s books would benefit from him taking a page at the beginning to write: “My name is Martin Amis and I am very clever.” Once those two facts have been clearly established he wouldn’t need to bang on about them in the prose and we’d no doubt have much more insightful novels.

But I digress.

Having taken KA’s ‘Memoirs’ from the library, I thought that, in the interest of fairness, it was only right I also borrowed MA’s ‘Experience’. Reading them back to back has been an interesting diversion (not least because father and son have vastly different styles), but one which shows the strengths and limitations of both men.

Kingsley Amis’s book is a collection of essays, wherein our author looks back over various periods of life and reminisces about various writers he’d met. As such we learn about his time in Oxford, Swansea and America; he talks about his friendships with Philip Larkin and Anthony Powell; and gets to settle scores with the likes of John Wain and Roald Dahl. The format of the book might make it a volume to dip into rather than read all at once, but all his hallmarks are here – pomposity, booze, a fear of the modern and – cringingly at times – sexism.

Reading it I imagine that to have a drink with the older Amis would be to enter a world where the cantankerous had been made flesh. However, it’s impossible to deny that he was a witty old bugger and there are some genuinely laugh out loud lines.

The problem with it as an actual book is that it’s a collection rather than an actual book. There are themes that reoccur, there are dramatis personae who reappear, but in the main it’s a series of vignettes – some more comic than others. Furthermore, as the author makes clear in the preface, he is trying to focus on others rather than himself, so we end up with this odd affair where KA as a narrator remains somewhat unknowable (and certainly unexamined). As such I can’t help thinking that it would have been better to frame a lot of these incidents as fiction and let the author run wild with a narrator who is present for the reader. Yes, there are a lot of good things in this book, but as a whole it’s not the enjoyable read his best novels are.

Now focusing on one’s self is something that Martin has never had a problem with. As such I was expecting a more personally welcoming affair, and for the most part I wasn’t disappointed. We find out about Martin’s family in these pages, and as such more about Kingsley Amis’s family than we do in Kingsley’s Amis’s book. Martin does provide some very touching and real moments, and it is the more emotional of the two, but the flaws I’ve always found in Martin’s writing are still in evidence.

Firstly, the self absorption. Okay, this is an autobiography and so the writer is allowed to bang on about himself. Perfectly true. Martin writes really well on the death of his father and the disappearance of his cousin Lucy Partingdon (who fell victim to serial killer Fred West) but we also get pages of prose given over to the author’s dental problems. Yes, toothache is painful and the dental procedures MA went through sound horrific even to someone whose read a lot of horror, but does anyone really need a 100 pages on it?

Secondly, there’s the style. At one point Phillip Larkin accuses Martin of “over-writing” one of his novels. This is strikes me as a perfectly valid criticism and one that holds true for this book too. It is frustrating that this autobiography can veer from tender descriptions of family and loss, to lengthy – and wordy – paragraphs of po-faced pretension. (The young MA is quoted describing Keats thus: “All right when he’s not saying ‘I’m a Poet. Got that?’” The same criticism can be levelled at him as a writer.) The format also lacks focus, and veers off in some quite odd directions – for example, an interview the author did with John Travolta is mentioned again and again for no discernable reason. This is certainly an area where KA wins out, as his book is designed to concentrate on one individual – and sometimes one anecdote – at a time.

Martin is something of a ghost in the text of his father’s book. For the most part he is fleetingly mentioned, so if you didn’t already know that he was a novelist you might just mistake him for an enthusiastic literary reviewer. (Although Kingsley does take the time to administer a kick to two of his son’s literary idols – Saul Bellow and John Updike.) His father however looms large in Martin’s book, and is far more of a real person than he is in his own volume.

I have given both books three stars. Kingsley’s book is fragmentary and episodic in design, but the prose is crisp and the text is genuinely funny; while Martin’s is incredibly touching in parts and more emotionally honest, does contain the same literary ticks that disturb me in his fiction. However, if you have an interest in either man and want a book to read from start to finish, then the son’s is the one to go for.(less)

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Dec 09, 2009

Robert rated it

Shelves: 2009

'Experience' was surely one of the best books I read this year. I came into this book having read nothing at all by Kingsley Amis and almost nothing by Martin Amis, but I was completely fascinated by this sort of autobiography told in a series of vignettes. Amis jumps around his entire life, bringing the reader in medias res to a situation here and a conversation there.

