Cassie McCullough

hard to understand whether they're brilliant and we don't quite get them or whether they are a sense of decline.

And I guess one of the things I would put into that category is Shakespeare's Winter's Tale, you know, the one that's called one of the problem plays where, you know, some of it just doesn't really make sense.

But this is something that happens in visual art and in music.

The late works sometimes are these works of misunderstood genius.

You're listening to The Bookshelf on ABC Radio National with me, Cassie McCullough and Kate Evans.

And our guests today, critic Geordie Williamson and novelist and teacher Tegan Bennett-Daylight.

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It all helps.

Martin Amis being the English writer and son of Kingsley Amis, another English writer.

Martin is the author of London Fields, Night Train, Lionel Asbo and part of the English set of writers with Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and Christopher Hitchens.

And you may have heard, as I did, the hour that Martin Amis spent on Late Night Live with Philip Adams a few weeks ago, talking about his friendship with Christopher Hitchens.

Okay, so Geordie, why does he need to add a novel to the title?

What a beautiful description.

So this is one of the things that I was...

And I've often thought about that, exactly what you described, those men who were part of this great pantheon in real time, all in love with each other in a way.

And when I was listening to Philip Adams talking to Martin Amis and he said that he even now watches YouTube videos of Christopher Hitchens talking, like, you know, how many years now is it after he's dead?

It's almost hagiography.

Oh, wow.