THERE'S been a whole lot of keening in the British press lately about Martin Amis's new novel, and some in our own. Gwyn's latest novel has made him so hot that Richard, ostensibly his best friend, is positively melting within. | International | Secondly he received an almost unheard of advance for a literary novel (approximately £500,000 according to most sources)[7] which caused what was described as resentment and envy amongst his peers. One of the thugs gets things confused and goes after Richard instead of Gwyn. Page One Plus | Weather | It doesn't add up. Harmony Books. About 20 years ago, Martin Amis — the writer with the most pronounced daddy issues this side of Sylvia Plath — received a letter from an especially harrowing ex-girlfriend. Arts | Home | Travel Travel, Help/Feedback | Diversions | Review: The Information by Martin Amis by Matthew Selwyn September 20, 2012 4 Comments. Page One Plus | "The Information" drags a bit around the middle, but you're never out of reach of a sparkly phrase, stiletto metaphor or drop-dead insight into the human condition. To top it off, he is married to the Lady Demeter de Rougemount, a rich and milky blonde with whom he appears to have frequent, sweaty sex. He has a job as editor of a small literary rag and also works at a vanity press. The plot involves two forty-year-old novelists, Gwyn Barry (successful) and Richard Tull (not so). Martin Amis’s presence in those books modishly alluded to Heisenberg’s principle (an observed system interacts with its observer) and dramatised the unequal, even sadistic relationship between author and creation. Firstly he had dropped his agent, Pat Kavanagh, wife of Julian Barnes, and had signed up with Andrew Wylie, perceived to be a more aggressive agent. The Information features more of ‘Martin Amis’ but less of the playfulness. . Wrong Daddy , she said. He's said as much in interviews. Martin Fucking Amis, as most readers know, is the author of Money, London Fields, and The Information, the caustic, hilarious, defining novels of the final decades of the last century. He has written a number of increasingly obscure novels. [5] In London The Independent gave a less favourable review saying, "The Information has been seen as the conclusion of a London trilogy that opened with Money and London Fields - but that argument doesn't stand up. with his most deadpan pastiche yet: the police investigation of an impossible suicide. Forums | Off to a frisky start with "The Rachel Papers" and "Dead Babies"; then a nice, steady build with "Money" and "Success"; turned a bit heavy in "London Fields" and the horologically challenged "Time's Arrow." To his chagrin, Gwyn Barry—whose literary skills Tull holds in low esteem—has written a phenomenally successful novel and won a lucrative and respected literary prize. New York Today, Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company. In fact, Amis does define it implicitly late in the text - "slapping some slice of trex into a frying pan" (p. 335). Arts | jealousy, egomania, and revenge, and how authors, often held up as gurus or immortals, are just as petty and biologically driven as supposedly lower forms. The book was published in multiple languages including English, consists of 374 pages and is available in Paperback format. As Gore Vidal famously put it, "Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little." First, the tempest in this particular teapot perfectly befits the subject of the book, literary envy. Poor Richard finally can take no more. However, he does not know if Self will actually die by the end of the novel. The price of fame! It becomes hollow, and nihilistic. "[4] A further review from the same paper said "Amis has [an] idiosyncratic vision and his ability to articulate that vision in wonderfully edgy, street-smart prose [...] an uncompromising and highly ambitious novel that should also be a big popular hit.". However you feel about it, you can't avoid it: Mr. Amis is his generation's top literary dog. Gwyn -- who, according to a recent exhaustive article in The New Yorker on the whole Amis fracas, is not, repeat not, modeled on Julian Barnes -- has been Richard's closest friend since they roomed together at Oxford. Editorial | He has a lovely wife, two swell young boys, one of whom he smacks when Gwyn hits the best-seller list. John Self is the director of a movie, and this is the reason he came to New York City. Left to run its smug, self-referential course, hipness ends up turning the Ten Commandments into a David Letterman top 10 list. He has received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his memoir Experience and has been listed for the Booker Prize twice to date (shortlisted in 1991 for Time's Arrow and longlisted in 2003 for Yellow Dog). Editorial | THE INFORMATION By Martin Amis. Diversions | Maybe it's just a case of Amis envy. But eventually hipness becomes tiresome. The first edition of the novel was published in 1995, and was written by Martin Amis. Interview with Charlie Rose of "The