Martin Amis went to Exeter College, Oxford and lived before that with his father in a village in Oxfordshire. Sound familiar, of course it's just like the plot in the book!. Martin Amis' first novel shows hints of true genius. The characterisation of the books sort-of-hero, Charles Highway is fascinating, and he dissects the typical foibles of an adolescent with skill and integrity. Other high points include the amazing vocabulary that the book is written with. The outstanding prose makes me (excuse me) laugh out loud every time I read it and almost makes up for some of the unconvincing aspects of the plot. Autobiographical? Yes. Self-Obsessed? Yes. Extremely funny? Definately. Worth Buying? Without a doubt. Some have said that to start reading Martin Amis, other books like Money or Success would be better. I disagree. The Rachel Papers is a brilliantly funny introduction to the writings of one of the strangest and most talented British Novelists.

I LOVE THIS BOOK! I bought this book on a whim while on vacation with a couple of my friends and they ended up disgusted with me because I stayed in the hotel reading rather than going out with them. This is a typical coming of age story about a boy (the ubiquitous Charles Highway) and Rachel, the girl he plans on seducing but ends up falling for. Nothing new here, plotwise, but the novel works so well because of the narrative voice. Not since Holden Caulfield has an adoloescent boy come across so well in words. Martin Amis' true genius lies in his ability to capture the bravado, insecurity, and insight of a character on the verge of manhood. Truly extraordinary.

Ladies, read this one together with your man. I did! And it was wonderful. This is such a great book. Martin Amis takes us to a place that most just let pass by without a thought. The coming of age, leaving the "teen" years and entering a new world.

Charles Highway, is not that "average" person. He takes note of the people and events that happen in his life, yes, actual notes on them, and puts them into the appropriate files. Which brings us to "The Rachel Papers" Her very own file created by Charles, for Charles!

Charles is a very smooth and intelligent seducer, planner, player, schemer and con-man. Example...Rachel is coming over, rock posters are replaced by fine art posters, specific books are placed in strategic places around the room, as well as the musical choice to be playing as she enters the room. He definately is setting the stage. What starts out as a scheme to seduce and conquer Rachel, slowly turns into feelings of first love for Charles. Sending his logical head in to a tailspin. Leaving him confused and challenged as how to plot his next step. He's also dealing with his sister and brother-in-laws shaky marriage, his fathers' mistress, yet devotion to his marriage and family, his socialite mother, his involvement with two other girls, both of which keep his mind occupied with questions. As well as trying to schmooz his way into Oxford!

This book was a delight to read, we laughed out loud, and could identify with alot of what was written in these pages, the truths, to our amazement. Martin Amis' smooth style and keen insight, makes this a perfect read, for anyone of any age. One you may even read it for a second time, just because it was so good the first time around !!!

Don't pass this one by!

"The Adventures of Augie March" is a coming-of-age story about a young man who grows up in a working-class Jewish neighborhood of Chicago in the first half of the 20th century. Augie is intelligent and articulate, but he seems to wander through life passively with no definite goals and not many interests. As the Depression hits, he is forced to postpone his academic pursuits in order to make a living, taking a wide variety of odd jobs, including stealing books, organizing labor unions, and working as a research assistant to an eccentric wealthy man writing a book about wealthy people. Eventually he decides to become a schoolteacher, but even this profession is relatively short-lived. The novel culminates in Augie's discovery that he must align himself with the "axial lines" of his life.

Augie's "adventures" consist mainly of his getting entangled in various affairs of his relatives, friends, girlfriends, and employers. These episodes range dramatically from his nearly getting caught by the police in a stolen car, to his accompaniment of his friend Mimi to an abortionist and her subsequent grave illness (probably a bold thing to write about at the time), to helping his girlfriend Thea train an eagle to hunt lizards in Mexico. (Thea finds, to her frustration, that she can train neither the eagle nor Augie.) This is a bizarre assortment of events, but the depiction of each is strangely realistic and unique.

The narration is masterfully constructed with Bellow's erudite prose and penchant for rich description. Reading this novel is challenging but ultimately rewarding.

This novel is unquestionably one of the great masterpieces of our time.

Saul Bellow paints portraits of characters like Rembrandt. He has a brilliant technique for divulging not only the physical nuances of his characters but also gets deep into the essence of their souls.

He has an astute grasp of motivation and spins a complex tale with an ease that astounds. Even the most unusual twists of fate seem natural and authentic.

Augie is a man "in search of a worthwhile fate." After struggling at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a penniless youth in Chicago, he ultimately discovers that alignment with the "axial lines" of his existence is the secret to human fulfillment.

While his brother is engrossed in chasing after financial enrichment and social esteem, Augie learns through his own striving that such pursuit is "merely clownery hiding tragedy."

