Editing Martin Amis (section)

==Views==
[[Image:Martin Amis and Ian Buruma on Monsters.jpg|right|thumb|Amis conversing with [[Ian Buruma]] about ''[[Einstein's Monsters|Monsters]]'' at the 2007 ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'' Festival<ref>{{cite video |people=Martin Amis, [[Ian Buruma]] |title=Monsters |date=5 October 2007 |url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/festival/2007/AmisBuruma |format=flash |medium=Conversation |work=[[The New Yorker]] |location=New York City |access-date=8 March 2008 |archive-date=7 March 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307004845/http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/festival/2007/AmisBuruma |url-status=live }}</ref>]]

===Writing===
On writing, Amis said in 2014: "I think of writing as more mysterious as I get older, not less mysterious. The whole process is very weird&nbsp;... It is very spooky."<ref>{{cite news|first=Brenda|last=Cronin|url=https://online.wsj.com/articles/martin-amis-returns-with-zone-of-interest-1410463847|title=Martin Amis Returns With 'Zone of Interest'|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal|date=11 September 2014|access-date=14 March 2017|archive-date=14 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914032324/http://online.wsj.com/articles/martin-amis-returns-with-zone-of-interest-1410463847|url-status=live}}</ref>

Interviewed by [[Sebastian Faulks]] on BBC television in 2011, he said that unless he sustained a [[brain injury]], it was unlikely he would write a children's book: "The idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable ... I would never write about someone that forced me to write at a lower register than what I can write."<ref>{{cite news |last=Page |first=Benedicte |title=Martin Amis: Only brain injury could make me write for children |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/11/martin-amis-brain-injury-write-children |access-date=25 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=11 February 2011}}</ref> The "brain injury" remark caused opprobrium among various children's authors, although the poet [[Roger McGough]] wagered that "if I gave him £100 to write a children's book I bet he'd do a good one".<ref>{{cite news |last=Sharp |first=Rob |title=Amis: I'd write for children only if I'd had a brain injury |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/amis-i-rsquo-d-write-for-children-only-if-i-d-had-a-brain-injury-2212493.html |access-date=25 May 2023 |work=The Independent |date=12 February 2011 |archive-date=25 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230525005340/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/amis-i-rsquo-d-write-for-children-only-if-i-d-had-a-brain-injury-2212493.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Nuclear proliferation===
Through the 1980s and 1990s, Amis was a strong critic of [[nuclear proliferation]]. His collection of five stories on this theme, ''Einstein's Monsters'', began with a long essay entitled "Thinkability" in which he set out his views on the issue,<ref name="Bentley2015">{{cite book |last1=Bentley |first1=Nick |title=Martin Amis |year=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-7463-1178-3 |page=58 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYdNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA58 |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521042209/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYdNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA58 |url-status=live }}</ref> writing: "[[Nuclear weapons]] repel all thought, perhaps because they can end all thought."<ref name="Joyce2019">{{cite book |last1=Joyce |first1=Ashlee |title=The Gothic in Contemporary British Trauma Fiction |year=2019 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-26728-5 |page=43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kK6tDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA43 |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521042207/https://books.google.com/books?id=kK6tDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA43 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Geopolitics===
In comments on the BBC in October 2006, Amis expressed his view that North Korea was the more dangerous of the two remaining members of the [[Axis of Evil]], but that Iran was Britain's "natural enemy", suggesting that Britain should not feel bad about having "helped Iraq scrape a draw with Iran" in the [[Iran–Iraq War]] because a "revolutionary and rampant Iran would have been a much more destabilising presence".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_week/6088700.stm|title=Martin Amis – Take of the Week|work=BBC News|date=26 October 2006|access-date=23 February 2007|archive-date=11 January 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090111203953/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_week/6088700.stm|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Electoral politics===
In June 2008, Amis endorsed the candidacy of [[Barack Obama]] for president of the United States, stating: "The reason I hope for Obama is that he alone has the chance to reposition America's image in the world."<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/7533252.stm "Martin Amis on Barack Obama"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220625014338/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/7533252.stm |date=25 June 2022 }}. BBC1, ''This Week'', 30 July 2008.</ref> When briefly interviewed by the BBC during its coverage of the [[2012 United States presidential election]], Amis displayed a change in tone, stating that he was "depressed and frightened" by the US election, rather than excited.<ref name="bbc.co.uk">{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20229191|title=Martin Amis 'depressed' by US election|work=BBC News|date=7 November 2012}}</ref> Blaming a "deep irrationality of the American people" for the apparent narrow gap between the candidates, Amis said the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] had swung so far to the right that former president [[Ronald Reagan]] would be considered a "pariah" by the present party – and invited viewers to imagine a [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] in the UK that had moved to the right so much that it disowned [[Margaret Thatcher]]. He said: "Tax cuts for the rich, there's not a democracy on earth where that would be mentioned!"<ref name="bbc.co.uk"/>

