The writer's welcome

Impromptu hospitality at a friend's

Martin Amis on social realism and stream of consciousness  

"90% of all fiction has always been social realism. And 99.9% of all fiction that's remembered and valued and has endured is social realism. And there must be a lesson in that. It must be that, as a writer, you're the host and your reader is the guest. And those two words have the same root. They used to mean the same thing. And that, too, is noticeable, because reading and writing are so... almost the same thing in all sorts of ways. So you have a sort of code of conduct. You don't introduce 15 characters on page one. "

And on the the writer's welcome:

"Take a very welcoming writer like Nabokov and go along with a guest host idea. You show up on page one of a Nabokov novel. He welcomes you in, gives you plenty to think about immediately, gives you the best, most comfortable armchair, nears the fire, serves his best wine, and addresses you stretched to his very best, making an enormous effort to make you feel comfortable. And you go and see James Joyce, and you've got the address that you've been given. Very difficult to find... you know. It's 86 So-and-So Street. You get to 85, and then there's nothing there. But you do find it eventually around the corner, and then you ring the bell. No answer. And then you wander around this strange building in the dark, and there's little booby traps all over the place. And you call his name, and eventually you find him in some kitchen on the ninth floor. And he turns around and addresses you in a language you've never heard. And whereas Nabokov serves a delicious stew with his best wine, Joyce gives you two slabs of peat around a conga eel and some filthy concoction. Because he doesn't care about you. And I'm more and more convinced that you've got to love the reader. And James Joyce, apart from Dubliners, his first book, never gave a shit about the reader at all

It's not so bad if you're not writing social realism, but it sort of disqualifies you from the social aspect of what fiction is."