Lucky Him
Springs, John
"Lucky Him" A remembrance of the late Sir Kingsley Amis Words drawings by John Springs The American Spectator LAST OCTOBER Britain's Harpers 6 Queen laid on a party to celebrate its...
...A few years before he had taken the trouble to write the London Spectator in mock puzzlement as to why they employed me...
...I offered to step down, but Harpers responded by giving me total freedom to draw him as I wished...
...He was very polite, and said he enjoyed seeing the drawings...
...Revenge, if you could call it that, came when Harpers & Queen asked me to illustrate his monthly review—with Kingsley the focal point of each drawing...
...Any sign that the middle class had encroached upon his domain—wine bottles in wicker baskets, for example—mortified him, and he trampled such pretensions ruthlessly in his pages...
...The American Spectator • January 1996 47...
...He selected the most expensive and legendary eateries throughout London, gorging himself on five courses and dispatching wine waiters into damp and cobwebbed corners for the finest dust-encrusted vintages—the kind usually reserved for heads of state, whores, and movie moguls...
...I remember how he tore a capon apart with his hands—and with great gusto...
...Kingsley was carrying on the tradition of the artist carving a life beyond his meager means, having the courage to enjoy the excesses of the rich playgrounds he visited...
...in the crush all one could hope for was a glass of champagne to ward off the intolerable heat...
...Kingsley, who for a time wrote the monthly restaurant review, had suffered a terrible fall weeks earlier...
...Still I declined to take dinners with the great man...
...pounds later, Kingsley remained unconvinced about the skill of my hand, and mentioned to the editor that perhaps I didn't do his fine, chiseled Greek profile full credit...
...41 He absorbed all manner of aperitifs, brandies, and ancient bottle-green potions...
...Two years and thousands of National Magazine Co...
...41j What struck me most was how bohemian he was...
...Most of the magazine's illustrious contributors were there, save an especially well-known one—Sir Kingsley Amis, the novelist and poet...
...41.[ The choice of restaurant was left entirely up to him...
...A remembrance of the late Sir Kingsley Amis Words drawings by John Springs 46 January 1996 • The American Spectator LAST OCTOBER Britain's Harpers 6 Queen laid on a party to celebrate its twenty-fifth year...
...111 In fact, as I worked only from photographs of him, I only met him once...
...411 Had he been there he might have told me how bad my draw ings are, which would well have rounded off our "relationship...
...It was in Primrose Hill, in exactly the kind of unassuming little bistro he shunned in his column...
...Within days of the gala, he was dead...
...He was 73 years old...
...My skill, he thought, extended only to being able to portray people in the manner of how they didn't look...
Vol. 29 • January 1996 • No. 1
