Martin Amis: "The Zone of Interest"
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2024
- The “zone of interest” refers to the outer perimeter of the Auschwitz concentration camp. But in the hands of Martin Amis, one of the greatest authors in the English language, it becomes the terrain for a love story-though one with a violently unromantic setting. In a novel powered by both wit and pathos, Amis excavates the depths and contradictions of the human soul. He is joined in conversation by Donna Seaman, senior editor for Booklist.
This program was recorded on October 30, 2014 as part of the 25th Anniversary Chicago Humanities Festival, Journeys: chf.to/2014Journeys
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That voice, that scathing wit, that incredible command of the language... I'm going to miss you Mr Amis.
That voice, his brilliance, his wit, he is one of the very best, and will be missed.
Stanley Cohen's 'States of Denial' is a fascinating insight into how people can collude with or perpetrate unspeakable horror and yet genuinely deny any knowledge of it.
I'm listening to this late at night then looked him up out of curiosity, and learned that Mr. Martin Amis recently died May 19th 2023 and today is May 30th 2023. An Interesting man.
Because he died eleven days before you first heard of him?
@@johnke7 -- Exactly! - Interesting man Mr. Martin Amis. A writer's writer, he was. God, himself, would have a place for all who shine a light on a dark and covered subject as the Holocaust, or of even Christ not ever rising from the dead. JB -
Lucky Jim, written by Martin Amis's father Kingsley Amis was the funniest and most scathing book I've ever read. I love his circle of friends which included the Great Contrarian Christopher Hitchens. I appreciate the subject of his novel: my mother, a Polish/German Berliner Jew survived Dachau but her father was murdered in front of her eyes. She was not a supporter of the state of Israel which she deemed an untenable solution to an untenable problem. She died of brain cancer some years ago and I wonder what she would have to say about the current political climate because she had a bullshit detector like a search light.
this was one of the best nights of my life. i leaned over to my friend near the 34:20 mark and whispered "a shot rang out" and my laugh is the first that sounds in this video. i'm very happy that it was recorded so i can relive the night.
How wonderful you were there in person!
Truly one of the smartest books ever written.
Must have seen this about 3 or 4 times now - inexhaustibly inventive and interesting.
Watch Martin Amis' - England
@@pezushka i’ve seen that even more times. you’re right though, it’s exquisite 👏
Martin Amis' observations about Russia and Putin at the close of this (from about 50') is prescient.
Rip martin, and thank you
Martin, lucid as ever.
How marvelous this is!
Thanks terribly for the upload. I'm always glad to find new words of Martin's, whether written or spoken.And zoot soot, I think he actually looks a bit better than he did three or four years ago. I have a video of him speaking with Charlie Rose in 2010 where he looks truly frail and sort of like his thoughts are elsewhere (though his mind is very much present in that interview); he does this odd thing with his mouth and so on, not sure if you know what I'm talking about. But that interview was two month's after Hitchens' diagnosis, so perhaps that's what it was.
He does look a bit rickety for 65, but he seems every bit as perspicacious as ever. In fact, I'd say in some ways he's improving: he's a bit more measured, a bit less pugnacious, maybe. I don't know. Maybe this is wishful thinking. In any case, I've just managed to write about three times as many words as I should have in this post, but there we are. Our hopes are the same, yours and mine.
+Hitch Slap (Hitchslap) rewrite it for us
+Hitch Slap (Hitchslap) you frivolous fuck
+Hitch Slap (Hitchslap) there's nothing worse than the likes of this thinking up a sentence merely to replace each word by looking up a synonym in thesaurus.
"he does this odd thing with his mouth and so on, not sure if you know what I'm talking about."
Yes; I know that interview well... the mouth-thing was excruciating to watch. I wonder if it was the drink causing that and, if so, I hope he's easing up on it.
your paragraph sounds like you a teaching a non native speaker some vocabs
With the film out now was the first time I had heard this title. After seeing the film I read the book. I had not read Amis before and thought it was a powerful, well-written book and how was it that I had not read Amis before?
I enjoyed the film so much I'm reluctant to read the book. Would you recommend it?
I would. For me it created its own tone apart from the film.
I think I'll give the film a bit more space on my head first before going for the novel. Thanks
@@cmoran9103Yeah I haven’t seen it yet because a friend of mine, who is a fellow reader of all of Amis’s books, didn’t have a very positive reaction to the film. Thing is, even if you know films based on novels don’t have to be *the same* as the novel, it’s still hard to keep that tension out of your mind when watching/reading one if you’ve already watched/read the other.
@@eashton42 I haven't read the novel, but the film is simply brilliant. It's one of the best depictions of dehumanisation, and could only be done through film (drawing on the language of documentary, use of surround sound, etc). So I really urge to go see it in the cinema, even with that tension.
