A great deal of praise has already been lavished on Martin Amis who died on Saturday at the age of 73. Amis was, for a time, (Money, London Fields), a novelist with an extraordinary capacity to speak to the moment. He was also a superb critic and it is a shame he did not do more. The War On Cliche might just be his best book. His essays on Larkin - his father’s best friend - were vital exercises in holding back the mob when Larkin’s reputation was in the dock.
I would just like to add a minor personal reflection. In the final days of Tony Blair’s time in office Amis was given close access, to write a long valedictory piece for The Guardian. As one of the staff members with literary interests I spent quite a lot of time with him, showing him how the place worked, shepherding him into meetings and so on. He was, throughout, charming, humble and likeable. He was also, as all his friends have attested, inventively funny. Read his brilliant essay on his snooker competition with Julian Barnes to get a flavour of the comedy.
It’s not among his most well-known pieces but I always savoured this one. It’s full of the turned sentences that Amis was justly known for but it also shows an acuity of judgment, a psychological insight that would have made him a political writer of a high order, had domestic politics ever been his main subject.