Augie is a man dogged in his pursuit of the American dream who has an epiphany that the riches that life has to offer lie in the secrets at the heart's core. If, as Sarte says, life is the search for meaning, then Augie is the inspired champion of this great human quest.

The true test of a great book is that you wish it would never end. Fortunately, Saul Bellow is as prolific as he is brilliant and there is much more to explore.

Bellow is worthy of the characterization of one of America's best living novelists: he is a treasure. His wisdom staggers the imagination.

Don't let this novel pass you by!

Anyone who has ever wondered where life is taking them will appreciate Bellow's "The Adventures of Augie March." Bellow takes readers on a colorful journey through Depression-era Chicago, incorporating numerous characters, all of whom are memorable. But the strength of "March" lies in it's message. Simply, "the only possessing is of the moment. If you're able." Augie fails a lot in this book, but Bellow is proud of his protagonist, for it is through these failures that Augie eventually succeeds. It is through these failures that he ultimately gains possession of the moment. This book is a wonderful commentary on human nature and the forces which drive us to succeed. Anyone reading this book will gain a new appreciation for Bellow's interpretation of meaningful success. I can't recommend this book enough.

The best recommendation for this book is that it is simply good writing, very good writing. Amis may, in fact, be the premier writer of his time for this type of short, spare-not-the rapier witty style of journalistic writing so common in England: As opposed to America, this collection's ostensible subject, where there is no style, and it is discouraged as bravura. A brief example of this is Amis's crisp, droll assessment of a particular book: "The first thing to say about it is that it's bad: It's bad." - There are other things to say about it, of course, which Amis duly proceeds to do. But it's that stylistic, ironic nuance in the opening that captures the flavour of these pieces. Can anyone imagine an American reviewer or journalist getting away with displaying, heaven forbid, such personal style.

The only fault I find with this book is the one Amis apologizes for in the Introduction, that it is simply a compilation of essays and reviews previously written for English papers. Thus, what we have here is a collection of snapshots, crystal clear, of certain aspects of America and her writers. The "big picture," so to speak, is missing.--But, again, the big picture is not Amis's forte, and you will find yourself delightedly guffawing, in spite of yourself perhaps, at these brilliant flashes of the master of rapier wit.

This compilation of articles ranges from Capote to the religious right. Amis is very bright and he is an extraordinarily gifted writer. That makes the book very enjoyable. The only problem is is that he doesn't hide the fact that he knows that he is very bright and an extraordinarily gifted writer. Regardless, I really enjoyed his wit and obseravtions.

This is one of Martin Amis's funniest and most interesting books. The book/author reviews are incredibly good (you'll never read Mailer, Burroughs, Didion, with a completely straight face again), and the social commentary is very well delivered.

As the title indicates, this book is highly critical of America, but it is a criticism tempered and somewhat confounded by Amis's complicated Ameriphilia: Amis's favorite writers are Americans (or at least expatriates who live in America), and Amis is very fond of claiming that he feels himself to be about half American. Yet America is the home and central breeding-ground of most of Amis's most hated evils: obscene wealth, unscrupulous capitalism (whitewashed in American euphamisms), the nuclear warfare industry, braindead religion, banal art &c. In both this book and the same-period novel Money (probably Amis's best), Amis posits pornography as America's economic and cultural nexus.

Amis's tense relationship with America provides for some incredibly good journalism and essays. The style throughout is outstanding, and most of my memories of the book come back in complete phrases. Looking at the early stages of the AIDS epidemic: "'Spend-down' turns out to be one of those cutely hyphenated nightmares of American life. Practically stated, it means that the AIDS victim sells and spends everything before qualifying for Medicare. Duly pauperized..." On Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead: "The novel was impossibly mature. The immaturity was all to come....[later in the article] Mailer's essays from this period--'The Existential Hero,' 'The Philosophy of Hip,' and 'The White Negro'--sum up how Mailer was feeling about himself at the time." "Truman Capote lived the life of an American novelist in condensed form: He was a writer at 9, a drunk at 15, a celebrity at 21, a millionaire at 35, and dead at 59." Almost the whole book is bracingly well-written.

Almost: strangely, only when Amis is writing about his favorite writer (and in a few very short dud pieces), Saul Bellow, does his style seem to go dead. I suppose there's so much adoration involved (adoration which, I have to admit, I don't understand), that he's reduced to helpless quotation.

