Something Strange by Master Zen Kingsley Amis – this marvelous article shows one side of the magisterial author https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/06/kingsley-amis-irritation-ending-up-martin-craig-brown - 10 out of 10

 

Something Strange by Master Zen Kingsley Amis – this marvelous article shows one side of the magisterial author https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/06/kingsley-amis-irritation-ending-up-martin-craig-brown

10 out of 10

 

 

I have just read part of an article (the link is above) that looks at the role irritation played in the writing of one of the greatest novelists – and one who has written poetry, short stories, such as Something Strange, Science Fiction, nonfiction on music, drinking and much more – ‘Some writers obsess about love, or memory – Amis built an empire out of irritation’ with reference to Ending Up, one of my absolute favorites http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/07/ending-up-by-kingsley-amis.html where the humor is exhilarating – there is one scene which I remember (getting more mature, not old, I have some of the flaws the characters are afflicted with, such memory loss…what was I mumbling about, oh, yes this is just an approximation) where the gesture is so outrageous as to be compared with the waiter of the Ritz (maybe, or some other fancy place, or just no hint of that is in the book, only twisted imagination) bringing the coffee, might just be an order, then sitting down for a chat…hilarious, isn’t it?

 

‘The desire to irritate and annoy animated Amis all his life…He was both irritable and irritating, equally adept at feeling intense irritation and dishing it out…he said ‘If you can’t annoy somebody with what you write, I think there’s little point in writing” the humor is evident in One Fat Englishman

“It was no wonder that people were so horrible when they started life as children’ http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/08/one-fat-englishman-by-kingsley-amis.html and everywhere else in the magnum opera

Martin Craig has made an excellent in his laudatory article and we can take irritation and see it is present in the Short Story Collection, starting with My Enemy’s Enemy http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/11/my-enemys-enemy-by-magister-ludi.html where we have irritated and irritating army personnel, a general is sending special couriers with his laundry to Brussels, wherefrom he wants to get his cigars and wines, in the middle of a devastating war, while another officer is determined to pack off a fellow that irritates him and organizes an impromptu inspection

 

Then we have the Court of Inquiry http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/11/court-of-inquiry-by-messiah-of-comedy.html where Major Raleigh is irritated and irritating in his attempt to take to court Frank Archer, the one who has left behind an engine, which was useless and without parts, and the court is absurd, because they have one engine that nobody claims, which has parts furthermore and the absurdity is comical

 

Irritation is again at the center in Moral Fibre, where a social worker called Webster is bragging about the help she had given Betty, a fallen woman, mother at a very early age, left to fend off for herself, but who is at her best when she associates with the ‘business girls’ – the narrator explains that he thought for some seconds that this is about some shops maybe, only to realize quickly that those women were prostitutes, or sex workers in the parlance of the present – and she has sex with sailors, away for her Danish husband, and when she returns to the family hold she feels trapped, stifled and unhappy

 

Irritation is at the center of I Spy Strangers, where at the end of the conflict in Europe, with World War II over in that part of the world, an ersatz parliament is organized and extreme views are aired, from the left, camaraderie, brotherhood with the Soviet Union is promoted, advocated, such an outrageous, atrocious view for those of us who have had the ‘benefit’ of the Red Plague brought by the Soviets, we have suffered decades of famine, darkness, cold and the comfort of a huge prison camp, all courtesy of the Red Big Brother, which is now taking a different shape, but with the same disgusting habits…they have invaded part of Ukraine, which they are pummeling as we speak, sending more than ten million, in fact, they said it is a third of the country, into the Dark ages, literally…

The Russians have bombed schools, residential buildings and now they concentrate on the energy infrastructure, thus leaving the poor people without heat, light in the middle of winter, with freezing temperatures and snows coming these days, Speaking of Irritation…how could be civilized if we still have this in the world, it is incomprehensible – well, I mean it is that fucking, goddamn rotten human nature, vile in its lust for more power, territory, material gains, fame and so much more, which are urging that short dictator, suffering from the Napoleon complex to kill with impunity and millions, indeed, not a few months ago, a majority of his subjects bask in the ‘glory’ of torturing others for their sick dreams of ‘greatness’

 

Finally saying a few words about Something Strange, the short story deals with…Irritation, yet again, this time in a space station, a metallic sphere where we have four characters, Bruno, Myri, Covis and Lia, is the place where we have Something Strange happening, albeit not within the sphere, it is always outside, a thick brown substance covers the station, at one point, then a ‘creature made exclusively of bone makes signs’,  then they hear human screams, but there is never something like that inside.

Oh, and at one point an object is approaching on a collision course with incredible (or credible) speed and when it is very close, just one thousand five hundred miles away, it disappears and there is the puzzle of what is going on here, are these illusions and if so, what is causing them, are they the result of intelligent activity?

 

I am not a fan of Science Fiction, but this story proves the rule that if the author is great, then it does not matter what the genre is, and the experience of reading about seventeen of the works of Kingsley Amis has proved to me that indeed, he can take on any subject, for his Memoirs are fabulous, and Russian Hide and Seek is Science Fiction in its best shape and form http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/07/russian-hide-and-seek-by-kingsley-amis.html - Margaret Thatcher though was not pleased with the subject and told at a dinner that Sir Kingsley Amis should try a different subject…

 

From the Guardian article:

‘His first wife, Hilly, noticed Kingsley’s remarkable two-way capacity in this area soon after they met at Oxford in 1946, when he was just 23 years old. From the start, she was aware of his “endless complaints about what seemed to me harmless things like apparently ordinary, nice people going through the swing-door at Elliston’s restaurant. He would start muttering, ‘Look at those fools; look at that idiot of a man,’ and so on. If doors got stuck, or he was held up by some elderly person getting off a bus, or the wind blew his hair all over the place, he would snarl and grimace in the most irritating fashion.”

 

As a young novelist, he seemed to know instinctively how to channel this curse into prose. Throughout his oeuvre, irritation plays on the Amis landscape like sun on sea. His first novel Lucky Jim (1954) bristles with it. Its antihero, Jim Dixon, lacks any sort of capacity for brushing things off. “He wished this set of dances would end; he was hot, his socks seemed to have been sprayed with fine adhesive sand, and his arms ached like those of a boxer keeping his guard up after fourteen rounds.”

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html