Martin Amis 'Heavy Water And Other Stories' (1998)

[Bartwald]

Martin Amis [shadow=red,left,300]Heavy Water And Other Stories[/shadow] (1998) ***

Martin Amis. His stories either seduce you or leave you cold. Here, in 'Heavy Water and Other Stories', even Amis's most eager fans will probably find something they don't like or don't understand. To balance this, however, they will also find here plenty to cherish and discuss for hours. And MY opinion?

Well, I felt pretty seduced by 'Career Move' (a story of bestselling poems and worstselling sci-fi pulp), 'Let Me Count the Times' (a story of a man having an affair with his hand) and 'Straight Fiction' (where straight people are perceived as minority but finally start fighting for their rights) and such stories as 'What Happened To Me On My Holiday' (a child discovers what death is and tells us all about it using almost unreadable spelling) or 'Heavy Water' (to be honest, I didn't get this one - not even after the second reading) left me cold or confused.

Martin Amis is a writer whom I always liked but I'm still waiting for his book to OVERWHELM me - this collection of short stories is too uneven to be just that.

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Well, Bart you've convinced me, I haven't read anything by him yet but especially that story with the hand seems very promising, so I've got to read this stuff definitely.

[Bartwald]

It's my favourite story in the collection! S-o-o-o funny! I know that the other story I mentioned ('Career move': about poetry vs sci-fi) is available on the internet - I can look for a link to it, if you wish. The whole book, however, may be difficult to get in Poland.

By the way: have you ever read anything by KINGSLEY Amis, Martin's father? He used to write science-fiction several decades ago but then focused on 'straight literature'; I guess this inspired his son to write 'Career move'.

[Ark]

BART

I totally agree with you, but remember you encouraged me to read M. Amis and i'm obliged to you -Bart, attempting to make efforts to understand British fiction . Now i'm going to read Lucky Jim by Kingsley. I've always preferred reading novels to short stories and that's the point. In short stories plots are often obscure therefore we adore them in some aspects. If I were to write I'd write short stories. It's obvious.
In short stories one can hide a lack of a writing talent and a short story is an excellent narrative medium of expressing an unanswerable question of existing fiction at all.

ark

[Bartwald]

Lucky Jim is so old-fashioned that it may be quite unfriendly to read for you, Ark. After all, don't I know that you prefer modern - hell, POST-modern! - literature, eh?

I made two attempts at reading Lucky Jim. Both failed.