The Anti-Egotist: Kingsley Amis, Man of Letters

by Paul Fussell

"Fussell is a wonderful writer," according to The Washington Post Book World, "at once elegant and earthy." With such books as Wartime and The Great War and Modern Memory, he established a reputation as an incisive critic with a razor-tipped pen. Now Paul Fussell turns his attention to one of his own literary heroes, a man of similar acidic wit, Kingsley Amis.
In The Anti-Egotist, Fussell captures the essence of Amis as a man of letters--"a serious...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195087364
• ISBN13: 9780195087369
• Release Date: September 1994
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Remarkable book

"For all the sometimes rowdy comedy attending Amis's depictions of meanness, his understanding of its psychology is complicated and serious. It is, if funny, also immoral, so little and minimal, practiced by wee men only. And it betrays neurosis, implying constant "paranoid" watchfulness lest one be had. It keeps one on a constant stretch of attentive calculation, and this finally becomes a substitute for thought, as well as replacing an objective interest in things outside oneself." "I feel STRETCHED", Bilbo Baggins after having the One Ring for a while.

Essential for Amis fans

I had to have this one - an intersection of two writers I've admired for some time. Fussel is probably the ideal person to write such an appraisal. As mentioned above, the lack of critical theoryspeak is most welcome. The interpretation of Amis as a moral satirist (which isn't a category that you see very much) provides a useful key to most of his work (fiction, poetry, and prose alike.) If you're a fan of the work, you'll enjoy this - it's like having a chance to sit down across from an intelligent, perceptive reader who likes the same things you do.