''Success'' is
Martin Amis
Sir Martin Louis Amis (25 August 1949 – 19 May 2023) was an English novelist, essayist, memoirist, screenwriter and critic. He is best known for his novels ''Money'' (1984) and '' London Fields'' (1989). He received the James Tait Black Mem ...
's third novel, published in 1978 by
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape is a British publishing firm headquartered in London and founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death.
Cape and his business partner Wren Howard (1893–1968) set up the publishing house in ...
.
Plot
''Success'' tells the story of two foster brothers—Terence Service and Gregory Riding, narrating alternate sections—and their exchange of position during one calendar year as each slips towards, and away from, success.
Themes
''Success'' is Amis's first statement of the
doppelganger theme that would also preoccupy the novels ''
Money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: m ...
'', ''
London Fields
London Fields is a park in Hackney, London, although the name also refers to the immediate area in Hackney surrounding it and London Fields station. It is common land adjoining the Hackney Central area of the London Borough of Hackney. The p ...
'', and, especially, 1995's ''
The Information''.
Reception
''Success'' was widely praised upon publication. ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' observed that "Gregory and Terry double the narrative in a way that makes Martin Amis's ''Success'' like a kind of two-way mirror"; critic
Norman Shrapnel
Norman Shrapnel (5 October 1912 – 1 February 2004) was an English journalist, author, and parliamentary correspondent.
Biography
Shrapnel was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, and was educated at The King's School, Grantham. In 1947, after war s ...
praised the novel's "icy wit" and called the narrative approach "artfully appropriate...
tbuilds up an air of profound unreliabiity—entirely fitting, since things are by no means what they seem." In ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.
In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...
'', critic
Anthony Thwaite
Anthony Simon Thwaite OBE (23 June 1930 – 22 April 2021) was an English poet and critic, widely known as the editor of his friend Philip Larkin's collected poems and letters.
Early years and education
Born in Chester, England, to Yorkshir ...
called the book "a moral homily from which all traces of morality have been removed with the brisk surgery of a razor blade on a fingernail...''Success'' is a terrifying, painfully funny, Swiftian exercise in moral disgust; its exhilarating unpleasantness puts it alongside 'A Modest Proposal'." Critic
Hermione Lee
Dame Hermione Lee (born 29 February 1948) is a British biographer, literary critic and academic. She is a former President of Wolfson College, Oxford, and a former Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature in the University of Oxford and Pr ...
observed, "After Martin Amis's ''Success'' ... sibling rivalry seems almost as popular as sexual warfare, fictionally speaking." In December 1978, ''The Observer'' named ''Success'' one of its "Books of the Year."
[''The Observer'', "Books of the Year", 17 December 1978.]
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
References
1978 British novels
Novels by Martin Amis
British autobiographical novels
Jonathan Cape books
{{1970s-autobio-novel-stub