In 2015, Amis criticised [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] leader [[Jeremy Corbyn]] in an article for ''[[The Sunday Times]]'', describing him as "humourless" and "under-educated".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/focus/article1624016.ece|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200226225447/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/amis-on-corbyn-undereducated-humourless-third-rate-dhvgj99fjxv|url-status=dead|archive-date=26 February 2020|first=Martin|last=Amis|title=Amis on Corbyn: Undereducated, humourless, third-rate|newspaper=The Sunday Times|date=25 October 2015}}</ref> In the aftermath of the [[2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum|2016 referendum]], Amis said that United Kingdom's decision to [[Brexit|leave the European Union]] was a "self-inflicted wound" that had left him "depressed".<ref>{{cite news |title=Martin Amis: Brexit 'a denial of British decline' |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-41348509 |access-date=22 May 2023 |work=BBC News |date=21 September 2017 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522162751/https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-41348509 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Islam and Islamism ===
On the day after the [[2006 transatlantic aircraft plot]] came to light, Amis was interviewed by ''[[The Times Magazine]]'' about community relations in Britain and the alleged threat from [[Muslims]]; he was quoted as saying: "What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There's a definite urge – don't you have it? – to say, 'The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.' What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children ... It's a huge dereliction on their part."<ref>[http://www.ginnydougary.co.uk/2006/09/17/the-voice-of-experience/ Martin Amis interviewed by Ginny Dougary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070119084405/http://www.ginnydougary.co.uk/2006/09/17/the-voice-of-experience/ |date=19 January 2007 }}, originally published in ''The Times Magazine'', 9 September 2006.</ref>

The interview provoked immediate controversy, much of it played out in the pages of ''[[The Guardian]]'' newspaper.<ref name="Morey 2018">{{cite book | last=Morey | first=P. | title=Islamophobia and the Novel | publisher=Columbia University Press | series=Literature Now | year=2018 | isbn=978-0-231-54133-6 | page=136}}</ref> The [[Marxist]] critic [[Terry Eagleton]], in the 2007 introduction to his work ''Ideology'', singled out and attacked Amis for this particular quote, saying that this view is "[n]ot the ramblings of a [[British National Party]] thug, ... but the reflections of Martin Amis, leading luminary of the English metropolitan literary world". In a highly critical ''Guardian'' article, entitled "The absurd world of Martin Amis", satirist [[Chris Morris (satirist)|Chris Morris]] likened Amis to the Muslim cleric [[Abu Hamza al-Masri|Abu Hamza]] (who was jailed for [[inciting racial hatred]] in 2006), suggesting that both men employed "mock erudition, vitriol and decontextualised quotes from the [[Koran]]" to incite hatred.<ref>{{cite news |last=Morris |first=Chris |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/nov/25/bookscomment.religion |title=The absurd world of Martin Amis |newspaper=The Observer |date=25 November 2007 |access-date=22 June 2008 |quote=Last week Amis was called a racist. I saw him speak at the [[Institute of Contemporary Arts|ICA]] last month. Was his negativity about Islam technically racist? I don't know. What I can tell you is that Martin Amis is the new Abu Hamza. ... Like Hamza, Amis could only make his nonsense stand up with mock erudition, vitriol and decontextualised quotes from the Koran. |location=London |archive-date=1 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130901021653/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/nov/25/bookscomment.religion |url-status=live }}</ref>

Elsewhere, Amis was especially careful to distinguish between Islam and radical [[Islamism]], stating: "We can begin by saying, not only that we respect [[Muhammad]], but that no serious person could fail to respect Muhammad – a unique and luminous historical being ... Judged by the continuities he was able to set in motion, Muhammad has strong claims to being the most extraordinary man who ever lived... But Islamism? No, we can hardly be asked to respect a creedal wave that calls for our own elimination ... Naturally we respect Islam. But we do not respect Islamism, just as we respect Muhammad and do not respect [[Mohamed Atta]]."<ref name="No Racist">{{Cite news|last=Amis|first=Martin|date=2007-12-01|title=No, I am not a racist|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/dec/01/race.islam|access-date=2023-12-31|issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