Let me preface this by saying that I love Kingsley's novels and admire Martin's--especially "The Information". So naturally I was delighted to hear that Martin had written a memoir that featured stories about Kingsley and Philip Larkin and other notables. Well, there aren't nearly enough stories about Martin's famous friends, and the anecdotes he tells often are strangely lifeless. For instance, he recounts several long conversations he's had with Saul Bellow and they're BORING and pointless. Surely Bellow isn't this dull? (And is it necessary for Martin to include several long quotes from "Ravelstein" and a plot summary? Please! I've already read "Ravlestein"!)Also Martin is friends with Salman Rushdie. Surely he has an interesting anecdote or two about Rushdie? Alas, no. The book contains a few good stories from Martin's childhood and college years, but by and large the book's liveliest pages concern Kingsley. The only good jokes are the ones Martin remembers Kingsley telling him, and the best quotes in the book are, not surprisingly, passages from Kingsley's novels or poems or Kingsley's parodies of other people's poems. Martin seems to realize that he's short of great material, as several times he retells a joke that appeared 100 pages earlier. (Is their an editor in the house? Why didn't the [alleged] editors chop off at least 200 pages from this thing?) So if you really, really, love Kingsley, get a copy of this book and speedread through the boring parts. If you're not wild about Kingsley, there's absolutely nothing in this book that would interest you.

As much as I enjoyed this book, and as much as I truly admire Martin Amis, there was something a bit contrived in the construction of "Experience" that ultimately undermined it for me. I saw Amis speak recently and he admitted having to fight novelistic urges when writing this "memoir" and frankly I don't think he was able to restrain himself. Throughout the book Amis returns to the disappearance of his cousin Lucy in 1973, who turns out was murdered by a serial killer (as would come to light years later). Now it is worth knowing that Lucy's family has protested that Amis barely knew Lucy and I can't help feeling he is plumping up her role in his life for thematic reasons. The title of the book is after all is "Experience" and much of the book is about the shedding of innocence and his cousin Lucy is of course a perfect symbol for this. And his writing on Lucy borders on the treacly, something I never thought possible from Martin Amis.

Nevertheless putting aside the rather heavy handed shaping of this book and the discomfort I can't escape feeling about his near exploitive use of his cousin, this is still a fine book. When he steps out of the corset of his theme of lost innocence Amis's wry humor is still intact, particularly in his affectionate yet hardly uncritical portrait of his father.

And while many have complained that Martin spent far too much time talking about his teeth, I can guarantee you if you finish the book you will be flossing and brushing regularly for the forseeable future.

I used to have Martin Amis down as both a brilliant writer and an honest one. Now I think of him only as brilliant. 'Experience' is superbly written, but it is, ultimately, evasive. Dirt is not required, not by any means, but what is very clear from Amis's life, and let us believe only a fraction of what the newspapers report, is that there have been times when he has caught himself in very painful (and therefore interesting) situations. The problem with 'Experience' is that Amis expends so much candid energy (and his stamina for high style remains astonishing) discussing the effect that other peoples pain has had on him. His old man, his cousin, various deceased dogs. Amis deals with the anger and grief inflicted upon himself by others suffering beautifully. In short, the pifalls of those he loves are Martin Amis's grief. This however, is all noble pain, it's things we can't help, life, luck. We have no real obligation to feel grief over the death of a father, or a murdered cousin (we may hate them) but it serves to remind us of our own humanity when we do. Amis spends nearly the whole of Experience plugging a simple underlying theme, no more complicated or unpretentious then this; 'I am a humane man.' This is a believable theme and evidence abounds for it in all his novels. But his novels also abound with a certain beady-eyed blackness, an eye for the exquistely pathetic and the hilarity and range of human weakness. To write 'Experience' Amis dropped his most wicked tools, and if your going to write something about YOURSELF, and you want it to be honest and complete, as well as effective and excellent (which 'Experience' unquestionably is), you cannot do this.

I need some examples. Heres two. Amis's sister Sally, seems to have literally expired out of existence. She was 46 and died of an 'infection' after a long depression related illness. Unlike Lucy Partington, Amis's cousin, Sally barely merits a mention after childhood in "Experience." (Amis's brother is also a peculiarly hollow figure.) Granted, Lucy Partington was murdered by Fred West, simaeltaneously unique, sensational, horrific, fully worthy of extensive comment. But Sally Amis, is also dead, also a little tragic, also worty of extensive comment, and she is Martin Amis's sister.

Martin Amis parted from his wife and children to start a new life with another woman. All we get from 'Experience' about these events is that they made him cry on a plane. Discretion is understandable, this fact is NOT missed. But Martin Amis left his wife and children for another woman, a happening that in other writings he has suggested is THE life event, and all he tells the reader about it is that he cried on a plane. Even if this is an indicator of a larger remorse and grief, it is NOT enough. Tragic as it is, writing about a murdered cousin is NOT the hard stuff, writing about self-inflicted family fracture IS.

Actually maybe dishonesty is a misguided accusation, maybe there is a second underlying theme that runs through 'Experience' along these lines. ' No I am not going to go to close to home because it is A. too painful and B.(perhaps a sub-theme of A) just TOO private.

