Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Martin Amis


Martin Amis has a new novel on the way and he seems to be back in "major novel" mode after some fairly minor stuff--"Yellow Dog" was bizarre and yet forgettable and "Koba the Dread" was fascinating but was essentially the longest book review in recorded history. My sense is that Amis tends to think a lot about his place in the world as a novelist in terms of the way the Greats thought about their lives. Here he seems to be channeling Tolstoy (or maybe Solzhenitsyn) in a story about love and betrayal in the gulag in late 1940s Russia.

If I'm remembering correctly, Raphy and I have had some disagreements about whether Amis is really a major figure, or not--if I'm misremebering this, I'm sure he'll correct me. I tend to think he is. He tends to be quite brilliant when he's writing about contemporary society, urban life, people who work hard and yet don't see much reward. He's on slightly unfamiliar turf here, though I'm looking forward to seeing how he works it out.

My favorite is probably "The Information," which is an astonishingly good--and very funny--novel. He's also got a big autobiographical novel called The Pregnant Widow" in the works, due in 2007. He comments here that it's mostly about "women"--which I think means sex, sex, and more sex--in 2007. Looking forward to it.

Posted by jwb at 6:50 AM   

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