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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Amis's new novel caused a considerable stir in Britain when the author left his longtime agent and publisher and entered a frantic auction process that left him with little financial gain and a lot of adverse publicity. It is, however, no reflection on the quality of the book, which is a flawed but often brilliantly funny creation built on a surefire idea: an author who can do nothing right, whose best friend and old college chum can do nothing wrong. Richard Tull has written three experimental novels, each more obscure and unreadable than the last (the last, in fact, despairingly called simply Untitled, causes instant migraines and eyestrain among all?including Tull's new agent?who attempt to read it). Gwyn Barry, on the other hand, has scored international bestsellerdom with a simple-minded, relentlessly upbeat fable about an ideal world; the publishing industry has thrown itself at his feet. Tull, who makes ends meet by relentless reviewing of hefty biographies of nobodies, and by moonlighting at a vanity publisher, wants nothing more in life than to right the balance. He undertakes to write a profile of Gwyn, which he intends to load with spleen, tries to introduce him to a manic teenage nympho, concocts a plagiarism plot and even gets in touch with the inimitable Scozzy, whose specialty is hurting people, only to have the plan backfire on himself in a cinema lavatory. Still Gwyn's artistic and commercial star continues to soar (though even his aristocratic wife concedes "He can't write for toffee"). The Information is endlessly inventive, full of dazzling riffs on language, on popular culture (a book tour in America is a small comic masterpiece in itself). But it has ambitions considerably beyond being just tough-mindedly delectable comedy. Amis keeps giving his tale shots of (sometimes quite literal) cosmic significance, and his writing is sometimes too intense for the intended blackly comic tone. In the midst of his facile biliousness are passages of baffled tenderness, about children and animals, that throw the book quite off balance. Despite its unevenness, however, it is blisteringly readable, throws off constant sparks of rueful recognition for anyone in the book business?and, its comic essence extracted, would make a marvelously funny movie. First serial to the New Yorker; BOMC and QPB alternates; $150 limited edition; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
Richard Tull, a fortyish book reviewer and failed novelist, is driven to distraction by the effortless and unmerited success of fellow Oxonian Gwyn Barry. While Barry's simpleminded novels become overnight best sellers, Tull's dense experimental manuscripts send a succession of literary agents to the hospital with migraine. Tull finally decides it's payback time, and this novel chronicles his slapstick attempts to annihilate his friend. Amis pads the narrative with irrelevant and sometimes erroneous scientific data, presumably to justify the book's title. (In one astronomical digression, he gives the speed of light as 186,000 miles per hour.) In general, however, this is a wonderfully cantankerous send-up of the British literary scene, similar to David Lodge's satire on academia, Small World (1984). Although the book has been greeted as a roman a clef in Great Britain, no special knowledge is required to enjoy its comedy. Recommended for most fiction collections.
-?Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
-?Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Probably 3 1/2 stars,
By
This review is from: The Information (Paperback)
This book was a bit quirky but fun. Two authors, old friends, become pitted against each other in some ways because one has become wildly successful - and undeservedly so in the eyes of the other. Money, revenge, humor, and all kinds of craziness ensue. It's the only Martin Amis novel I've read so far, so I can't compare it to his others, but I liked it.
2.0 out of 5 stars
tedious,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Information (Paperback)
This was a grind to get through. I hate oblique writing, and, of course, some people equate oblique writing with genius...well, this book has the oblique writing, but not the genius. I like natural writing, a la Tolstoy. Anyway, the story's sort of amusing. But the postmodern injections of Amis' own personal anecdotes (in a FICTION novel!!!) are jarring and out of place. Amis has confessed to egomania, but just because it's there, doesn't mean you have to display it. Some passages in this book are first rate, though. The plot can basically be summed up by Gore Vidal's famous line: "When a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies."
2.0 out of 5 stars
Stylish silliness,
By Andre Borchert (Nashua, New Hampshire,USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Information (Paperback)
Well written but halfbaked, and ultimately pointless as usual when it comes to Amis. Very funny, and sometimes stimulating, but not satisfying as as whole. Amis is mimicking himself. Too bad, because he's not worth mimicking.
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