The Information, which is nothing and comes at night.

In his big fat tubthumper of a novel The Information Martin Amis says a writer should be able to say that he’s never had to pay for it (being published) in his life. The unintentional irony being, of course, that Amis paid a high price for writing this particular novel – that being a huge public falling out with his publisher (whom he fired) and then-friend, author Julian Barnes, husband of Amis’ former publisher, which culminated in a series of friendship-ending emails which Amis reproduced (partly) in his autobiography.

I assume most people in Australia don’t know about these shenanigans because you’re not complete dorks who follow international literary scandals like yours truly but there you go. Anyway, my point is only that I didn’t pay for my copy of The Information, as it came from a library, but I did start reading it on the way home from the library and barely stop until I finished it and I think it might be quite brilliant. It starts like this:

Cities at night, I feel, contain men who cry in their sleep and then say Nothing. It's nothing. Just sad dreams. Or something like that... Swing low in your weep ship, with your tear scans and your sob probes, and you would mark them. Women – and they can be wives, lovers, gaunt muses, fat nurses, obsessions, devourers, exes, nemeses – will wake and turn to these men and ask, with female need-to-know, “what is it?” And the men say, “Nothing. No it isn't anything really. Just sad dreams.”

It’s the story of two writers – one famous who writes crap effortlessly – and his far less successful best friend (who, naturally, hates him) and decides to, in his own words “fuck (his friend) up”. The theme of the novel is schadenfreude and although big and as prosey as any of Amis’ more recent novels have been it’s so freaking readable I actually took it with me to the pub on Sunday so I could get another ten minutes into me while I waited for my hot lunch date.

I've been ploughing through Amis lately, with mixed results, but this has been the biggest surprise so far - Excellent.