No autobiography (except perhaps those ghost written on behalf of single-celled lock forwards) tells the WHOLE story. But, by my reckoning, Martin Amis's 'Experience' won't shed a light on so much as half. It is an effective and excellent BOOK, it is also a wholly incomplete AUTOBIOGRAPHY. All the superlatives (brilliant, excellent, superb) are well deserved, but they are wierdly offset by what some people may call 'Englishness' and there is something of a the stiff upper lip about the finished product. But if there's one thing that the body of Amis's work, considered as a whole will tell you, its that Amis knows BETTER then that, and that at the heart of the books agile evasiveness, lies, not just a want of privacy but a lack of real courage.

If I could make a general statement about Martin Amis' writing, I'd have to say that I do like it, but I still have mixed feelings about the four novels of his that I've read, and my feelings are maybe the most mixed about Dead Babies. First:assuming that it's not bothersome(and I can understand why it would be), the humor in here is great:vicious, caustic, and completely absurd(one character's predicament pretty much sums it up:Keith Whitehead,a "dwarf", tied to a tree with an unnvering amount of syringes hanging from various places, and this is one of the less nasty outcomes of this group's adventures). As satire, it's more than adequate, and I love the way he fools around with tense(no action in the book actually 'happens', but it 'will', says the narrator). It does it's job there, I've got no complaints with that. I think my real difficulties with the book are TECHNICAL ones. The central plot(and its subplots), such as they are, don't decide to settle in until it's almost too late, making the book seem perhaps more shapeless and repetitive than it really is, and that impression isnt helped by the fact that the plots don't gel the books elements very well. You get the feeling that Johnny and the conceptualists would still be doing what they were doing, regardless, and given that AMis prattles on about moral fiction as often as he does, youd think the aforementioned elements would have some sort of effect on their lives, but I dont quite buy it. having said THAT, I discovered upon reading Amis' essay on Joan Didion in The Moronic Inferno that this book is stylistically a satire of the KIND of writing produced by Joan Didion and Bret Easton Ellis, 'transgressive'. Slightly plotted, syntactically appalling("the only thing poetic about this book is that it's filled with line breaks") attempts at 'satire' that usually veer too far into humorless and boring decadence. A formal satire! Knowing that helps, but it doesnt totally make for an smooth or totally enjoyable read. Still, give it a chance. Though I see I haven't gone on too much about them, Dead Babies does have a lot of good qualities. It's just not necesarily for everybody. I don't even quite know if it is for ME yet.

In the Rachel Papers, Amis claims that as a modern writer one can no longer write seriously about such things as love, the moon's reflection in the pond, the stars... This may be the case, but that doesn't mean that you are confined to writing only about pornographers, seedy, violent urban people and wise-acre nihilists. These types of people (and they are merely types) fit better in movies and TV than they do in fiction. Because they're boring and wooden, is why. The dialouge in this book (and man, is there a lot of it) is comprised of the characters (or caricatures) all trying to be more witty and nihilistic than each other. The reader comes away with feelings about how essentially boring human conversation is. Also there is something old-fashioned about the fascination in this book with sex and drugs... If you've already had sex and experimented with drugs (as presumably most of Amis's readers have) then this book just often seems juvenile.

Also, a bone to pick re: Amis's Americans: They are wooden and reflect common Euro misconceptions about what Americans are like.
Amis seems to cling to these stereotypes (eg. all Americans are tall, tan, and filled with "American resolve" as he says in the Information, his best novel (I think)). His Americans, at least in his early fiction, are absolute cartoons, even more cardboard-like than his other characters. You can't understand a culture by watching its TV and reading its newpapers. As the kid says below, so much for the War against the Cliche. From reading Amis's fiction, I'm surprised by the fact that he actually has been here... Plus, gritty urban America is merely one facet of the country, and even within this small section, there is endless variation (eg. the world of Seattle is far from the world of Chicago).

Boy, I don't want it to seem like I don't like Amis; he's great and really funny, but this is the weakest novel of his I've read, so everything that bothers me about him kinda stood out.

His influences are so clearly felt (Bellow, Nabokov, Updike, Delillo) that you can almost pick any paragraph and easily see which of these four comes through the most. I'm not saying Amis is derivitave, though; he's got his own thing going on...

The cool thing about Dead Babies is the "time situation": in the narration, the events that you are reading are still off in the future; "now" all the characters haven't even met, the situations have barely even come together. So there is a subjunctive, elusive feel to the narrative...cool.

Personally, I'd suggest the Information if you've never read him before. And really maybe the reason his characters grate on me is because I'm too "tender and wooly" as Updike has said of himself.

I bought this book on a whim. I wasn't expecting what I read. I couldn't put it down. It has been along time since I read something full of such detail. I truly enjoyed this book and since have had several of my friends read it. They feel the same way. I wasn't even aware of what I was reading until the end. I thought it was one thing and it turned out to actually be a completely different kind of book. If you enjoy exciting details and thrilling endings this is the book for you!!!!

