Difficulties with Churls

The Siren reminds us that Martin Amis, disparager of children's book authors, will soon be moving into the lion's den, since "Brooklyn [is] world capital of children's book authors."

And we all know what vicious infighters they can be, throwing elbows like roller derby queens and spitting churlish tweets.

But the Siren goes on to mention that with such surly oberta dicta Martin's "becoming his dad," and in this respect I think his dad is what he doesn't wish to become.

It is oft forgot that Kingsley once tried his hand at a children's novel.

Well, not a children's novel, but its slightly older cousin, the young adult novel.

And let us just say that the muses did not wand-tap him to be the next Judy Blume.

Called We Are All Guilty, it was a lecture-demo in brownish prose about a bored, shiftless dropout arrested after who committing a break-in with a chum that results in the warehouse guard being paralyzed. The satirical nub of the story is that the miscreant's willingness to accept the consequences of his criminal action are rebuffed by social-worker nanny-state do-goodies who insist he isn't responsible for his behavior but the product of his environment, a poor misunderstood youth. Their excuse-making on his behalf is a form of infantilization that frustrates his desire to take what's coming to him and move on. It's an English spin on the spoofy Officer Krupke number in West Side Story--"Officer Krupke, you're really a slob/
This boy don't need a doctor, just a good honest job/Society's played him a terrible trick,
And sociologic'ly he's sick!"--but far more heavy-treading and editorial in getting its point across, as its unsubtle title suggests. Sadly, it's the sort of lazy, facile slap at liberalism that one might have expected more from some avuncular barge at The American Spectator or Pajamas Media than the author of Lucky Jim and One Fat Englishman.

Published late in Kingsley Amis's career, We Are All Guilty was poorly received and may have been the moment when Martin realized Pops had truly gone off his trolley as a writer, though this is purely suppositional on my part.

But it may well have been that this was a literary mistake of his father's stored in the back of his mind when he made those undiplomatic remarks to Sebastian Faulks that have brought down the wrath of Khan upon his storied brow.

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2011/02/difficulties-with-churls.html

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