Amis has brought off the feat of satirizing his contemporaries while making them both funny and, in a bizarre way, moving—Peter AckroydScurrilous, shameless and very funny—Time Literary SupplementExtravagantly sexual-highly enjoyable—Evening StandardAmis's arrogantly assured manner is a formidable weapon, spraying the target with disdainful wit, ingenious obscenity, astute literariness, loathing, lust, anxiety and an all-pervading hyper-self-consciousness—ObserverA magnificent novel, a masterpiece really, its prose energetic, angry, honest and so funny—Andrew Billen, The Times