It documents the slightly crazy upbringing and adulthood of Martin Amis, a child of Britain's literati class. 'Exper...more

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Dec 04, 2011

Brittany Kubes rated it

I was advised to read The Information, and then to read Experience in order to give context to Amis because he gets a lot of flak for his personal life & writings. After loving The Information, I don’t think I needed to delve into this memoir….while Amis has certainly led an interesting life, this book made me come back down to earth after The Information and like him a little less.

Without any sense of chronology, the memoir touches gently on the major events that formed Amis’ li...moreI was advised to read The Information, and then to read Experience in order to give context to Amis because he gets a lot of flak for his personal life & writings. After loving The Information, I don’t think I needed to delve into this memoir….while Amis has certainly led an interesting life, this book made me come back down to earth after The Information and like him a little less.

Without any sense of chronology, the memoir touches gently on the major events that formed Amis’ life: the murder of his cousin, Lucy Partington, by one of London’s most famous serial killers, Frederick West; physical problems (bad teeth, short stature, youthful chubbiness); a famous writer for a father; father cheating on mother; and pedophiliac & suicidal encounters throughout his life. The final major affecter is literature, which explains why there were so many quotes from books and details of other authors in a memoir about himself, but it does not mean that it was enjoyable. Because it was not. I felt slightly schizophrenic, jumping forward and back in time, and trying to unearth the subtly hinted at events in Amis’ life that were buried in literary quotes and references to other authors such as Nabokov, Bellows, Updike, and of course his father. Kingsley Amis, the father of Martin, was a famous writer as well, and much of Martin Amis’ memoir focuses on the life of Kingsley. If you are interested in reading a biography of Kingsley told through the eyes of his son, please read this book. However if you do so, you must also sidestep the unnecessary excerpts of self-inflation by Amis, which mostly consisted of his tales of “luridly mingling” with actors like John Travolta, Tom Hanks, and Sophia Loren, and then comparing himself and his teeth troubles to other aforementioned literary greats (Updike, Nabokov). Barf. Amis IS great, but the greatness speaks for itself, and that is why his bragging about connections to other famous people is so unnecessary.

DESPITE the above, I am still in love with Amis’ prose (which furthers the idea that I should stick to his lit). I adore his use of vocab like ‘schadenfreude’ and ‘climacteric,’ and how he often identifies people in terms of dedicatees of various books. While sifting through his pontifications on his father and other authors, there were also many funny bits, in particular his self-deprecations about being young and tubby (“I was unlucky thirteen, overweight and undersized: I had reached that clogged point in youth, where childhood was obviously running out, and yet no alternative mode of existence seemed available or even possible….’You’re too fat for that suit, Mart,’ said a student, with shattering justice, in the summer of 1963.” + [on reading his brother’s diary entry, which said…] “’Mum told me she found Mart crying in the night about the size of his bum. I do feel sorry for him, but a) it is enormous, and b) it’s not going to go away.’ I was particularly impressed by clause b).”) Such a funny man.
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Mar 31, 2010

Kristin rated it

The writing in this book is so spectacular that it completely makes up for the fact that I wasn’t really interested in much of the content and, in fact, I suspect I wouldn’t like him very much if I met him in person. But he’s so smart, and his writing is so elegant that I don’t really care where the journey leads, I just love going along for the ride. Not a traditional memoir: non-chronological, lots and lots of footnotes, but I think it made for a better read - I really feel like I was in his h...more

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Aug 03, 2011

Annie Holmes added it

Well, Simmi Isaac seems to have covered this memoir quite thoroughly in the review box below! I haven't read Amis Jr for years - his prose is like some people: big forcefield even when you don't like them very much. A part of me is still, a week or two later, living in his world and concerns. Even though his control feels so intense in the structure, the M. Amis character seems vulnerable. On one hand, he's so nakedly vehement in his defensiveness - the teeth, the biographer, the 4th Estate - an...more

