The Information: Envy is a funny thing
There’s a scene in The Information in which the protagonist is thrilled when his friend’s wife says that her husband “Can’t write for toffee.” (This is a British idiom which loosely translated means “He sucks on toast.”) Later, he discovers that she didn’t mean anything of the sort; she admires her husband’s work as much as everyone else does. She’s just really, really stupid.
It’s emblematic.
The Information is the story of a period of time in the life of two novelists approaching middle age: Gwyn Barry, a smarmy dimwit whose toothless, cheesy pap has catapulted him to the top of the bestseller list, and his longtime friend, Richard Tull, a sour neurotic whose work is “difficult,” and who toils in obscurity as a result, taking nearly any job that’s remotely related to writing just so he can tell himself he’s still in the game.
Richard couldn’t make himself write marketable fiction even if he knew how to do it; he considers himself an artist, believes in his integrity. For his part, Gwyn is fond of behaving as if his success is a happy accident, himself merely the vessel through which he’s connected with some unknowable creative power.
Watching Gwyn preen and simper and shrug and grow ever richer and more revered for writing the sort of stuff that Richard frankly despises becomes a crawling black spiritual cancer that grows in him, slowly and insidiously, till Richard can no longer enjoy even the small compensations of his existence.
And so he resolves to destroy Gwyn’s life.
I know: it sounds a bit grim, doesn’t it? But here’s what: it’s actually one of the funniest books I’ve ever read.
Gwyn’s famous novel is disastrous; it’s the sort of shitty bestseller that becomes a phenomenon to the general public and a punchline to everyone else. Not a word is written about it that doesn’t make you want to punch him in the bag. Every so often, you hate his book so much that no matter how far Richard takes his campaign against his friend, you can’t help thinking he hasn’t gone far enough.
As for Richard, his latest novel is in fact so difficult that one of his (former) fans suffers some sort of hemorrhage while reading it, and returns it to him in person, covered in blood. Nearly everything he tries to undermine and damage Gwyn is a similarly dramatic failure, but he’s far from stupid, so you have to ask: does he fail because his heart’s not in it, or is it because he’s the rare variety of dickweed that earns God’s intervention?
The Information examines the line between the critic and the consumer; how can you say a novel is bad when it’s so widely beloved, and how can you say it’s good if nobody wants to read it? (The point of writing is communication, after all.) Too, it examines the hairy bitchmonster that is envy; who decides whether or not the object of your jealousy is deserving of his success, and what difference does it make either way, once you realize that you’re never going to be where he is?
The “hero” of The Information is a selfish tool whose bad attitude and behaviour may or may not be responsible for his low position in this life. The “villain” is an idiot, and incredibly patronizing, but he’s never really hurt anyone.
So you could make a pretty good case for Martin Amis: Misanthrope if you were so inclined. As far as he’s concerned (to borrow a phrase from Limp Bizkit) everything is fucked, and everybody sucks.
Laugh or you’ll cry, right?
You have a limited amount of time, so why spend it reading about things that suck or are only kind of okay? Favorite thing EVER is not a review site. We're unrepentant fans, and this is the stuff we love. Hope you like gushing, because we're about to embarrass ourselves.
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Martin Amis would see the humour in this. I KNOW IT.
I think the Da Vinci Code deserves a Pulitzer!!!!!!!!