false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167095463m/18827.jpg 18827 13 "We live in the age of mass loquacity," Martin Amis writes by way of introduction to <I>Experience</I>, thereby placing the reader in a curious bind. How to feel about a memoir by a writer who deplores our current enthusiasm for memoirs? Can such a public appeal for private life be convincing? The son of misanthropic comic novelist Kingsley Amis, Amis the Younger's life story is "a literary curiosity," he tells us, "which is also just another instance of a father and a son." He's spent his whole life bathed in the dubious yellow glow of celebrity, from the cries of nepotism surrounding his first novel's publication to the bizarre tempest in a teapot involving the size of the advance for <I>The Information</I>, his choice of literary agent, and of course that famously expensive set of new teeth. <p> Here, finally, is Amis's chance to set matters straight--and if you're looking for his take on these controversies, you won't be disappointed. In fact, you should turn right away to the end of the book. After all, how many memoirs have indices--and how many indices are this entertaining? In addition to movers and shakers like "Travolta, John," "Brown, Tina," and "Bellow, Saul," one finds an extended entry for "dental problems," which includes "of animals," "sexual potency and," "Bellow on," and--more ominously--"tumour." <p> Yet it's as "a clear view of the geography of a writer's mind," not as a celebrity tell-all, that <I>Experience</I> succeeds. Organized not by chronology but by a strange thematic schema all Amis's own, this messy, tangential book moves backward and forward in time and comes studded with footnotes and interspersed with schoolboy epistles. As a result, it's much truer to the actual texture of experience than anything more "novelistic" could possibly be. Amis's charming, quarrelsome, almost entirely helpless father; the tragic disappearance of his cousin, Lucy Partington; the daughter discovered only as an adult; those <I>teeth</I>--the narrative circles around these events and personages in prose as virtuoso but often less chilly than that found in his novels. This is memoir as anatomy of obsessions, and in the most profound way, it illuminates the source and power of Amis's remarkable work. <I>--Mary Park</I> 918753 2000 Experience: A Memoir total:380|5:107|4:154|3:96|2:13|1:10| 380 1475 555 41 5 1 false false Thu Nov 06 09:10:18 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 13 14:19:00 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Nov 21 01:59:08 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 21 02:00:40 -0800 2008 1 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?]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jul 30 04:26:31 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 01 05:40:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 07 19:15:32 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 07 19:45:28 -0700 2008
Experience is a space in which Amis flaunts his consistently dazzling stylistic gifts while he assembles (...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Jul 23 00:06:18 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 23 00:14:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Tue May 19 17:11:54 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 17:14:47 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Apr 08 18:27:22 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 08 18:27:22 -0700 2009 The cleverest and funniest and most moving memoir I’ve ever read, and each time I reread it I’m simply drunk with pleasure. -- Jim Holt, "The Best Novels You've Never Read," New York Magazine]]> 5 0 false false Wed Dec 24 00:58:28 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 24 01:01:14 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Dec 18 19:30:51 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 18 19:55:56 -0800 2007
"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 c...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Feb 02 05:16:43 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 02 05:17:46 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Mon Feb 09 20:55:38 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 09 21:00:22 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Tue May 08 15:52:58 -0700 2007 Tue May 29 09:20:54 -0700 2007 Experience. It's very easy to judge a total stranger based on interviews, but this memoir is an honest account of his untidy life...more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Apr 15 10:19:11 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 15 10:20:24 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sat Nov 22 09:23:15 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 22 09:24:01 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Mon Dec 22 13:50:46 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 22 14:17:41 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Wed Sep 02 14:05:56 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 14:06:45 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sat May 19 08:23:22 -0700 2007 Sat May 19 08:54:45 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 05 11:55:14 -0700 2007 Fri Oct 05 14:36:42 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Mon Jun 04 20:46:07 -0700 2007 Mon Jun 04 20:47:37 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Aug 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 03 08:24:27 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 03 08:29:23 -0700 2008
Amis' stance regarding Islam may be troubling ("I thin...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=18827