Ever since Dulcie informed me that Martin Amis was a professor at the Centre for Creative Writing in Manchester University (my home from home in term time) I've had a bit of a fascination for Martin Amis, regarded by many as one of our generation's more controversial writers. Recently, with the publication of his latest novel The Pregnant Widow, he's been cropping up in the press fairly frequently (one week last month he had a double page spread in the Evening Standard pretty much daily), and is never one to shy away from controversy, with accusations of misogyny and more recently Islamophobia never far away. His remarks about Katie Price are well documented and heavily vilified, yet he claims to be much more of a feminist than his critics make out (and to be honest, can we really point to Jordan and her self commodification as an example of the successes of feminism?), with The Pregnant Widow addressing the sexual revolution of the late sixties and early seventies, with Amis keen to point out its often overlooked pressure on women, something he claims his late sister was a victim of. After reading so much about him, his life and his novels, I've decided to see what all the fuss is about and actually read one of his novels, one which many cite as his masterpiece, London Fields. All I can say is so far so good for the so-called enfant terrible of English Literature.
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