advertisement
On TV.com: ANGELINA JOLIE looks stunning as usual
Find Articles in:
all
Business
Reference
Technology
News
Sports
Health
Autos
Arts
Home & Garden
advertisement

Lightness at Midnight

Atlantic, The,  September, 2002  by Christopher Hitchens

premiumContent provided
in partnership with
premium

In his superb memoir, Experience (2000), Martin Amis almost casually expends a terrific line in a minor footnote. Batting away a critic he describes as "humorless," he adds, "And by calling him humorless I mean to impugn his seriousness, categorically: such a man must rig up his probity ex nihilo ." A book in which such an observation can occur in passing is a very rich and dense one.

Most Popular Articles in News
The Ten Best Laptop bags
Tata plans cheapest-ever car for Indian market
GLOBALIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD WORLD
Corn is good for you; Corn is not only a tasty treat, but also a cereal that ...
THE 50 BEST STYLISH HANDBAGS TO CARRY
More »
advertisement

Amis has won and held the attention of an audience eager for something very like this in reverse—a synthesis of astonishing wit and moral assiduity. Even the farcical episodes of his fiction are set on the bristling frontiers of love and death and sex. With his other hand, so to speak, he has raised the standard of essayistic reviewing, mounting guard over our muscular but vulnerable English language and registering fastidious pain whenever it is hurt or insulted. It is no ...