Let me just say that Martin Amis is probably not for everyone. His ecceedingly dark meditations on British Middle Class issues (think of it as the dark side to Jane Austen) may be either too disturbing or totally irrelevant to some readers. But for those who go in for dark irony in thick layers, and carefully constructed narratives, Amis is probably for you. *Success* chonicles a pivotal year in the life of foster brothers. Terry Service, a "yob", as well as a compelling, gittering pile of neuroses, self-hatred and self-pity who hasn't had sex in months is the adopted brother of Gregory Riding, rich, self-assured, attractive and completely heartless. Terry was adopted after watching his father kill his sister. Add to the antagonistic brew of the two "brothers", unreliable first-person accounts of the year, a decidedly insane sister and some rather biting role reversal, and the book turns out to be a real treat. It's fairly clear early on what is going to happen in the course of the novel, at least in the grand scheme of things, if not in the minutiae of the plot details. It's still a fun ride to watch Amis pull off the expected with incredible panache and some unexpected turns. Trust me, get through the first two chapters and continue reading, it's definitely worth it. What's also interesting is to read Amis' *MONEY* after reading this book. The main character in *MONEY* is like a mix of Terry and Greg (if that were imaginable). *SUCCESS* is a good introduction to the aesthetics of Amis, after this read *MONEY* or *THE INFORMATION*. Then you'll probably be ready for *LONDON FIELDS*.

There is in the life of every man a year which is entered as a confused adolescent and is ended either as an independent fully formed adult, or as a broken human being. Promise, as perceived by others, has very little to do with the outcome. Promise, as perceived by the adolescent himself is also not the determining factor. Amis argues that what ultimately forms the man is the ability to cope with adversity and choose the few avenues that lead somewhere (not necessarily somewhere special), rather than be side-tracked into a dead-end by the need for transient success.

From the first sentence this book keeps the reader riveted and directly involved. Every one of the twelve chapters, one for each month of that formative year, consists of two parts, a first part in which Terry Service tells the reader what is going on in his life and a second part in which his foster brother Gregory Riding takes his turn. The two compete fiercely for the reader's approval and understanding. Terry, insecure and convinced that he is marked for failure, tries to avoid, or at least delay, the disaster he assumes to be his inevitable lot. He succeeds and makes it into a sustainable, if not particularly exciting adulthood. Gregory, ever the spoiled brat and outright psychopath, lies to and deceives everyone including himself until that inevitable moment when everything in his life unravels fast and he runs home only to be faced with his family's financial bankruptcy and his father's death. Murders, suicide and incest give a gothic aura to the tale, but then no one should underestimate the horrors of that metamorphosis whereby the adult human male is formed. Yet the whole thing is made bearable by the protagonists' remarkable sense of humor and by a healthy dose of cynicism and denial. In places the book is hilariously funny, Terry's dialogue with his penis, for one. In other places it is intensely moving, particularly when under all the sibling rivalry, deception and envy, we see traces of decency and ultimately of genuine affection between the two foster brothers.

This is a marvelous book and one cannot fail but notice that it would make a great movie. Leonardo DiCaprio and Joaquin Phoenix were clearly meant to star as Gregory and Terry. But then, who in Hollywood takes my advice? END

Martin Amis's novel, "Success" is the venomous story of two vastly different men--foster brothers, Gregory Riding and Terence Service. Terence witnessed the murder of his sister when he was a mere 9 years old, and he was adopted by the upper-class Riding family out of a mis-guided sense of pity and social obligation. Terry--a 'yob'--has never managed to fit in amongst the shining glory of the perfect Riding dynasty. He's completely outclassed by Gregory, and Terry cannot compete with the bond Gregory shares with his skinny sister, Ursula Riding. Terry remains an outsider--and an inferior one at that. As the book begins, Gregory and Terence (Terry) share a tiny flat in London, and the nauseating intimacy forced upon them causes brooding resentments to fracture and twist their lives irreversibly.

Gregory Riding is the princeling and heir apparent of the Riding fortune--except dad is slipping from eccentricity into utter madness, and soon there will be no fortune left to inherit. Gregory is handsome, snobbish, arrogant, and unpleasant. He works in a pretentious art gallery by day, and is an avid orgy attendee by night. Terry, in complete contrast, is homely, clumsy, messy, and a deadloss with women. The events are revealed in a sort of 'he said/he said' format. Gregory gives his version of events, and then Terry gives his version. The versions, are of course, never the same, although there is a teensy-weensy overlap. But where is the truth? That is for the reader to decide.

