Quote:
Originally Posted by SlowRain
While his comment was somewhat rude, his reasoning is sound. I think Children's authors are talking it too hard because they have an overinflated sense of their own importance and skill, just like Amis has an overinflated sense of his own as well.
Still, jerk that he may be, he's one author I definitely want to read (I figure if I can distinguish between Gore Vidal's ability and personality, I should be able to do the same for Amis).
I'm also not surprised so few people on here have heard of him. He's in a category I don't see discussed much on MR.
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He is definitely a strong personality. Maybe some member of MR have not hear of him, but he has been on bookshelves in North America and Europe for years. I read a lot of Lit and he his well-known for several of his novels and literary criticism. His book on Stalin Koba the dread is decent. I think too many people get into a huff on some of his comments. You should see how he slaughters authors in some of his literary critiques of books. Even he has admitted that he was too harsh in his younger days. I do not think he is a fan of Disneyland and other shallow tripe.
London Fields is probably his most famous work. I would recommend that or his literary criticism books for a start. He is "known" outside of Britain but does not write in popular genre styles like romance, SF, Fantasy, Mystery etc... so has a much smaller fan base.