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The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000

by Martin Amis

The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 Cover

 

Awards

An Atlantic Monthly Best Book of 2001
Winner of the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Is there anything that Martin Amis can?t write about? In this virtuosic, career-spanning collection he takes on James Joyce and Elvis Presley, Nabokov and English football, Jane Austen and Penthouse Forum, William Burroughs and Hillary Clinton. But above all, Amis is concerned with literature, and with the deadly cliches — not only of the pen, but of the mind and the heart.

In The War Against Cliché, Amis serves up fresh assessments of the classics and plucks neglected masterpieces off their dusty shelves. 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.

Review:

"His reviews are astringent, punkily contemptuous, name-calling, reductive, pissy, prissy, preening. They are also (alas, alack) great fun to read." Adrienne Miller, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review)

Review:

"Most of the essays in this huge and admittedly uneven collection relentlessly, eloquently, and with enormous intelligence support Amis's contention that style 'is not something grappled onto regular prose; it is intrinsic to perception.'" Atlantic Monthly

Review:

"[A] great feast for serious readers..." Donna Seaman, Booklist

Review:

"Amis's critiques cover wide-ranging topics and are well worth reading....His evaluations are lively, scholarly, and, on rare occasion, numbing — though probably less so for those few who know as much about literature as Amis." Library Journal

Review:

"Amis gets you leaning forward so often you're paractically in italics. In the case of The War Against Cliché you first lean forward on the first page of the foreword. Whatever the book, there is no one whose review of it you'd rather read." The Guardian

Review:

"Amis is the best practitioner-critic of our day — just what Pritchett was in his prime...we have here a literary critic of startling power, a post literary-critical critic who, incorrigibly satirical, goes directly to work on the book." Frank Kermode, London Review of Books

Review:

"Distinguished by its hothouse intensity, its singleness of purpose, its nippy aggression — and its stylishness....Amis' journalism is narrowly focused but uncannily vivid — the details are fluorescent." The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"Amis is a force unto himself....There is, quite simply, no one else like him." The Washington Post

Review:

"Funny, impeccably calm, highly intelligent and almost never polite." USA Today

Review:

"[Written] with intelligence and ardor and panache....Speaks not just to a lifetime of reading, but also to a fascination with how individual writers mature, how some distill their language and ideas, while others...misplace or misdirect their energies." The New York Times

Synopsis:

A selection of reviews and essays by Martin Amis, written over the past quarter-century. It contains pieces on a wide range of writers, from Cervantes to John Updike, and covers such subjects as chess, nuclear weapons, masculinity, Andy Warhol, Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher.

About the Author

Martin Amis is the author of nine novels, two collections of stories, four works of non-fiction and a memoir. He lives in London.

Product Details

ISBN:
9780375727160
Author:
Amis, Martin
Publisher:
Vintage Books USA
Location:
New York
Subject:
Essays
Subject:
Books
Subject:
English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
Subject:
Anthologies-Essays
Copyright:
Edition Number:
1st paperback ed.
Edition Description:
Trade paper
Series:
Vintage
Series Volume:
TR-02-1
Publication Date:
July 2002
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
528
Dimensions:
8.02x5.22x.94 in. .84 lbs.

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The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$8.95 In Stock
Product details 528 pages Vintage Books USA - English 9780375727160 Reviews:
"Review" by , "His reviews are astringent, punkily contemptuous, name-calling, reductive, pissy, prissy, preening. They are also (alas, alack) great fun to read." (read the entire Esquire review)
"Review" by , "Most of the essays in this huge and admittedly uneven collection relentlessly, eloquently, and with enormous intelligence support Amis's contention that style 'is not something grappled onto regular prose; it is intrinsic to perception.'"
"Review" by , "[A] great feast for serious readers..."
"Review" by , "Amis's critiques cover wide-ranging topics and are well worth reading....His evaluations are lively, scholarly, and, on rare occasion, numbing — though probably less so for those few who know as much about literature as Amis."
"Review" by , "Amis gets you leaning forward so often you're paractically in italics. In the case of The War Against Cliché you first lean forward on the first page of the foreword. Whatever the book, there is no one whose review of it you'd rather read."
"Review" by , "Amis is the best practitioner-critic of our day — just what Pritchett was in his prime...we have here a literary critic of startling power, a post literary-critical critic who, incorrigibly satirical, goes directly to work on the book."
"Review" by , "Distinguished by its hothouse intensity, its singleness of purpose, its nippy aggression — and its stylishness....Amis' journalism is narrowly focused but uncannily vivid — the details are fluorescent."
"Review" by , "Amis is a force unto himself....There is, quite simply, no one else like him."
"Review" by , "Funny, impeccably calm, highly intelligent and almost never polite."
"Review" by , "[Written] with intelligence and ardor and panache....Speaks not just to a lifetime of reading, but also to a fascination with how individual writers mature, how some distill their language and ideas, while others...misplace or misdirect their energies."
"Synopsis" by , A selection of reviews and essays by Martin Amis, written over the past quarter-century. It contains pieces on a wide range of writers, from Cervantes to John Updike, and covers such subjects as chess, nuclear weapons, masculinity, Andy Warhol, Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher.
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