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Jul 09, 2010

Steffi rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: auto-biographies

Diese Autobiografie ist schon ein wenig selbstverliebt. Jede Menge Namedropping (nicht nur Schriftstellerkollegen wie Bellow, Larkin und McEwan, sondern auch Teddy Kollek und John Travolta), Frauengeschichten, Nabelschau. Interessant sind zwei Themen, auf die Amis immer wieder zurück kommt: Zum einen seine Cousine Lucy, die dem berühmten Frauenmörder Frederick West zum Opfer fiel, und zum anderen seine ständigen Zahnschmerzen. Auch das Verhältnis zu seinem ebenfalls berühmten Vater Kingsley nimm...more

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Jul 28, 2011

Derek Baldwin rated it

A few authorly flourishes, and the refusal to follow a straight timeline, are minor irritations but basically this is beautifully written, heartfelt, and ultimately really quite moving. Part memoir, part homage to Kingsley Amis, but also a tribute to his murdered cousin Lucy Partington (one of Fred West's victims), and the chance to settle a few scores. Which, with great dignity (or possibly faux humility, hard to tell), Martin refuses to do. There are rather too many footnotes and digressions a...more

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Dec 21, 2011

Diann Blakely added it

EXPERIENCE begins with Martin Amis’s cranky resignation to the limits of the genre he has chosen: memoir. He knows, of course, that fiction presents its own incorrigible limits, ditto life itself—or at least life when viewed as a structural principle. For novels, Amis points out, warp “reality experiences”—a term with particular resonance after a season of "Survivor II" and "Temptation Island"—because novelists inevitably fall prey to the “addiction to seeing parallels and ma...moreEXPERIENCE begins with Martin Amis’s cranky resignation to the limits of the genre he has chosen: memoir. He knows, of course, that fiction presents its own incorrigible limits, ditto life itself—or at least life when viewed as a structural principle. For novels, Amis points out, warp “reality experiences”—a term with particular resonance after a season of "Survivor II" and "Temptation Island"—because novelists inevitably fall prey to the “addiction to seeing parallels and making connections.” On the other hand, life, in addition to being “thinly plotted, largely themeless, sentimental, and ineluctably trite,” the author complains, contains bad dialogue and always uses “the same beginning; and the same ending.”

All quite true, but most sophisticated readers still insist on beginnings and endings, even as these same readers groan with irritation when the dull plod of overdetermination becomes audible. Amis sought to defeat the latter problem by preserving what he calls “collateral thought,” those swerves and interruptions that are essential to good storytelling. But, he wondered as he began Experience, how many times can a reader have a story interrupted and still preserve a sense of its track? Infinitely many, several leading fiction writers have discovered, as long as prose conventions permit the use of footnotes. The device has been used with great ingenuity and cleverness by Rick Moody and by the late David Foster Wallace, but they adopt the footnote largely as a means of ironic commentary on the text itself, whereas Amis views what is literally subtext as essential to any writer’s stringently examined life.

Some readers will be surprised to learn that Amis’s footnotes aren’t extrapolations on his decision to leave one agent (who happened to be the wife of his quondam friend, Julian Barnes) for the notorious, high-rolling Andrew Wylie, nor are they a public means of trashing novelist A.S. Byatt, who denounced Amis in the British TIMES, suggesting that the move was occasioned by his wanting money to have his crooked teeth cosmetically updated. Instead, while EXPERIENCE partially springs from the author’s understandable desire to set certain records straight, far more important is Amis’ subtle insistence on memoir as a means of examining ourselves vis-à-vis the relationships that life extends to us.

