SOURCE: "Energy and Entropy," in New Statesman & Society, March 24, 1995, p. 24.

In the following review, Kaveney asserts that The Information is a "generic" Amis novel, and claims the book to be "the overpriced sale of second-hand shoddy."

Nervous energy is not enough. Martin Amis has built a successful career on, and out of, fear of failure. His interest in that fear, like ours, is wearing thin. Sexual rebuffs in The Rachel Papers, having your credit cards cut up in smart New York restaurants in Money—these were intense moments because they are anti-sacraments, outward signs of an entire gracelessness thus far concealed.

The vehemence of this self-distrust underlay the obsession with bodily functions, which critics called Swiftian. Admit, pre-emptively, acne and dandruff, and people might stop at criticising your skin and your hair. Self-distrust also helped Amis produce interesting, if self-serving, responses to feminist critiques of male attitudes. Admit...