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Amis transformed vernacular English into screamingly funny voice-powered novels in the 80s and 90s, but he was even better in his later collections of journalism – showing how style was intrinsic to perceptionMartin Amis, era-defining British novelist, dies aged 73I suspect it’s difficult for anyone under the age of … what? 30? 40? – to comprehend the thrall Martin Amis exerted on writers now in their 50s or above. One might have to insert a qualifying “male” here. Or go the other way, stop generalizing and say how thoroughly he had me in his thrall throughout the 1980s and 90s. There were writers I admired more but he was more fun to read than all of them put together. I sat there aghast at his transformative impact on language. In Money he imported an American form – the voice-powered monologue – and mixed it in with vernacular English ingredients that were traditional and of the moment. The next big novel was called London Fields but this phase of extended dominance can be likened to an earlier titular declaration from 1979: London Calling. But just as this was a New York-inflected London, so the daylight yobbery of register was always being yanked (in both senses) into a subtly different gear by a mix of inheritance (Kingsley), institution (first-class English degree from Oxford) and indebtedness to American favourites: Saul Bellow, pre-eminently). An ironic consequence of all this was that Amis’s contemporaneity made Bellow seem old-worldy (while Martin enjoyed the dubious distinction of being referred to as an enfant terrible well into his sixties).But what was this this? Or, More exactly where was it? In Money, obviously, but the truth is that with the exception of Time’s Arrow Amis’s other major novels were all overlong. I tired of them even in the midst of relishing them. London Fields sagged fatally – then sprang back into life. The Information was unable to sustain the weight and momentum of its opening. What this meant was that he was at his consistent best in the collections of journalism such as The Moronic Inferno and The War Against Cliche. His signature strength as a writer – the electrifying prose – was also a component of his shortcoming as a novelist. In some ways, an unflashy writer such as Tessa Hadley seems to get closer to the permanent mystery of great fiction than he ever did. But style is not just a varnish; it is, as he pointed out, intrinsic to perception. Every page of his writing – in any form – was steeped in his consciousness and I was besotted by that consciousness in all its forms. I think that’s why there was such a personality cult around Amis in a way that there could never be a cult of Julian Barnes or AS Byatt. Amis was Mick Jagger in literary form. Continue reading...