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Amis, Islam and the writer's duty | Opinion | The First Post Page 1 of 1 Sign in | Create an account April 30, 2008 Opinion Amis, Islam and the writer’s duty BIG BOOK Robot love Why shouldn’t British writers deal campaign over The Satanic Verses. The critical theorist Terry Eagleton recently CRICKET IPL storm with big issues such as Islamic suggested that there was no more reason to MIGRATION Labour goes right terrorism, asks ANDREW ANTHONY listen to novelists on such matters than window cleaners. As Eagleton is a Marxist, we can take BIRD FLU Major threat t's a common criticism that English writers it as read that he wouldn't listen to window shirk the big subjects; our national literary COCKBURN Hillary fights on cleaners. What prompted this judgement was a I stockintrade is the domestic felicities and melodramatically stupid comment Amis made KIND OF BLUE India's a winner infidelities of the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie. Yet in an interview 18 months ago. The day after whenever Martin Amis takes on something HANNAN Guerrilla EU another alleged mass homicidal conspiracy grander in scope, he is accused of came to light, he said there was an 'urge' he LONDON MAYOR Ken vs Boris vaingloriously chasing the 'important'. felt to see Muslims punished. He's since It happened when he wrote about nuclear ZIMBABWE Hero dockers apologised and withdrawn his remarks. weapons (Einstein's Monsters) and the Not, apparently, good enough. For now Amis WASTE Where did £1tr go? Holocaust (Time's Arrow). It happened with his is fair game. A whole career devoted to humour very fine and snobbishly underrated book on and humanism can be discarded, and his words Stalin's gulags, Koba The Dread. And now it's retrospectively parsed for evidence of racism. taking place once again with The Second Plane, Meantime, what about the misogyny, his absorbing collection of essays and short superstition, indiscriminate murder and global stories about Islamism and the post9/11 ambitions of a zealous death cult? Well, we can world. forget all that and return to the discreet How dare he write about global events, indiscretions and comforting familiarity of the sneers fashionable opinion. We loved him when English drawing room. he mocked darts players, but what right does Give me Amis, any time. he have to make fun of a suicide bomber? The Synopsis of Martin Amis's The Second Plane answer is the right of the novelist, a right, of To buy this book course, against which Islamism launched a FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 7, 2008 murderous international STAY IN TOUCH TOOLS RELATED LINKS The First Post on Facebook Comment on this article McEwan should stick to what he's good at Being a superior genre writer is no small thing to Sign up for our daily email Send to a friend be, says Nicholas Clee RSS feeds Add to: Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook | Reddit | Shoutwire Taliban rising Images from the continuing struggle against the Contact us Printerfriendly version Taliban in Afghanistan About Us Our other sites: Auto Express | Bash the Boss | Computer Buyer | Computer Shopper | Custom PC | Den of Geek | Den of Wii | Evo | Fortean Times | IT PRO | Know Your Mobile | London is Free | Mac User | Men's Fitness | Micro Mart | Mobile Computer | Octane | PC PRO The First Post is a registered Trade Mark of First Post Newsgroup IPR Limited http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/14335,opinion,amisislamandthewritersduty 4/29/2008 .