On terrorism, Amis wrote that he suspected "there exists on our planet a kind of human being who will become a Muslim in order to pursue suicide-mass murder", and added: "I will never forget the look on the gatekeeper's face, at the [[Dome of the Rock]] in Jerusalem, when I suggested, perhaps rather airily, that he skip some calendric prohibition and let me in anyway. His expression, previously cordial and cold, became a mask; and the mask was saying that killing me, my wife, and my children was something for which he now had warrant."<ref name=horrorism2006>Amis, Martin (23 February 2007). [http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,1868839,00.html "The Age of Horrorism"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071113163114/http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,1868839,00.html |date=13 November 2007 }}, ''The Observer''.</ref>

His views on radical Islamism earned him the contentious sobriquet "Blitcon" (British literary [[neoconservative]]) from [[Ziauddin Sardar]], who labelled Amis as such in the ''[[New Statesman]]''.<ref name="Sardar2006">{{cite news |last=Sardar |first=Ziauddin |title=Welcome to Planet Blitcon |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/200612110045 |access-date=21 May 2023 |date=11 December 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080804044028/http://www.newstatesman.com/200612110045 |archive-date=4 August 2008}}</ref>{{refn|group=n|The ''New Statesman'' article also assigned the "Blitcon" label to [[Salman Rushdie]] and [[Ian McEwan]].<ref name="Sardar2006"/>}}

===Euthanasia===
Amis aroused a new controversy in 2010 with his comments regarding [[euthanasia]] during an interview, when he said that he thought Britain faced a "civil war" between the young and the elderly in society within 10 or 15 years, and called for public euthanasia "booths". Of the geriatric cohort, he declared: "They'll be a population of [[demented]] very old people, like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the restaurants and cafes and shops. ... there should be a booth on every corner where you could get a martini and a medal."<ref name="Davies2010">{{cite news |last=Davies |first=Caroline |title=Martin Amis in new row over 'euthanasia booths' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/24/martin-amis-euthanasia-booths-alzheimers |access-date=23 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=24 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140103030008/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/24/martin-amis-euthanasia-booths-alzheimers |archive-date=3 January 2014}}</ref>{{refn|group=n|One of the books that Amis reviewed for ''The Observer'' in 1972 was Kurt Vonnegut's ''[[Welcome to the Monkey House]]'', the [[Welcome to the Monkey House (short story)|title story of which]] features an over-populated Earth with ubiquitous government-run "[[Ethical Suicide]] Parlors".<ref name="DiedrickHayes2006"/><ref>{{cite web |last=Mambrol |first=Nasrullah |title=Analysis of Kurt Vonnegut's Stories |url=https://literariness.org/2020/06/24/analysis-of-kurt-vonneguts-stories/ |website=Literary Theory and Criticism |access-date=23 May 2023 |date=24 June 2020 |archive-date=24 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324101553/https://literariness.org/2020/06/24/analysis-of-kurt-vonneguts-stories/ |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

===Agnosticism===
In 2006, Amis said that "agnostic is the only respectable position, simply because our ignorance of the universe is so vast" that [[atheism]] is "premature". He added that "there's not going to be any kind of anthropomorphic entity at all", but the universe is "so incredibly complicated" and "so over our heads" that we cannot exclude the existence of "an intelligence" behind it.<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/faithandreason106_print.html Bill Moyers and Martin Amis and Margaret Atwood] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817223917/http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/faithandreason106_print.html |date=17 August 2017 }}. [[PBS]], 28 July 2006. Retrieved 9 October 2010.</ref>

In 2010, Amis said: "I'm an agnostic, which is the only rational position. It's not because I feel a God or think that anything resembling the banal God of religion will turn up. But I think that atheism sounds like a proof of something, and it's incredibly evident that we are nowhere near intelligent enough to understand the universe ... Writers are above all individualists, and above all writing is freedom, so they will go off in all sorts of directions. I think it does apply to the debate about religion, in that it's a crabbed novelist who pulls the shutters down and says, there's no other thing. Don't use the word God: but something more intelligent than us ... If we can't understand it, then it's formidable. And we understand very little."<ref>Tom Chatfield (1 February 2010). [https://web.archive.org/web/20110703143404/http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/02/martin-amis/ "Martin Amis: The Prospect Interview"], ''Prospect''. Retrieved 20 March 2010.</ref>