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May 22, 2023·edited May 22, 2023

I read a handful & found them a mixed bunch. Rachel Papers, Zone of Interest, House of Meetings were good. The Information & Yellow Dog were boring. Lionel Asbo was amusing but a bit juvenile.

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Yeah. That’s the impression I had. A mixed bag.

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I haven't read any, considered it when I saw he had dies, until I read the fanish review in The Conversation by Camila Nelson of the University of Notre Dame Australia (yes as pro-Catholic as it sounds). I will repeat two pieces of information "His female characters were admittedly thin, and occasionally insensitive. He pushed back accusations of sexism. And yet, he inspired radical feminist Germaine Greer to write (but not send) a 30,000-word love letter that is now housed in the Greer archives at the University of Melbourne" and secondly "His essay The Age of Horrorism, written five years after the attack on New York’s World Trade Centre, prompted literary critic Terry Eagleton ( I really like Terry's stuff) to compare Amis’s statements on Muslims to “the ramblings of a British National Party thug”.

Also Boris Johnson tweeted "shocked and sad at the death of Martin Amis – the greatest, darkest, funniest satirist since Evelyn Waugh". So there is another strike against him.

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I was wondering this very same thing the other day! I have a couple of his books sitting on the shelf here (and a couple of hundred at home screaming READ ME!!!), so, of course, my brain said "You know what? You should ask someone if Amis is any good!"

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