Very good conversation!
@laRoz67- EXACTLY! You've hit the proverbial 'nail' on the head! Mr. Amis was totally unique in several ways, the voice, and OMG the absolute command of the language is superb. His cadence is breathtaking. Very few. If any, like him.. Will miss him and RIP Martin....
easy to reread ,, perfect writer
Mr Amis' claim that the Nazi regime in Germany in the 1930's beggars explanation is a rather dubious proposition. It might equally be seen as the logical outcome of a certain strand of European thought with it's origins in the Enlightenment. The work of Zygmunt Baumann is a good place to start for anyone interested in this angle.
As I always say: never attempt to write about "The Third Reich" without first living in Germany for a few years; it seems that the vast majority of (English-language) books on the topic are by people who haven't been to Germany and/or don't speak the language and have no insight into the relevant psychology.
its
The ideas that culminated in Nazi ideology/actions existed already among the upper echelons of society before/during WWI.
@@Velvet0Starship2013you're really right
It all undoes itself that way
the more i listen to amis the closer i become to hitch
Very good conversation. He was right about Russia, imho
Arise Sir Martin Amis.
Unbelievable mind
sadly, human nature is not what we like to believe about it. the degree of obedience and following a mad leader not blindly but willingly is so built into our psyche that not even two centuries of enlightment in the most refined European culture could remove.
I agree. I don't think we should talk about dehumanisation as an extreme phenomenon but as the default state.
@@cmoran9103this is particularly true when it comes as a response. A reaction to being dehumanized yourself - as a defence mechanism.
51:00 that's some prescient conversation about Putinist Russia… But he was wrong about NATO membership for Ukraine as a provocation of Russia, and now we see what Russia does to small, non-nuclear countries of which it has pretensions to ownership.
I think the interview about this novel with Charlie Rose was much more incisive and revealing than this one.
no this is more enjoyable. rose is a little up his own behind and doesn't give guests thinking or breathing space
I actually found the ending of the novel moving. No film can capture the poignancy of love extracted from the horrors of the holocaust.
the film looks and sounds nice but wasnt that great
How pretentious. Films can do far more than you know.
His interlocutor does a very fine job of giving MA the space to do his thing. His take on the holocaust is quite moving.
Really interesting and great video etc. I found Amis broke his own rules about repetition and euphony in the reading from "zone of interest." lol,
Those rules are pretty schoolmistressy, methinks. Fear of repeating a prefix or suffix, etc., is what makes a lot of prose less fluent. A good example is the British writer Douglas Murray, whose thinking is clear but whose prose is pretty opaque, as it hardly flows at all. In Mr Amis's case, suppose he fears his prose's 'smelling of the lamp', being poetic, something he discusses in another interview, about his father's opinion of his son's writing. EHemingway and CMcCarthy are not afraid of repetition, and it makes their prose far more readable, indeed superior.
@@castelodeossos3947 What a pompous comment.
Oh, how terribly we miss him now. In this terrible world full of zoological nightmares of antisemitism, never abating hatred. How pure and honest and humane his voice was. 😢
💙
Why is she smiling?
Wouldn't you be, sitting in that chair?
she feels nearness/ warmth to human beings.
Mart's looking a bit frail, hope he's got many years left to experience, for the sake of his own pleasures and those of his old mate Hitch.
oh dear
@@Saffronelle Same thing that took off Hitch. Don’t smoke kids.
@@zootsoot2006 more likely to have been the booze
Predicting the war in Ukraine at 51 m onwards.
Is that Zizek at 48:40?
no
I wonder if we could hear his eloquent thoughts on Russias invasion
No
who are you? lol@@marknewbold2583
"In the English language"
The implication that famine is a function of the socialist project when Russia had frequent famines before the 1930s - and then essentially ended them - is an odd assumption. Anything that happens under communism is seen as a feature rather than a bug; whatever unfolds under capitalism is just the weather.
Only makes sense backwards
Would've been incredibly interesting if he'd written about Churchill instigating one of the genocides in India & the Bengal famine. Among the several famines that happened because of England colonialism.
Or about ignorant people twisting history to their own stupidities.....
@@deanedge5988he's not twisting history, but he is passive aggressively hijacking one issue with another. We can condemn all genocides, everywhere, and if we don't we should be ashamed.
The true history of the Bengal Famine is very complex and controversial but the "genocide" by evil Imperialist Churchill is not supportable even though it is used as a trope by ignorant politically motivated people with no detailed knowledge or understanding of history. A simple Google search of Churchills instructions to Wavell (a new Viceroy facing an imminent invasion by the irenic Japanese Empire) will clear it up.@@cmoran9103
@@deanedge5988
Are you sure of that or are you trying to back something that no decent person should. It sort of goes against your worldview, something you have been brought up all your life believing, the benevolent British, suddenly you are faced with a reality that is very different.