"Success" is a strong indictment of the British class struggle (and the general in-advisability of taking a 'yob' into one's country mansion). Martin Amis truly is the Master of the Unreliable Narrator. Those with interest in this narrative form would do well to start with Martin Amis as a point of study. "Success" is a brilliantly constructed nasty little novel about some rather revolting people. The book deserves 5 stars for its perfect form, narrative flow, and sheer readability, and yet I disliked all the characters within its 220 odd pages. Ursula and the long-deceased Rosie Service float through the pages with ephemeral force, but they do not diminish or dilute the sheer nastiness and decaying rot of it all. If it is necessary for you to like the characters you read about, then I would advise you to look elsewhere, for you won't find anything here. If, however, you can accept 220 pages about obnoxious people who may or may not be what they appear, and if you are fascinated by human character and motivations, then this may be the novel for you. If you enjoyed "Amsterdam" by Ian McEwan, you will probably also enjoy this novel--displacedhuman.

Martin Amis for me is still an open question. With more spunk and bile than any of his contemporaries, with an enormous gift of language as well as an ear for it, learned and "post-modern".

Yet this writer has only written one really great novel, "money", a few terrible, thin, derrivative first novels, a verbose and over-indulgent "London Fields", and an inexplicable bad taste, time-reversed, holocaust portrayal in "Times Arrow". (as well as a premature over-literary attempt at an autobiography by the name of "experience".)

True, his satire is unmistable and his prose polished and sharp. But although I have enjoyed several passages of this book, including this highly constructed, lengthy and artificial one, I have never pondered whilst reading his book on any thought marginally relevant to humanity or even slightly revealing about human nature, or history, or society etc. I 've read so much of his work simply for the allure of the language (including the haunting, again due to the prose only, "night train".)

And I am still wondering, what's getting in the way of the timeless work of literature still waiting to appear from this undoudtedly gifted writer. Is it vanity and narcissism that bogs him, is it the moral vacuum and elitist world-view, is it the reluctance to disclose any of his most treasured thoughts. In his interviews he is parsimonious, one simply cannot tell. Is it perhaps that he is only a stylist and not a thinker.

This book is not bad, it could have used some editing, but it is not bad as is, it is not good either, it is a big fat nothing, with plenty of literary devices, sub-plots, masterfully drawn minor characters, and some of the best sentences (stylistically speaking) that you may have read. I can't figure it out, perhaps the words have drawn all the attention to themselves, form over content. My questions still remain.

P.S. The astrological musings are laughable.

amis' writing is always a true joy. who better to spend your day with than richard tull, the information's disheveled, cynical and (frequently) drunk protagonist whose running commentary showcases the author's talented wit and insight. an amis novel reads like no other. diregard "beginning, middle and end." forget trying to piece together who all of the characters are, where they came from, and why. instead sit back and devour prose at its best. the information presents irony upon irony. the good guy doesn't always (or, in this case, ever) win, dispelling the often repeated myth. just when you think that things can't get worse for mr. tull, our friend is hit with yet another blow to the ego. dark humor surrounds him, thus you can't help but chuckle (rather than tear up) for this unsuccessful writer's misfortune. constantly on a quest for "the information," tull is forever revealing bits of it to the reader whilst keeping his audience (and himself) guessing. what is "the information?" give this latest amis book a try and discover it for yourself. double thumbs up for this read

Martin Amis is one of those authors who believes in language. Following in the footsteps of Joyce and Faulkner, Amis flows his words like an elixir through the passages of this book. His characters breathe life believably; you both despise and root for all the main characters. But where Joyce had Dublin and Faulkner the south, Amis lays claim to Bitterness. Even his when they win, his characters can never succeed. His central character, a literary author, has written a book that nobody can read without getting a brain hemmorage. His friend and feel-good author writes vapid fluff and sells millions. The literary author wants to kill off the popular author. The popular author, though, is jealous of his inability to defeat the literary author in any game. Then you have the brilliant descriptions of signings, extra-maritial affairs, and editing worthless biographies for a go-nowhere magazine.

The only place this book does not succeed, in fact, is in its conclusion. Only here does anything seem con

English writer does a satire of Detective Noir, so it has to be a mixture of love and loathing. One hand it's a late-night cop show, the other a sometimes witty expose of American culture.

M. Amis fits into the growing breed of cross-cultured writers raised on T.V. and cheap jet fares. Typical of the British literary thugs who arrived in the wake of the Beatles, he is pedigreed from the library and the street.

"Night Train" -- famous jazz melody, familiar urban atmosphere, metaphor for suicide. The plot follows the stock setup: stunning babe, daughter of a prominent citizen (the Police Chief), is found dead, naked and unambiguously erotic as per the demands of the genre. And in keeping with the current feminist dictums, she just happens to be a university astrophysicist. The investigating detective, syncro with the post birth-control pill reality, is also a woman, her sensibility trans-gendered into a world-weary crime fighting pro by the name of "Mike" Hoolihan. As for the action (what little there is of it), it's a series of ambiguities: was it murder or was it suicide, am I a man or am I a woman, is this real or is this T.V. Etc.

M.A. isn't the first writer to take a popular genre, gut it, reinvent it, try and make some sense out of a senseless world. But this one's a difficult read...like watching T.V. while grading essays about the effects of T.V. on global culture. The circularity of the experience is...constricting.