One might even argue that tone, which embodies writers’ attitudes toward their subjects, becomes the most important structural aspect in EXPERIENCE. Amis’s, distinctive but wide-ranging, has been deeply inflected by his historical and literary identity, an identity that makes the gap between the postwar English and American experiences seem like a galaxy-wide black hole. The most famous voice of that era arguably remains Philip Larkin's--“deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth"--and thus Amis's appreciation for the work of his famous father's friend is of little wonder, even if has recently become news in the Anglophone literary world (http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/9601aee4-...). The ’50s in England differed from the Blitzkrieg years primarily in the absence of Hitler’s bombs, but most Americans have little knowledge of the dreary and pinched circumstances that lingered for years after victory’s afterglow faded and Amis's countrymen were left with the exploded ruins of buildings, a staggering debt incurred by the national defense, and a grim sense that shortages of butter, sugar, gas, and tobacco would never ease. Postwar Britain’s predominant tones imparted a sense that history is more real than psychology, that irony is ultimately classical and tragic, and that fate shapes our lives as surely as free will. As an example of the last, Amis compares the different reactions of his American wife and himself when his father becomes critically ill: we Americans rush for specialists at Hopkins or Mayo, comparative tests, and third and fourth and fifth opinions, he says, while Brits tend to accept a dire diagnosis and ask merely which queue they should join.

Amis’s sense of humor is singular and droll, and he’s hardly incapable of joy—his descriptions of his children, especially the birth of his second daughter, are rapturously smitten. Yet his refusal to dodge life’s darker truths is finally what distinguishes his memoir from the dozens of others published each year. That, and, of course, the presence of Amis, Sr.—who spent a year as a visiting writer at Vanderbilt. “I thought it very representative of your integrity,” the younger Amis graciously wrote to his father in 1967, “to warn me of the defficiencies [sic] of Nashville.” A footnote to this letter quotes directly from Kingsley’s description of Nashville—“known, unironically I suppose to some, as the Athens of the South”—and his experiences with a novel-writing Vanderbilt colleague who apparently said, more than once, “I can’t find it in my heart to give a Negro or a Jew an A.”

(originally published in the NASHVILLE SCENE / Village Voice Media)(less)

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May 16, 2011

Callie rated it

Why did it take me so long to read this?! He's got a lot in here about his father, and a lot about his own teeth (I thought I hated the dentist, but this man has REAL problems) The teeth point toward his aging and thoughts about his own mortality which is what the book is mainly grappling with. It's not very comprehensive or even very revealing as memoirs go. You'll learn more about Kingsley and his divorce, his death, his regrets, etc. than you ever learn about Martin. But of course he's a geni...more

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Jul 07, 2008

Eric Cartier rated it

Perhaps I didn't read this at the right time: it didn't completely click with me, although it was never unenjoyable. I'll read his first four novels next, which I've left for last.

Experience is a space in which Amis flaunts his consistently dazzling stylistic gifts while he assembles (in a complex structure) the narrative of his family, friendships and life as a writer. There is also the dark story that winds itself throughout and around the book: Amis's 21-year old cousin Lucy P...more

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Feb 26, 2010

Revista Archivosdelsur rated it

· review of another edition

Una muy buena autobiografía del escritor Martin Amis, que tiene además una intriga policial, la desaparición de una prima. Sin ser una novela ni un policial, el suspenso se mantiene hasta el final.
Además el libro también recorre la vida del padre del escritor, también escritor. Es una de las mejores autobiografías que leí.

Comenté este libro en el primer número de la revista Archivos del Sur.

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Jul 23, 2009

Karthik Krishnan added it

Told through Martin Amis's typical fiery prose, it is an autobiography like none other. For starts, Martin analyses his relationship with his writer-father Kingsley Amis. His family tragedies involving his cousin's disappearances, his many marriages, divorces, his dental problems, etc find expression. This is Martin Amis's masterpiece.

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May 19, 2009

Yeti rated it

A gripping memoir that covers fathers and sons; divorce; a family grieving the loss of a loved one to the hands of a serial killer; the tragedy of dental hygiene in the United Kingdom; and what it means to be a writer. Two parts memoir, one part diary, Amis' work here is reminiscent of Nabokov's own memoir "Speak, Memory."

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Feb 26, 2010

Jennifer rated it

Shelves: didn-t-finish

To make a memoir interesting it must either 1)be about someone who you are interested in to start with, or 2)be about someone inherently interesting. As I haven't read any of Martin Amis' fiction, nor anything by his father, Kingsley Amis, it was up to the author to convince me that his story was worthwhile. Unfortunately, it wasn't, and after about 80 pages, when he begins to document his adventures in dentistry, (he gets ALL his teeth pulled and replaced with dentures at a relatively young a...more

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Jan 18, 2012

Gina rated it

I'm a big fan of Martin Amis so perhaps this memoir isn't for everyone, but his insights and shared experiences of love and loss helped me cope with my own grief experiences.