Unlike you apparently I get my history from actual history not prejudice try Google...@@dalvinderbasi3495
Came here because of the film; just seen that, haven't read the book.
This talk alone convinces me that the book, as per usual, is superior -even if the movie is well-meaning.
The whole question as to why Hitler did what he did, which surprisingly seemed to puzzle Amis, is connected to his genius to channel the frustration and humiliation Germans felt after Versailles, besides his issues of ego and megalomania: Two areas which perhaps were unfamiliar to dear old Martin,
You don't know much about Amis
You ain't convinced of shit.
The movie is brilliant. You just like to his voice sounds clever
3xplaining Hitler book review. "It doesn't."
No great fan of Mr Amis's fiction but do find he sometimes says something more than usually thoughtful. His point about poetry's measure being in its memorability is so true. Had a friend who was outraged at Seamus Heaney's winning the Nobel Prize. 'Quote Yeats or Pope!' and people would quote several things. 'Quote Seamus Heaney' and nada. Also very good his saying his father' had lowbrow taste in fiction: his father's own fiction was certainly not something worth re-reading.
Again, extraordinary that a man so intelligent/knowledgeable and aware of history speaks as if unaware of the holocaust carried out by people of the country he so loves, the USA. Far greater numbers, comparably horrible, equally deliberate and equally official policy. And he speaks as if he doesn't even know about other 'slave-driving and murder' as in the Americas and in King Leopold's Congo, not to mention earlier history.
People can quote Yeats and Pope because they've been drilled into their minds in school, during their most impressionable years, through repetition. Heaney is amazing, insightful and a true master of language, he plays it to profound effect
How adorable that you think there’s anyone alive on this earth (or, in Martin’s case, dead) who isn’t aware of slavery and brutality in the United States; even the most ignorant schoolchild knows this, to say nothing of Martin Amis. And the idea that Amis was ignorant of the horrors in Leopold’s Congo is similarly silly. Focusing on one bad event in history, in order to write a novel (or two), does not preclude knowledge of others-in fact, it’s a bit odd that you felt it necessary to make a comment like this on a video about the Holocaust.
@@eashton42why is it odd to mention other, and equally chilling, holocausts on a video about the Holocaust?
Half way through the book right now and rather disappointed. His use of German words to make the story sound more realistic is a cheap trick. To my surprise, he makes Höss' wife come across as a quite relatable person. His book is different, if not opposite, to the film's depiction in so many ways.
因為小小來看的
你在講什麼
The Holocaust is without a doubt *not* the worst event in human history. It's disturbing that it happened in a modern country but genocide has been the norm throughout human history, and there are probably specialized genocide circuits in the human brain, as incredible as that might sound. Anyone who doubts this should read about the Assyrian empire, or some of the Hawaiian kingdoms, or reflect on the fact that the Aztecs are thought to have sacrificed 20,000 people a year. The nazi's were bad (I'm reading a book about the subject at the moment and it still shocks me) but they didn't ceremonially sacrifice jews on an alter in front of a cheering audience.
If in your opinion it's without a doubt not the worst event then what would you say has been worse? The Nazis killed six million European Jews and about five million Soviet prisoners in less than six years from 1939 to 1945.
If you go by raw numbers, the Nazi's don't come close. Gengis Khan: 40 million. Mao Zedong: 40 to 80 million. Timurlane: 17 million. The Soviet Union: 28 to 126 million.
@@patrickwhite8144 And you'd call each of those an event?
@@cortical1 You're right, but the holocaust wasn't really an event either. It was a series of events.
They made lamp shades. They made them dance. They made them...
They're pleasures were both public and private. Always depraved. Always vile. Always worthy of our eternal disgust.
An interesting topic discussed and dissected by an interesting writer; my only issue were the copious chunks of dandruff clinging to Mr Amis' left lapel. I think the interviewer also found it both a distraction and nausea-inducing, as every so often her eyes would stray to the offending flakes and her throat would quiver with involuntary gagging motions.
Dandruff on a lapel is a small crime against humanuty.
Just watched ZOI and can only call it classic German---ponderous, pretentious, dull, artsy, so so deeply symbolic that it must have taken hours to come up with. It showed and told nothing that hasn't been done far better all over the place.
'The Zone of Interest', is far,far away from Martin Fucking Amiss.
Is Humanities-a-palooza still going on?
Never mind the Bollocks here comes the Amis!
One more comment, the boy in the striped pyjamas is better ❤
He was a cold blooded murderer ultimate serial killer