Information", "Raging Midlife Crisis As Contemporary Ethos", Time's Arrow: or The Nature of the Offence, The Moronic Inferno: And Other Visits to America, Visiting Mrs Nabokov: And Other Excursions, Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million, The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump. The cause of all this fuss and feathers is that -- brace yourself -- he fired one agent (the wife of his close friend, the novelist Julian Barnes), and hired another, Andrew Wylie, an American now referred to in the British papers as "the Jackal" and "the Robert Maxwell of agenting," who got him a juicy advance for the British edition, rumored to be close to $800,000. New York: This escalates to crunchier means of revenge, involving the usual Amis menagerie of dangerous proles, grimly amusing London netherworlders with names like Scozzy, Darko, Crash, RoosterBooster and 13. Instead, it is about human nature, e.g. Free download or read online The Information pdf (ePUB) book. Services | Science | As literature’s oldest enfant terrible turns 70, John Self, who took his pen name from an Amis character, revisits the collected works. Science | Second -- Americans will grasp this point without difficulty -- if you can get $800,000 for your novel, buddy, go for it. He is as successful as Richard is not. Still, you wonder: Don't they have anything better to worry about? National/N.Y. National/N.Y. He is also impotent, which never helps. His best-known novels are Money (1984) and London Fields (1989). You have to hand it to Mr. Amis on a couple of counts. Business | To this Australian’s ear Steven nails the Welsh, Serbian, Caribbean-English, Irish, and the other London and English accents within. New York: Harmony Books. Barry begins to enjoy a rarified life whilst Tull toils away with his unsuccessful pursuits. He is also "rich and Labor." (Probably the only hilarious instance of child abuse in literature.) Op-Ed | -- so interesting. Gwyn Barry and Richard Tull have been friends since they roomed together at university. Amis does a good job describing a lot of the stuff that's arguably wrong with the sort of fiction that tends to become wildly successful these days. He comes highly pedigreed, but his terrain is the junkyard of the human psyche -- in this case, the London literary scene. It's a novel that's sure to offend, horrify, and amuse anyone that's ever indulged in writing, book reviewing, editing, or publishing. Now we have the midlife crisis novel. Praise "Satirical and tender, funny and disturbing…wonderful." | In a later interview Amis elaborated on the subject of midlife crisis, describing it as "an hysterical overreaction to the certain knowledge that you're going to die. Martin Amis appears through the novel as an omniscient narrator. The New York Times said, "Amis is quite dazzling here [...] drags a bit around the middle, but you're never out of reach of a sparkly phrase, stiletto metaphor or drop-dead insight into the human condition. Site Search | Real Estate | Most alive when alone, they make living hard to do for those around them." ?Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "With The Information, Amis delivers a portrait of middle-age realignment with more verbal felicity and unbridled reach than [anyone] since Tom Wolfe forged Bonfire of the Vanities." Job Market | By Martin Amis. Clearly, the Barings bank scandal has provided diversion from l'affaire Amis in the very nick of time. The law of unintended consequences kicks in with a bloody heel. Weather | The Information is a 1995 novel by British writer Martin Amis. Richard's only consolation, in fact, is that Gwyn's writing is -- well, put it this way: Gwyn's writing stinks. Vidal was so right. Who's to argue? It's these moments, aside from the cool prose, that make watching Mr. Amis evolve -- Look out, Flaubert! THE INFORMATION Richard muses that "women did all this feeling, and seemed to need guidance from the theater. At any rate, the result of all this has been an unseemly, indecorous and envious caterwauling such as has not been heard since William Golding won the Nobel Prize in 1983. The Information is a 1995 novel by British writer Martin Amis. He is Welsh. Who but Martin Amis could make you laugh at someone with a cerebellum-busting, cocaine-and-plum-cherry-apricot-liqueur hangover sitting in Labrador retriever afterbirth? beriberis of facetious loathing had Richard ever seriously considered that he would one day be asked to face the prospect of a Gwyn Barry movie sale") and his determination to redress the cosmic imbalance make for gorgeous, dark inventions, such as his retyping Gwyn's novel so that he can -- but I mustn't give it away. While Martin Amis’s most gifted contemporaries—Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Graham Swift—were rebellious in technique, borrowing from magical realism to consider questions about identity, Amis’s achievement might be described as primarily tonal. Services | jealousy, egomania, and revenge, and how authors, often held up as gurus or immortals, are just as petty and biologically driven as supposedly lower forms. Real Estate | Site Index | [1] It is, says Amis, a book about "literary enmity".