Were We Right?: PW called Martin Amis's The Second Plane “scathing, blunt and occasionally strident”—but "never boring."

Publishers Weekly -- Publishers Weekly, 4/11/2008 10:34:00 AM

PW found that famed novelist Amis’s series of essays on Islamism and global politics, written in the wake of 9/11, contained a "coruscating contempt for radical Islam." Many reviewers are going a bit further than that.


The New York Times: Michiko Kakutani: “chuckleheaded,” “pretentious,” “preening.”


The Times of London: William Dalrymple: “wholly un-nuanced,” “flawed,” “riddled with basic misunderstandings.”


Bookforum: Michael Tomasky: “potty,” “the embarrassing uncle screaming at the television.”


The Guardian: Tim Adams: “undeniable hubris.”


The Village Voice: Giles Harvey: “engaging.”


About.com: Pierre Tristam: “Voltaire would have been proud.”


Here’s PW’s review:
These chronologically ordered essays and stories on the September 11 attacks proceed from initial bewilderment to coruscating contempt for radical Islam. Novelist Amis (House of Meetings) rejects all religious belief as "without reason and without dignity" and condemns "Islamism" as an especially baleful variant. Amis attacks Islamism's tenets as "[a]nti-Semitic, anti-liberal, anti-individualist, anti-democratic" and characterizes its adherents, from founding ideologue Sayyid Qutb to the ordinary suicide bomber, as sexually frustrated misogynists entranced by a "cult of death." He also takes swipes at Bush and the Iraq war, which he describes as botched and tragically counterproductive, if well intentioned, but scorns those who draw a moral equivalence between Western misdeeds and the jihadist agenda. Amis's concerns are cultural and aesthetic as well as existential: terrorism threatens a reign of "boredom" in the guise of tedious airport security protocols, pedantic conspiracy theories and the dogma-shackled "dependent mind" fostered by Islamist theocracy. As much as Amis's opinions are scathing, blunt and occasionally strident, his prose is subtle, elegant and witty-and certainly never boring.

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