My second visit to British Columbia affirmed the conclusion of my first: it’s where Canada goes to recuse itself, from the rest of Canada, while Canada bickers about itself. It’s not just at the edge of the map, the landscape really does invite one to narrow their issues.

I read the first obituaries for Martin Amis just before departing. Having since read nearly all of them, I can say that the Spectator’s Sam Leith got it right from his first paragraph:

Over the next few days, people will be reaching for certain set phrases about Martin Amis. That he was ‘era-defining’ (though he defined more than one era); that he was ‘genre-defying’ (he defied more than one genre); that he was an ‘enfant terrible’ (it will be wryly noted that he remained an enfant terrible, somehow, into his eighth decade). It’s poignant, I think, that a writer who vigilantly waged the career-long battle he called ‘the war against cliché’ will go to his grave heaped with the garlands of the old enemy.

Here’s Amis in his own words from forward to War Against Cliché (2001):

To idealize: all writing is a campaign against cliché. Not just clichés of the pen but clichés of the mind and clichés of the heart. When I dispraise, I am usually quoting clichés. When I praise, I am usually quoting the opposed qualities of freshness, energy, and reverberation of voice.