[1]. 374 pp. Pictured: Martin Amis with Kingsley Amis at home in Notting Hill, London in September 1989 Instead, the story suggests, it might be Kingsley's fellow writer, the poet Philip Larkin. Here the reader is Martin Amis Offers the ‘Inside Story’ of His Relationships With Three Famous Writers. But later things become much more serious as Tull makes contact with violent men he later finds he cannot control. . The fact that most of the novel's characters, including Richard himself, are described from Richard's rather unbalanced point of view puts into … He smokes, does drugs, drinks, copes and cries himself to sleep at night. . A former employee of Tesla was ordered to pay the company $400,000 for leaking confidential information to reporters. Richard's indignation and resentments, his hatred, plotting, defeats ("Not even in his sweatiest . MR. AMIS has chosen some grim venues before for his novels. Business | He's a novelist with a plan. And there is the humor; Mr. Amis goes where other humorists fear to tread. Discussed in this essay: Inside Story: A Novel, by Martin Amis.Knopf. Text: THERE'S been a whole lot of keening in the British press lately about Martin Amis's new novel, and some in our own. $28.95. The Information (1995) is a darkly comic look at the publishing world as seen through the eyes of ageing and unsuccessful novelist, Richard Tull. Amis has asserted that both characters are based (if they can be regarded as based on anybody) on himself. This brutal honesty seems at odds with Mr. Amis's strenuous hipness. In Martin Amis’s “The Immortals,” the reader is introduced to the main character who believes himself to be immortal. By now you're on Richard's side. Amis has asserted that both characters are based (if they can be regarded as based on anybody) on himself. Steven is Martin - Martin is Richard and Gwyn The novel’s narrator is a fictionalised Martin Amis, Steven’s narration sounds very similar to the real Martin Amis. Help/Feedback | Amis, who seems to be turning himself into a British Thomas Berger, continues his twisty tour of formulaic genres (The Information, 1995, etc.) Since he arrived on the scene in the 70's, Mr. Amis has been the bad boy (English for enfant terrible) of the lit scene. eNotes plot summaries cover all the significant action of London Fields. Money is pouring in from his novels. Men attended only one school of acting (the method), that of the cool. The main characters of this fiction, literature story are Richard Tull, Gwyn Barry. With her slender form, “lawless smile,” and air of febrile emotional damage, Phelps is a compilation reel of Amis’s girlfriends from the late seventies smelted … Amis and Barnes had been friends but this caused a rift that was played out in public. He starts out by searching all over London for a Sunday issue of The Los Angeles Times, and dumps it anonymously on Gwyn's doorstep with a note saying: "Something to interest you here. Hollywood is holding on line two; he is a finalist for a prize called -- Mr. Amis has perfect pitch -- the Profundity Requital, a sort of mini-Nobel-cum-money-for-life. It is, says Amis, a book about "literary enmity". Mr. Amis is quite dazzling here, more so than he has been since "Money," his delectable disemboweling of the movie business. International | ?Houston Chronicle "The Information contains some of the most pleasantly wicked passages Amis has ever written…. Except for saddling him with a weak bladder, the gods have smiled on Gwyn. Job Market | Writers are nightmares from which you cannot awake. Inside Story. by Martin Amis 1. Reflecting on the suicide of a lover, Richard wonders "why so many writers' women killed themselves, or went insane. Essays and Reportage, 1986-2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Information_(novel)&oldid=955523836, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 8 May 2020, at 08:36. There is arc and design to his career. Archives | We hope they will enrich your understanding of this brilliant new novel by a writer who has provided one of England's most consistently provocative and commanding voices for over twenty years. These begin relatively innocently, attempts to cause Barry inconvenience. Like, say, if it had been the first (Martin) Amis book I'd read. Martin Amis has written his “most intimate and epic work”, an autobiographical novel that will draw on the death of his closest friend, the polemical writer Christopher Hitchens.. Every now and then you're reminded what a teensy little sceptered isle Britain is. . Richard Tull was a promising writer with a seemingly bright future. It's a Herbie Hide of a novel, a pumped cruiserweight, flashy, fast, brave and hopelessly overmatched."