Interesting responses to this. His mates, all fellow writers, are stressing how kind and generous Amis was, which is not something you would guess from his writing or some of his public pronouncements. This theme has been so consistent it must be true, nice one Martin. Only one, Sebastian Faulks (I’ve never read any of his stuff) was brave enough to state the obvious - after his three great dark comic novels of the 80s - Money, London Fields and The Information - his fiction fell off sharply (his journalism was always great). I loved those three books, but never bothered with anything later after just reading the blurb on the back of the book - Times Arrow - a book about the Holocaust where the lead character gets younger as it goes on? I’ll give it a miss, thanks. Leave me with the earlier ones about booze, drugs, darts and failure. I think we often expect way too much of writers, and musicians who write their own material. Very few of even the very best have more than one or two great books/albums in them, and why should they - one or two is an infinite amount more than I’ve contributed. It’s true genius to be able to churn out consistently brilliant stuff for a whole career. Not saying anyone should stop at one or two, just that we should manage our expectations. RIP Martin, you gave a younger version of me a lot of fun.
I remember Hinge and Brackett as being rather unfunny and rather middle class. Am I missing something ?
Ray Stevenson, the Irish actor who starred in films like “Punisher: War Zone,” “King Arthur,” the “Thor” films and shows like HBO’s “Rome” and the upcoming “Ahsoka” series,” died on Sunday in Italy, Variety has confirmed with his publicist. He was 58. No cause of death was available. Born in Northern Ireland on May 25, 1964, Stevenson began his career appearing on TV shows in the 1990s then began landing action roles in Hollywood films starting in the 2000s. His first major film role came in Antoine Fuqua’s 2004’s adventure movie “King Arthur,” where he played Dagonet, one of the Knights of the Round Table. In the film, his character sacrifices himself in battle to help Arthur (Clive Owen) and his brotherhood of warriors. RIP
