Michael Hofmann reviews Martin Amis and it’s a stinker. This is the bit that stuck out for me. It will look pedantic but there’s a lot that can be recovered from this paragraph.
I walked on for another ten minutes; then I turned and looked. The Buna-Werke – the size of a city. Like Magnetigorsk (a city called Sparkplug) in the USSR. It was due to become the largest and most advanced factory in Europe. When the whole operation came on line, said Burckl, it would need more electricity than Berlin.
There might be something to be said about the role of industry and technology in the Holocaust, although plenty has been. There might be something to be said about the fascination, hatred, cooperation, similarities, and differences between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, although plenty has been. There might be something to be said about German imagination of the two vast Fordist industrial superpowers, although quite a bit but maybe not enough has been. And clearly Amis wants to say it.
But he doesn’t want to say it enough to look Magnitogorsk up in Wikipedia and find out that the vast iron and steelworks city the Soviets built with the help of consultants from all over the world, like John Scott and Ernst May, is named for the immense magnetic mountain where the iron ore comes from. That is of course why they built it there. (A magnetic mountain; not a bad title, eh?)
Further, he doesn’t know or doesn’t care that a magneto is not a spark plug. A magneto is a device that produces electricity from rotational motion; a spark plug uses that electricity to light off the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder head. Evidently he only got the idea because if you spell the place correctly, as he didn’t in the final copy, it sort of looks like it might be Magneto City, not Magneticville or even just Magnetite, a good name for a mining town out west (or east). It only looks like that if you don’t care that it’s Russian and that’s a language that isn’t English.
But this is his shtick. Lionel Asbo; hur hur funny name. John Self; hur hur funny name. 21 virgins; hur hur funny the word is a bit like raisins in foreign. Apparently this time out he’s discovered German. It’s what he does, smart as in smart arse, never as in smart bomb. He aims for seriousness, over-pitches because he won’t put in the effort, and pulls out of the pratfall by sniggering at foreigners, broadly defined. He’s the Boris Johnson of literature. Like Johnson, somehow he fits into London in ways it would deny.
Also, it would be remiss not to point out that his chancer/liaison officer antihero of ambiguous and prolific sexuality and stereotypical cultivation sounds remarkably like yer man from Jonathan Littell’s Les Bienveillants, as does his relationship with his aunt, and indeed with his boss.
He’s the Boris Johnson of literature. Like Johnson, somehow he fits into London in ways it would deny.
In my current late-night half-drunk state this seems strikingly perceptive. Let’s see if I can get anywhere with it.
1. There are an awful lot of people in London.
2. There are also a lot of opportunities in London.
3. However, access to the opportunities – although formally open to all – is rationed by ability, making London a competitive meritocracy where the truly able take the best jobs, the slightly less able the slightly less good jobs and so on.
4. Yeah, right.
5. The trouble is, everyone wants to be thought to be able, but nobody knows a reliable way to identify ability (or, more importantly, lack of ability).
6. So London is full of bluffers fighting one another for positions which they themselves believe to be above their true level of ability.
7. Obviously this isn’t true for real-world values of ‘full’ (or ‘London’) – statistically, most Londoners are perfectly nice people – but the higher (and more visible) you get, the more the bluffers will predominate.
8. To the point where bluffing can actually look like a career path.
9. It would be slightly more accurate to say that London is full of bluffers and would-be bluffers.
10. It’s not easy being a bluffer – I mean, not all the time.
11. Someone who can bring it off – what a guy!
12. See also Farage.
Phil: that would be true of everywhere, though, would it not? Unless London is the only place where jobs are rationed by ability…
Merseyside, where I think few would argue that the economics are similar to London, has about as many words for “a young man bluffing about his ability or suitability for a task” as the Inuit do for snow
well thats nailed Amis for me.
I read money as a teenager and found it entertaining but I cant say there is anything about it that really stuck with me beyond knowing that I’m suposed to like it because ” its a great satire of …..”.
Is there anything after that is worth reading? maybe I’m being unfair but Ive paid attention to reviews of whatever his latest is – because its AMIS and whatever i read seems to always be telling me about AMIS’s new thing.
They seem to be about something that could be interesting but sopmehow AMIS manages to do in a crap way.
I’ve never read anything by Thomas Pynchon but ‘Gravity’s rainbow’ sounds similar theme wise and I wonder if it would be worth it if I was in the right mood/level of commitment.
I never get that feel about AMIS and I think you’ve summed it up as that desire to be ‘really really serious’ but without putting the effort in.
‘lionel asbo ‘ sounded embarrasing – how many crap or dull novels does the guy need to write for him not to be ‘AMIS’ anymore ?
how many crap or dull novels does the guy need to write for him not to be ‘AMIS’ anymore ?
N/A. He is, like Capita and G4S, Too Big To Fail – there is no way that he can screw up badly enough to stop getting big contracts.
personally, I think you’re underestimating his durability
I am pleased to inform you that the link in that post has rotted when the Grauniad stopped having a subdomain for Obscurer content. the first sands are blowing over the statue.