Review from a Transgressive Fiction Fan
This scathing and outrageously eloquent satire on literary envy is clearly Mr. Amis’s magnum opus. Amis probes with excruciating minutiae every nook and cranny of the writer’s psyche, leaving no area of the literary life unflamed with his blowtorch of masterful prose, hilarious wit, and Nabokovian wordplay. Even when Amis “does the proles” his writing is still at its mesmerising peak. This is a book writers everywhere will adore: hopefully blasting a few scribes from their ego-clouds and patterns of lunacy in the process. Amis was paid a whopping £500,000 advance for this novel, which he would spend on repairing his teeth. In my opinion, it was worth every penny. In a canon of perpetual disappointments, flops and follies, this is the one true gem.
“Insightful” Review from a Mainstream Reader
I have tried several times to read this. I’ve never managed to read every word of it. And each time I pick it up, I think ‘This must be better than I remember it’. It never is. Style over substance. Maybe this latest skirmish will teach me not to be fooled into picking this up again.