Inside Story

Inside Story, Martin Amis's latest autobiographical novel, is brilliant at times.It's well written and a sombre ennui pervades his entries on late father-figure Saul Bellow and now-departed best friend Christopher Hitchens. I particularly enjoyed the ‘how to write' sections. They somewhat reminded me of George Orwell's Politics and the English Language (a massive plus in my view) in terms of the precision of the analysis of language.Other times, the novel falters with frustratingly smug and self-indulgent meanderings.

Such is the nature of autofiction, I suppose.

*It's not really a novel, despite Amis's insistence. It's a memoir with details filled in, and a few (very interesting!) meandering thoughts on certain topics.

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