Page "Martin Amis" Paragraph 1

Amis's raw material is what he sees as the absurdity of the postmodern condition and the excesses of late-capitalist Western society with its grotesque caricatures.

He has thus been portrayed as the undisputed master of what the New York Times called " the new unpleasantness ".

Influenced by Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov, and James Joyce, as well as by his father, Kingsley Amis, he has inspired a generation of writers with his distinctive style, including Will Self and Zadie Smith.

The Guardian writes that his critics have noted what Kingsley Amis called a " terrible compulsive vividness in his style ... that constant demonstrating of his command of English ," and that the " Amis-ness of Amis will be recognisable in any piece before he reaches his first full stop ".