The War Against Cliche

Essays and Reviews 1971-2000

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • In this virtuosic, career-spanning collection, Martin Amis, "one of the most gifted novelists of his generation” (TIME), takes on James Joyce and Elvis Presley, Nabokov and English football, Jane Austen and Penthouse Forum, William Burroughs and Hillary Clinton, and more.

"[Written] with intelligence and ardor and panache.... Speaks not just to a lifetime of reading but also to a fascination with individual writers." —The New York Times


Here, Amis serves up fresh assessments of the classics and plucks neglected masterpieces off their dusty shelves. Above all, Amis is concerned with literature, and with the deadly cliches—not only of the pen, but of the mind and the heart.

He tilts with Cervantes, Dickens and Milton, celebrates Bellow, Updike and Elmore Leonard, and deflates some of the most bloated reputations of the past three decades. On every page Amis writes with jaw-dropping felicity, wit, and a subversive brilliance that sheds new light on everything he touches.
  • WINNER
    National Book Critics Circle Awards
MARTIN AMIS is the author of fourteen previous novels, the memoir Experience, two collections of stories, and seven nonfiction books. He lives in Brooklyn. View titles by Martin Amis

About

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • In this virtuosic, career-spanning collection, Martin Amis, "one of the most gifted novelists of his generation” (TIME), takes on James Joyce and Elvis Presley, Nabokov and English football, Jane Austen and Penthouse Forum, William Burroughs and Hillary Clinton, and more.

"[Written] with intelligence and ardor and panache.... Speaks not just to a lifetime of reading but also to a fascination with individual writers." —The New York Times


Here, Amis serves up fresh assessments of the classics and plucks neglected masterpieces off their dusty shelves. Above all, Amis is concerned with literature, and with the deadly cliches—not only of the pen, but of the mind and the heart.

He tilts with Cervantes, Dickens and Milton, celebrates Bellow, Updike and Elmore Leonard, and deflates some of the most bloated reputations of the past three decades. On every page Amis writes with jaw-dropping felicity, wit, and a subversive brilliance that sheds new light on everything he touches.

Awards

  • WINNER
    National Book Critics Circle Awards

Author

MARTIN AMIS is the author of fourteen previous novels, the memoir Experience, two collections of stories, and seven nonfiction books. He lives in Brooklyn. View titles by Martin Amis

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