The prodigiously busy Susan Hill has sent a comment to the Amis posting below on her appreciation of Mart. I wholly agree with her. Even his debut novel The Rachel Papers, which in other hands would now read as precocious juvenilia, rises above its themes and works as prose virtuosity. Over to Susan ...
"Martin is one of the finest writers of his generation - probably THE finest only these league table comparative competitive judgments are so silly. I have been re-reading his complete oeuvre. It is fireworks in English prose, fizzing with brilliance, full of ideas ... many of us did our best work when young and have not improved with age. I know I did and have not. But if you take the text as existing outside of chronological time, then all Ma`s books exist in their brilliance NOW. Doesn`t matter when he wrote them. They are there to be read today. Some better than others, as is true of us all, but nothing worthless, all enriching.
And no, he didn`t pay me to say this even if I did know him when he was 14.
And - she adds wearily - still having to sign myself here as blogger refuses to know me."
SUSAN HILL
For the original Amis posting click here
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