His Amisn’t True

‘MARTIN AMIS is a very clever man. So clever, in fact, that he knows everything. But surely that’s impossible, you are thinking. After all, nobody knows everything – except God, of course.

Another session with Uncle Joe gives Leon a cracking headache

Well think again, because Martin Amis really does know everything. He has just published a book that has exposed Stalin as a tyrant supported and abetted by Leon Trotsky and his followers – men and women who until now have always been assumed to be Stalin’s mortal enemies.

In order to do this, Amis eschewed the traditional tools of the historian, such as so-called ”facts”, and relied instead on his own enormous brain, which generates enough ideas to make all external phenomena redundant.

Now Amis has turned his attention to Aberdeen, which he describes as the ”epicentre of gloom” and ”one of the darkest places imaginable” (which is just as well, given that he freely admits to never having visited the place).

The Independent points out that he made his remarks ”from the comfort of a north London studio” (as if that had anything to do with it) and quotes all sorts of chippy residents of the gloomy epicentre.

”He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” says John Hepburn, who is described as an office worker. ”I think his books are complete rubbish, even though I haven’t read any. But then I don’t need to because Mr Amis has shown that you don’t need to experience something to pass judgement on it.” Quite so.

‘

Posted: 10th, September 2002 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink