Am reading Zachary Leader's biography of Kingsley,fascinating to see him brought to life from 1958. I stood next to him in a pub in Hampstead once in the early 1990's,now a big fan of KA
Kingsley is terrifically still, implying honesty. Have just finished rereading 'The Green Man'. He knocks his son into a bucket. i think Mart knows this, in his heart of hearts.
Martin had the great problem of being the son of a celebrated and skilled man; he also had the advantages, a role model, social connections etc. What children of the rich and famous lack (usually) though is the hurt experienced through lack of love in childhood, which is a common driver for the highly successful. Graham Greene on being asked (I paraphrase), 'What's the best recipe for becoming a writer?' replied. 'A painful childhood'.
That is such an unfashionable opinion, but the books of KA are marvellously readable and satisfying affairs, and I suspect you are right. To me, it seems likely that in the more distant future we will "know" the 50s and 60s through him in the same way that we "know" the Regency through Jane Austen
@@simonjones7727 Agreed; an unfashionable opinion-and correct. Martin's books are daring, moral-and finally just not very nourishing. But one goes back to King again and again.
@morphybum: Few people have praised Kingsley Amis’s work more enthusiastically than his son the late Martin. There was no jealousy there. Personally I enjoy the work of both novelists enormously. The Rachel Papers was every bit as good a début as Lucky Jim (and, decades later, they’re both still bloody funny). It’s a shame MA died before he could see the Jonathan Glazer film of The Zone of Interest, the first film adaptation of one of his books that got it right. Which has prompted me to think… must look up the film version of Lucky Jim with Ian Carmichael.
What beautiful 'Queen's English' in this interview! Posh, granted, but very refined and so very much more beautiful than the sloppy and regional varieties we hear today, even on the BBC.
Amis’ English is posh but not cloyingly so. The interviewer’s accent and speech rhythms are easy on the ear but really something we’re not likely to hear again. I mean, it’s really a product of a cloistered social milieu so very few live in today. Amis’ English is good educated, refined English that more people would speak, or at least approximate, if they weren’t afraid of whacked over the head as being posh.
Maybe it's because I'm Australian, but I love Britain's regional accents - you get a sense of the real Britain. Interesting to see (or rather, hear) the Royal Family becoming more Cockney (Mockney?) with each generation.
Couldn't agree more. But TGM is by no means the best of KA's novels - try, if you haven't done so already, The Alteration, The Riverside Villas Murder, Stanley and the Women, and Jake's Thing. Rollicking good reads all.
That's not true at all. The interviewer sounds exactly like any BBC presenter would in the 1950s. Nothing remarkable here. A more accurate observation would have been that the American cartoon image of an Englishman is based on an ill-understood accumulation of trite clichés, deriving probably from memories of PBS and Masterpiece Theatre.
![Gunna - HIM ALL ALONG [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HiCxoDeo0hc/mqdefault.jpg)
Am reading Zachary Leader's biography of Kingsley,fascinating to see him brought to life from 1958. I stood next to him in a pub in Hampstead once in the early 1990's,now a big fan of KA
Wow, that was awfully rude of Simon Raven to interrupt at 2:28!
"Well fair enough!"
Have indeed read them all (at least once)
Kingsley is terrifically still, implying honesty. Have just finished rereading 'The Green Man'. He knocks his son into a bucket. i think Mart knows this, in his heart of hearts.
Martin had the great problem of being the son of a celebrated and skilled man; he also had the advantages, a role model, social connections etc. What children of the rich and famous lack (usually) though is the hurt experienced through lack of love in childhood, which is a common driver for the highly successful.
Graham Greene on being asked (I paraphrase), 'What's the best recipe for becoming a writer?' replied. 'A painful childhood'.
That is such an unfashionable opinion, but the books of KA are marvellously readable and satisfying affairs, and I suspect you are right. To me, it seems likely that in the more distant future we will "know" the 50s and 60s through him in the same way that we "know" the Regency through Jane Austen
@@simonjones7727 Agreed; an unfashionable opinion-and correct. Martin's books are daring, moral-and finally just not very nourishing. But one goes back to King again and again.
His son belongs in a bucket and looks increasingly like what one would find in a bucket o’ bait.
@morphybum: Few people have praised Kingsley Amis’s work more enthusiastically than his son the late Martin. There was no jealousy there. Personally I enjoy the work of both novelists enormously. The Rachel Papers was every bit as good a début as Lucky Jim (and, decades later, they’re both still bloody funny). It’s a shame MA died before he could see the Jonathan Glazer film of The Zone of Interest, the first film adaptation of one of his books that got it right. Which has prompted me to think… must look up the film version of Lucky Jim with Ian Carmichael.
Yes, but where to watch the film online?
What beautiful 'Queen's English' in this interview! Posh, granted, but very refined and so very much more beautiful than the sloppy and regional varieties we hear today, even on the BBC.
+hdholl It's a shame people think there's some virtue in not caring about what you sound like nowadays
Amis’ English is posh but not cloyingly so.
The interviewer’s accent and speech rhythms are easy on the ear but really something we’re not likely to hear again. I mean, it’s really a product of a cloistered social milieu so very few live in today.
Amis’ English is good educated, refined English that more people would speak, or at least approximate, if they weren’t afraid of whacked over the head as being posh.
@@written12 I too miss the tones which were normal within my class when I was young.
Maybe it's because I'm Australian, but I love Britain's regional accents - you get a sense of the real Britain. Interesting to see (or rather, hear) the Royal Family becoming more Cockney (Mockney?) with each generation.
Infinitely better dressed as well
Couldn't agree more. But TGM is by no means the best of KA's novels - try, if you haven't done so already, The Alteration, The Riverside Villas Murder, Stanley and the Women, and Jake's Thing. Rollicking good reads all.
he sounds remarkably like his son
Or his son sounds remarkably like him
He does, this clip in particular is so similar. - ruclips.net/video/7qLIkrW5uI8/видео.html
Unsurprisingly as both were public school and Oxford educated including coming from the social class
interviewer shouldn't interrupt an interesting answer
@ehunter2 Really? Have you read Raven's novels? Totally the opposite in every outrageous way.
Raven as Comissar of political correctness? Hardly think so.
That's not true at all. The interviewer sounds exactly like any BBC presenter would in the 1950s. Nothing remarkable here.
A more accurate observation would have been that the American cartoon image of an Englishman is based on an ill-understood accumulation of trite clichés, deriving probably from memories of PBS and Masterpiece Theatre.
There's a good chance you're overestimating the cultural pull of PBS on the American collective unconscious.
What an insufferable prat of an interviewer! “Fair enough”….