[6]. The New Yorker article was at pains to establish that Mr. Amis, though rich, still votes Labor, apparently a dinosaur-sized bone of contention among his fraught British brethren. The fiction novel, Money, begins with a note from author, Martin Amis, describing the book as a suicide note from the main character, John Self. Night Train (1997) is a comedic parody of American detective novels by author Martin Amis, named after the song "Night Train," which features twice in the novel.The night train that Hoolihan hears from her flat is also used as a metaphor for suicide. $24. Sports | Op-Ed | All power to him if he can continue to pull it off at the age of 45. 374 pp. The questions, discussion topics, and author biography that follow are intended to enhance your group's reading of Martin Amis's The Information. His latest novel, entitled "Untitled," is so impenetrable that everyone who tries to read the manuscript is stricken with fearsome neurological problems before reaching page 10. Martin Amis has 73 books on Goodreads with 269691 ratings. Surprisingly, yes. Throughout the narrative Amis digresses into depicting different vistas of interstellar space. In addition the book deals with ideas of success, failure and envy. Skeptics are already predicting that HarperCollins, the book's British publisher, will never earn that money back. That's men for you: hams of cool." Running through the book (indeed what "The Information" in question turns out to be) is the awareness of mortality and, relating to that, midlife crisis. Martin Louis Amis (born 25 August 1949) is a British novelist. He's the crown prince of literary hipness, the stud Beau Brummell of the blase. "Time's Arrow" was about a Nazi death camp doctor. Instead, it is about human nature, e.g. The main character is Richard Tull, 40-year-old book reviewer, editor and failed novelist, Salieri to Gwyn Barry's Mozart. The Information is a really good book that I can picture myself liking a lot better under different circumstances. Is an envious writer enough to sustain a whole novel? Classifieds | Sports | Writer Martin Amis has never been at a loss for words, in person or on the page. 560 pages. Automobiles | Martin Amis's "The Information" is a novel that's glibly self-conscious about the entire literary publication process, and bitter as horseradish about it, too. Martin Amis’s The Information is not, as some reviewers claim, a fictionalized tell-all about the publishing industry. Still, men were theatrical too, insomuch as they needed to be, feeling less. Complete summary of Martin Amis' London Fields. New York Today By Martin Amis Knopf: 560 pages, $29 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees … Yours ever, John," knowing that the vain Gwyn will spend hours -- days -- searching through the tonnage of newsprint for his mention. Tull, increasingly envious, begins to manufacture ways of bringing Barry down. Books | Martin Amis Martin Amis novels – ranked! "[2] Furthermore, he illustrated it as intrinsic and structural, which corresponds to the etymology of the title: in "into" + formare "to form, shape".[3]. Martin Amis’s The Information is not, as some reviewers claim, a fictionalized tell-all about the publishing industry. And the inside of the head of an impotent, failed writer isn't an alpine meadow in the sunshine. . The game gets dicier, larger, more unpredictable. Automobiles | The plot involves two forty-year-old novelists, Gwyn Barry (successful) and Richard Tull (not so). However his career flags and he finds himself depressed writing book reviews for a small literary paper and running a vanity press. Which of course is why he is so rich and famous. Amis came under attack for two reasons around the time The Information was published. Martin Tripp, a former technician, admitted to … Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company, Quick News | Technology | "Five years in the making," the jacket announces with a clash of cymbals, with kettle drumming by Saul Bellow, informing us that Mr. Amis is the new Flaubert, the new Joyce. BOYS’ CLUB: Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis in London in 1980 Photo by Angela Gorgas. In the end, Richard's scheming will exact a heavy toll on himself and his family. They're all the same book, a template worked over three times, retyped rather than rewritten [...] The Information reads like 500 pages of smart, highly finished extracts. Marketplace Quick News | Look out, Joyce! That's men. Mr. Amis is one step ahead of this criticism. Technology | It becomes a game of chess -- one of Martin Amis's passions. He resolves to inflict damage on Gwyn. And he concluded: because writers are nightmares. Classifieds | Martin Amis’s most popular book is Money. $24. Books | Believing him to be a reliable narrator, the reader is none the wiser and does not think to question this declaration until the end of the story. To a novelist like, say, Jeffrey Archer, $800,000 is a mere rounding error; but to a literary novelist like Mr. Amis it is giant clams indeed. It's a perfect, brilliant line, and self-knowing. On the Shelf. Looking on the vast range of the Universe and its lifelessness serves the theme of mortality.