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Title: The Information by Martin Amis ISBN: 0-679-73573-9 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 19 March, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.36 (53 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Amis has produced a discomforting but important book
Comment: No one can claim that Amis's novel makes them feel good about the world. The humor is dark, the weather is dark, the mood is dark and the characters are, by and large, reprehensible. But that doesn't change the fact that "The Information" is excellent, and that both the substance of Amis's musings on the degenerative and degrading mechanics of contemporary life and the style with which he carries these off is worth both respect and the effort required to penetrate his multi-layered and sometimes difficult structural approach. Those about to read the book, seriously consider three things: 1. What is the significance of Amis's brief digressions into the first person (himself)?, 2. Do you feel manhandled by the grand analogy between cosmic events and the characters' lives?, 3. What is Amis trying to do when he writes passages in which many of the sentences are left unfinished (what does this say about the "information")?
Rating: 2
Summary: Where did it all go wrong?
Comment: 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.
Rating: 3
Summary: With friends like these, who needs enemies
Comment: _The Information_ is about two long-time friends, each in his own way, suffering from insecurity and from deep feelings of inadequacy. Gwyn Barry is a best-selling writer of trashy novels and Richard Tull, who writes about more esoteric subject matter while reviewing books on the side, considers himself lucky if he can get one of his books sold. Richard is extremely jealous of Gwyn's success and teeters on the edge of insanity in his efforts to get even with Gwyn. In return, Gwyn resorts to taking lessons in shooting pool. It seems that Richard always narrowly beats Gwyn at snooker as well as in other games. They are constantly seeking to humiliate one other, whether by bedding each others wives, or in Richard's case, by spreading false rumors about Gwyn. Ultimately Richard hires a thug (interestingly, the only person who deigns to purchase Richard's book) to harm Gwyn physically. Their trip together to America on a book-signing and speaking tour turns into a disastrously humiliating, but hilarious, experience for Richard.
On the down side, I frequently found Martin Amis's style of writing confusing and hard to follow, especially regarding his tendency to jump forward and backward in time. This was particularly apparent when Amis recounted the activities of some of Richard's lower-life acquaintances. Still, it is fun to read about Richard and Gwyn continually raising the ante of danger to themselves to to each other as pseudo-macho combatants.
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Title: London Fields by MARTIN AMIS ISBN: 0679730346 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 April, 1991 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Money by Martin Amis ISBN: 0140088911 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: March, 1986 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Experience : A Memoir by Martin Amis ISBN: 0375726837 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis ISBN: 0679734589 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 29 September, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Yellow Dog by Martin Amis ISBN: 1401352030 Publisher: Miramax Pub. Date: 05 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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