Comments on: The recent Eagleton vs Amis affair

By: Fugstar

Fugstar — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:33:05 +0000

As much as i love bits of the left, they only discursively protect us because we are weak.

Can somebody somewhere manufacture some ummahtic mind bullets of our own!

By: Old Pickler

Old Pickler — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:00:38 +0000

Martin Amis apparently spent over £10,000 having his teeth done. So why does he never smile?

By: Thersites

Thersites — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:02:00 +0000

Regardless of Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis’s The Green Man contains one of the most convincing portrayals of god in literature.

By: Thersites

Thersites — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:43:40 +0000

Actually, Professor Eagleton alleged that Amis had said this in a essay, not an interview, as part of a deliberately-argued set of propositions, not in a spur-of-the-moment conversation. He also omitted "There's a definite urge - don't you have it? - to say..." which makes it plain that Amis does not think it a good thing to say or do, even if it is a temptation. Indeed, in the essay which Eagleton conflates with the interview, he says: "Since then the world has undergone a moral crash - the spiritual equivalent, in its global depth and reach, of the Great Depression of the Thirties. On our side, extraordinary rendition, coercive psychological procedures, enhanced interrogation techniques, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Mahmudiya, two wars, and tens of thousands of dead bodies." http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1868732,00.html however, that doesn't fit with Professor Eagleton's view. It looks as if close reading isn't part of Professor Eagleton's critical technique.

By: Yunus Yakoub Islam

Yunus Yakoub Islam — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:42:09 +0000

The Telegraph have been boo hooing over the fact Eagleton called Martin's daddy lots of horrid names - surely, just to call 'Lucky Jim' totally unfunny would have been nearer the truth: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/10/namis110.xml Amis wrote something for The Observer a while back which was pretty vile, as I recall. No wonder Zia Sardar calls the novel an over-rated cultural form!