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Jul 31, 2011

Manuel Barrios rated it

· review of another edition

Quizá el mejor libro de Amis. Unas memorias magníficamente escritas y muy interesantes para conocer no sólo al escrito sino también a su generación. Muy recomendable

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Jan 10, 2011

Rosie Brocklehurst rated it

Have not been able to get into an Amis novel since The Rachel Papers years ago. I liked that then but not now. But this Memoir, Experience, was in a different league. It made me work hard, dashing about as it does - but such luminous prose (some small stuff does not work , most does) and searing insight and tenderness. Massive piece of work with a range of powerful experiences and written beautifully. Lucy Partington section is difficult to read because it is such a horror story. Even the time ...more

· see review

Dec 24, 2008

Beth rated it

The portrait of his father Kingley Amis was sympathetic, loving and honest. The story of Martin Amis' own struggle with dental work was horrifying. Amazing book.

· see review

Jul 27, 2010

Mark rated it

poignant well observed memoir by martin amis which centres fondly on the excesses of his father kingsley and the removal of his (martin's) teeth. amis writes so well

· see review

Dec 18, 2007

Donn rated it

· review of another edition

Joyce, Nabokov. Adverbs. Assignation. Inadvertencies. Saul Bellow. Bad teeth. And Kingsley.

"A violently confused kiloton of water was driving laterally along the bay towards us...I have seen seas disgracefully tousled and disorganized, in the epilogue of hurricanes, sick-green and crapulent after their atrocious splurge, and meaninglessly milling, flapping, cringeing. The cross-tide we now faced, while formidably muscular, had the same deracinated air as it sidled loutishly towa...more

· see review

Jan 03, 2010

Carol added it

Recommends it for: anglophiles

English life as it is experienced by a man "of letters", the son of another famous writer, Kingsley Amis. An intimate memoir of the difficult days before his father's death and other memorable events in his life.

· see review

Feb 09, 2009

Chris rated it

The style and structure too often create a screen behind which the real Amis hides. But maybe that's for the best.

· see review

May 29, 2007

Casey rated it

Shelves: adults

I have always felt that Martin Amis is probably a giant ass. This opinion is only confirmed by my feeling of an increasing crankiness in each new book. I'm glad I read Experience. It's very easy to judge a total stranger based on interviews, but this memoir is an honest account of his untidy life, and it's told with genuine feeling. There's his huge jerk of a famous father, there's a missing cousin, there's a child he knew nothing of. With Experience, readers gain some sympathy for Amis, wh...more

like 1 like

· see review

Apr 15, 2009

Kevin is currently reading it

My favorite author in terms of personality -- he has a punk ethos though I don't think he'd admit it if asked.

· see review

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About Martin Amis

Martin Amis is an English novelist, essayist and short story writer. His works include the novels Money, London Fields and The Information.

The Guardian writes that "all his critics have noted what Kingsley Amis [his father] complained of as a 'terrible compulsive vividness in his style... that constant demonstrating of his command of English'; and it's true that the Amis-ness of A...more

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Quotes from Experience: A Memoir

“What did Nabokov and Joyce have in common, apart from the poor teeth and the great prose? Exile, and decades of near pauperism. A compulsive tendency to overtip. An uxoriousness that their wives deservedly inspired. More than that, they both lived their lives 'beautifully'--not in any Jamesian sense (where, besides, ferocious solvency would have been a prerequisite), but in the droll fortitude of their perseverance. They got the work done, with style.” — 17 people liked it

“I am easily moved to tears and rarely survive a visit to the cinema without shedding them, racked, as I am, by the most perfunctory, meretricious or even callously sentimental attempts at poignancy (something about the exterior of the human face, so vast and palpable, with the eyes and the lips: it is all writ too large for me, too immediate for me.)” — 10 people liked it

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