Martin Amis remains on the outer fringes of the modern literary canon because his novels have not been appreciated in the context within which they were written. This is, basically, a postmodernist experimental mode which self-consciously tests (but does not abandon) the boundaries of form and content in the traditional English novel. The principal contention here is that Amis "challenges" but does not "change" the human subject as it exists in literature. Hyper-self-consciousness, the signature mark of postmodernism, does not mean simply that Amis's characters are just one-dimensional pawns of literary gamesmanship, even though this is a valid point of inquiry (examined in Chapter One). Rather, the presentation of subjectivity allows for a polyphonous critique and affirmation of literary and moral value. Such critiques and affirmations can be analysed when one examines Amis's inscription and parody of past value systems (such as modernism, described in Chapter Two), and those of the present, nuclear age (described in Chapter Three). As these three inquiries show, Amis does offer a portrait of the human subject, but it is bruised and abused by both the author and the world. Value, in other words, exists here, but its packaging is distinctly different. Amis is therefore not an immoral pop-cultural icon, but a serious postmodernist writer that deserves to be judged accordingly.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 1997. / Includes vita. Bibliography: leaves 272-279.

No description available.

Six novels of Martin Amis--The Rachel Papers, Dead Babies, Success, Money: A Suicide Note, London Fields, and The Information--are analyzed to determine to what extent they uphold moral standards traditional in Western society, particularly the categories of virtue that have descended from Aristotle and Aquinas. Thus the novels are analyzed in relation to what they show about the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, the cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, courage, and justice, and the intellectual virtues of knowledge, art, skill, and understanding. Nearly all of these virtues turn out to be important in varying degrees. Faith and hope are mocked, and courage is given incidental attention. The other virtues, however, are strongly upheld, including prudence and temperance, and particularly love, justice, and the intellectual virtues. In the earlier novels, the protagonists understand love between adults egoistically, only as romance or sexual passion, with emphasis not on the welfare of the other but on getting what one wants. The need for parental love is upheld, however, with a clear understanding that its lack produces danger for the children and for society. The protagonists pity the weak, but have little understanding of love as self-sacrifice. Ego-based justice predominates as the primary motive—obtaining what the self thinks is deserved. The intellectual virtues then become servants of this self-centered justice rather than servants of others-centered love. Though the extreme results of this situation are decried, especially in Dead Babies, generally the protagonists do not realize the extent of their egoism and lack of love. In London Fields and The Information, self-sacrifice, particularly for the sake of children, emerges, and what little hope there is is invested in family love. Love between adults is still largely justice-based, but there is some evidence that all the virtues, including justice and intellect, are subordinated to love, especially family love, love that considers the welfare of others.

Diss.--Berlin--Freie Univ., 1997. / Bibliogr. p. 189-204.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leave 98-103). Also available in print.

This study discusses works by Martin Amis and Don DeLillo in the context of several key scientific and technological transformations that occur in the aftermath of the Second World War. I begin by revisiting one of the most-discussed aspects of DeLillo's work: the currents conspiracy and paranoia that recur in his novels and, he claims, pervade the wider culture. By demonstrating how paranoid narratives strive to accommodate contemporary technologies, I create a context in which the paranoia addressed in works such as Libra and Underworld becomes intelligible as a response to the specific technological character of surveilance and control in the post-War period. The sciences of information and cybernetics also cohere in the years folowing the War, and the second chapter explores the creative tension between metaphors of entropy and information in Amis's fiction as wel as DeLillo's. The third chapter focuses on television as a constitutive element of postmodernity, and traces how DeLillo and Amis adopt narrative strategies that enable them to represent subjects who have grown accustomed to living within an environment mediated, to an unprecedented degree, by visual imagery supplied by or formatted for television. Another product of postmodern technology, commercial air travel reconfigures relationships to place and to time for inhabitants of industrialized countries. Both the liberating and limiting consequences of living in the latter half of the century of flight are addressed in the fourth chapter. The final chapter offers an assessment of the role contemporary media and technology play in establishing the characteristics associated with postmodernity, and concludes with a brief discussion of the role the internet might play within the context of the specific technologies discussed in the body of the thesis.

This study discusses works by Martin Amis and Don DeLillo in the context of several key scientific and technological transformations that occur in the aftermath of the Second World War. I begin by revisiting one of the most-discussed aspects of DeLillo's work: the currents conspiracy and paranoia that recur in his novels and, he claims, pervade the wider culture. By demonstrating how paranoid narratives strive to accommodate contemporary technologies, I create a context in which the paranoia addressed in works such as Libra and Underworld becomes intelligible as a response to the specific technological character of surveilance and control in the post-War period. The sciences of information and cybernetics also cohere in the years folowing the War, and the second chapter explores the creative tension between metaphors of entropy and information in Amis's fiction as wel as DeLillo's. The third chapter focuses on television as a constitutive element of postmodernity, and traces how DeLillo and Amis adopt narrative strategies that enable them to represent subjects who have grown accustomed to living within an environment mediated, to an unprecedented degree, by visual imagery supplied by or formatted for television. Another product of postmodern technology, commercial air travel reconfigures relationships to place and to time for inhabitants of industrialized countries. Both the liberating and limiting consequences of living in the latter half of the century of flight are addressed in the fourth chapter. The final chapter offers an assessment of the role contemporary media and technology play in establishing the characteristics associated with postmodernity, and concludes with a brief discussion of the role the internet might play within the context of the specific technologies discussed in the body of the thesis. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate