I have just been told that Martin Amis has read my book on Stoke City, She Stood There Laughing. This information was passed on a football messageboard. I’d link the thread but it’s so full of internal ‘jokes’ and people calling each other names that it’s both embarrassing and incomprehensible.
However, here is the lead post, written by my posh friend Wilbur. It has made me feel rather proud. It seems that I have put myself into a position that Amis considers risky. Money and London Fields were two of the great novels of the last Millenniun. Few ideas can be more thrilling for a young(ish, a few years back) writer than that Amis has read you and has even remembered enough about your work to have formed an opinion. I may mix myself a celebratory glass of something involving pink gin. [Wingo, at the end, is me; ** is the Great Man himself]
So, I’m having a beer yesterday with assorted acquaintances while our respective other halves are attending a baby shower*. The conversation turns, as it does when men who don’t know each other very well, to sport in general, and football in particular.
We talk of the premier league and attention is drawn to my allegiance to Stoke City. The father-to-be states that he has recently read a book about Stoke in which the sweary author takes his son all over watching Stoke be shit, and is very rude indeed about Tony Pulis.
His father-in-law, who is one of this island’s most famous proper** authors, has also read this flimsy pamphlet, and with a chuckle wonders how the next edition will be altered to reflect Pulis’ current high standing. The phase “hostage to fortune” is used.
Imagine their surprise when I inform them that the author remains quite firmly of the opinion that Pulis is a c**t, and that not even our remarkable automatic promotion to the top flight of English football will soften his stance even slightly.
Wingo, you can be proud that one of our foremost word-inventing iconoclasts has not only read your book, but whistles inwardly like a mechanic on time-and-a-half at your valiant pissing in the wind.
Now your even getting us to write your blog, this is beyond a joke.
By: Belly on May 12, 2008
at 1:51 pm
‘You’re,’ Belly, you fool.
By: Stephen Foster on May 12, 2008
at 1:58 pm
hi stephen, long time reader, first time blogger
you look like indiana jones in your picture
By: Denby on May 12, 2008
at 2:10 pm
I was being Alanis, honest.
By: Belly on May 12, 2008
at 4:47 pm
“has also read this flimsy pamphlet”
I like it, Wilbur.
OS.
By: OS. on May 12, 2008
at 5:58 pm
“Imagine their surprise when I inform them that the author remains quite firmly of the opinion that Pulis is a c**t, and that not even our remarkable automatic promotion to the top flight of English football will soften his stance even slightly.”
Hear! Hear!
By: AndyP on May 12, 2008
at 6:41 pm
I can only imagine how nice it must be to have a famous author read your book. However, I can’t stand Martin Amis. I think he’s hugely over-rated, not least by himself! I stated this opinion on a literary forum once, where the other contributors were in fawning awe of him. I was hounded out of the forum for it, in much the same way as Edward Woodward in ‘The Wicker Man’ – it was most bizarre.
By: thegroundhog on May 14, 2008
at 10:24 am
He excites different responses, groundhog, but he will still be read years from now, which I don’t think McEwan, for example, will.
His memoir, Experience, is a good and interesting book, I think, one which demonstrates a quieter, more introspective, and even vaguely humble(ish) voice. My partner, who has little time for Amis, liked it a lot.
The lead post here is meant a bit tongue in cheekish, btw. Although it will do MA no harm to read a bit of proper writing
By: Stephen Foster on May 15, 2008
at 3:37 pm