"...T.V. has also fucked up us police. No profession has been so massively fictionalized." Well, yes. Good point. How about "murder is a man thing" and/or "suicide's a babe thing"? Got me to thinking about other maxims: "Trampling is a bull thing, milk is a heifer's". Etc.

The major weakness of this novel isn't its premise, its theme, its grasp of the North American idiom, or its narrative structure. The chromatics just aren't there. The dramatization of incident -- the movement of story by action -- is missing. The effect is more of an essay written as free verse.

Nicotine hangover, flash frame epilepsy, gimme lithium, man.

An admirable exercise, but an ultimately unsatisfying read. Nevertheless, a strong narrative voice and a few red herrings meant that I read the middle section of it quickly. It was just the beginning and the end that dragged when the narrator spent so much time telling me again and again that there was no murderer to catch. An effort to salvage the "mystery" of the novel via a couple of sardonic messages from the corpse to her erstwhile friend feel like a half-hearted attempt tacked on at the last minute. A friend and I bought it the same night and both concluded that it's a book we dedicated bibliophiles wouldn't mind lending to someone who'll never return it. Sorry, Mr. Amis, but this is a train we don't mind missing.

While Times Arrow is still my favorite Amis, it could only be done once in that style and he must move on. The same goes for Night Train. What is important to objectively remember is the challenge he has imposed on himself. He has chosen to write a book in the voice of an American, female, police officer...that is not a writer, but a person, a non-writer going about telling us not even a story as much as events with some commentary anyone couldn't resist including. That he was able to "stifle" his talents as a writer and the urge to say things beautifully, as a writer would rather than the average person cop he has chosen, is a very dificult task. That he has the guts to move you to be as unfulfilled and left wanting, just as Night Trains "voice" is commendable. We don't get all the answers in life, and in this case, it is comforting to have her company in this reality. The suicide, police department, and surrounding information was also very interesting territory to receive somewhere other than the typical crime-detective offerings.

Short stories aren't Martin Amis' thing. It's just impossible to compare Heavy Water to London Fields, Money, The Information and all those other muscular big-budget novels that I find myself dipping into when I need a bit of a lift. Amis' two books of non-fiction are more entertaining. Still, to the dedicated Amis fan, Heavy Water proves that even his cast-off stuff is better than most writers' best; the book displays a tremendous elasticity of style from the hilarious role reversal of the poet and screenplay writer in the first story to the somber and technical science fiction of the 'Janitor on Mars.' Heavy Water is worth the cash outlay, but after this and Night Train, I'm ready for another meaty five hundred pager marinated in the BO of Keith Talent or BS of John Self. And I probably speak for most Amis fans.

People talk about this Martin Amis as though he's the be-all and end-all of modern literature, like he's the Michael Jordan of fiction (only not retired). Well, guess what? They're right. It's hard to imagine anyone thinking they were truly in touch with literature today not having read Amis. He does push the envelope, the very limits of the form, dazzling with every page. But what, I would ask detractors, is wrong with that? Isn't that what great writers are supposed to do? And, this collection is no exception, showing Amis to be, for the most part, in top form. In fact, some of the pieces in the collection, such as the moving and funny 'State of England', in which a yob struggles to find his place in modern England, rank among his best work in any format. Not to mention, 'What Happened to Me on My Holiday', 'Coincidence of the Arts', and 'Janitor on Mars'. All great great great. Don't think, either, that Amis is all about the writerly pyrotechnics he so handily summons. As other reviewers have noted, Amis' writing lately is displaying a lot of, well, heart. There is empathy and compassion in these stories, mixed in with all the brilliance. Any one who thinks otherwise has probably not actually read them. You might even be a little moved by some of them, in between bouts of being dazzled. Imagine that. Highly recommended. You'll no doubt want more of Amis, so go from HW to 'Money', 'London Fields', 'The Information' and 'Times' Arrow'.

As he has descended from the lofty perch of the satirist, Martin Amis's fiction has become--dare I say it?--more soulful. The best stories in his new collection Heavy Water and Other Stories--"The State of England," "The Coincidence of the Arts," "What Happened to Me on My Holiday"--attest to the increasing range and resonance of his fiction.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the final story in Heavy Water, "What Happened to Me on My Holiday." Ironically, the emotional resonance of this intensely autobiographical tale is deepened by means of a linguistic device that may initially alienate many readers. The story is narrated by an eleven-year old boy, a fictional version of Amis's son Louis, whose summer holiday on Cape Cod is shattered by the death of his step-brother (Elias Fawcett, the son of Amis's first wife Antonia Philips, who died at seventeen).

