Author Martin Amis suggests “unenjoyable” novels win literary awards.
“It all started with [Samuel] Beckett, I think. It was a kind of reasonable response to the horrors of the 20th century — you know, ‘No poetry after Auschwitz’. He described it as a mistake, saying: “You look back at the great writers in the English canon, and the American, and they are all funny.”
Writers such as Dickens, Jane Austen, and George Eliot all shared that trait, he said.
I think there’s much in what he says. Good link.
I love that we have a quote from Martin Amis today. I didn’t coordinate that for this post. For those who miss the quote, here is what we have at the top of our page Monday, June 7.
“You may have noticed that poetry is dead. The obituary has already been written … I mean, it goes on, and its funny, ghoulish afterlife is in the form of tours and readings and poetry slams and all the rest of it, but not many people now curl up in the evening with a book of poetry.”
The closest thing we have to a popular poet nowadays are the singer/songwriters. And then there’s Bob Dylan, the great Mumbler/Songwriter. When The Deal Goes Down from 2005’s Modern Times album is a great poem.