Amis represents Louis's response to this loss by means of a highly stylized phonetic speech (part American slang, part British phrasings) that is the verbal equivalent of the estrangement and stupefaction death leaves in its wake: "I dell id thiz way--in zargazdig Ameriganese--begaz I don'd wand id do be glear: do be all grizb and glear. There is thiz zdrange resizdanze. There is thiz zdrange resizdanze." Reading the story aloud to my 10 and 14-year old children, I felt Louis's grief as a physical presence--thick, hard, unyielding.

Wordsworth's "still, sad music of humanity" sounds throughout "What Happened to Me on My Holiday," preserved in a meticulously crafted fugue-like structure in which the voices of other characters and nature itself contribute to the theme of loss. Louis plays with his younger brother and his four-year-old cousin, catching crabs and minnows, understanding all too well (as his cousin does not) that a dead sprat will never return to life. He sees in the natural world intimations of the mortality he is now struggling to understand, observing the "gloud of grey" he sees rising from a pond on the day he hears that his stepbrother has died back in London: "nat mizd [mist], nat vag [fog], but the grey haze of ziddies and of zdreeds [cities and streets] . . . and nothing was glear." Elias now inhabits the distant land of memory, where Louis imagines him hurrying about "with bags and bundles . . . jaggeds and hads [jackets and hats], gayadig, vestive [chaotic, festive]".

Meanwhile, another of Louis's cousins goes into the pool without his arm-floats and must be rescued. At the end of his holiday, in the car on the way to the airport, the word "grey" returns again, like a haunting melody--the melody of mortality: "Greynezz is zeebing ubwards vram the band. And nothing is glear. And then zuddenly the grey brighdens, giving you a deeb thrab in the middle of your zgull." Now all the notes of the story converge, all the deaths come together, and Louis thinks of his brother: "one vine day you gan loob ub vram your billow and zee no brother in the dwin bed. You go around the houze, bud your brother is nowhere do be vound."

For readers new to Martin Amis, Heavy Water will serve as a bracing introduction to his arresting vision and his remarkable artistsry. It will assure the rest of us that his artistic quest is nowhere near its end.

I have read almost everything by Amis (M., that is), and I think that this was just about the worst (the very bottom spot is reserved for Night Train). The language is, as always, very good, but the story seems to have no real heart, direction, or overarching idea. This happens to Amis occassionally, and typically ends in a smugly vindictive showing-up of all society's supposed squalor. Amis has an inveterate inability to see much good in society and, being a writer, this usually serves him quite well. It needs to be tempered, though, with a plot, or a lot of humor, or a point. Maybe I didn't read this book carefully enough, but I certainly didn't find any of these things on ready display here.

Interestingly, Amis here seems to commit many of the same mistakes as Orwell did in Clergyman's Daughter, which has a somewhat similar plot (there is at least one incredibly strong parallel--the amnesiac woman awaking and being taken in by two tramps and their moll). It is unstylized cynicism.

There certainly is a lot of great M. Amis stuff out there, though: Money, The Information, London Fields, Time's Arrow (his most successfully moral book), Moronic Inferno, Visiting Mrs. Nabokov...Success was pretty good. Dead Babies was almost as bad as Other People, but not quite.

It is only fair to say that there are a few very funny scenes, and some descriptions worth remembering. If you could read it in one afternoon, I suppose it wouldn't be a waste of time. Overall, though, it proves what Amis says about book titles in his review of Joseph Heller's God Knows: a great title is an almost sure sign of mediocrity.

Often I find myself reading between MA and Jeanette Winterson. In many ways they are rather the light and dark side of the heart. While not as tremendous a book as "London Fields", "Other People" takes an intimate look within the daily human life, often turning these looks to challenge the reader to look within-have you ever noticed that even when you are not thinking of them the dark portions in your heart often caffeinate your mind (I'm merely writing out of my head and not quite quoting).
JW often writes of the soaring heart of Love and Passion and MA as well, yet his perspective is rather more on the pragmatic side-when we break it is nearly impossible to be put back together again. I devoured this novel and my only regret was that it came to an end. I could have followed the amnesiac Mary through her discovery of humanity for months.

of the fiction that i've read by Amis, this one's my favourite. the opening is unforgettable; hallucinogenic, beautifully observed, carefully ordered. and then on to a cross-section of London life; the drunks with their endless sitting around in the living room; the would-be muggers who, with brilliant nonchalance, are described as doing something so depressing that practically no one else can bear to do it; the moneyed idlers with their tragically empty lives, their sleeping around and their Kamikaze deceits.

one stylistic tic i could have lived without was the author's habit of repeat phrasing sentences. but the only genuinely damp squib in this case of literary fireworks was Amis's slightly juvenile obsession with murderers and murderees. as in London Fields, the ending is abrupt and offhand. having built up such a well-observed portrait of life, the end sequence feels amateurish and out of place, as if Amis doesn't have quite enough faith in his ability to chronicle life as it is, and must fall back on chicanery to hold his readership's attention.

overall though, a phenomenally good piece of writing.