PositiveThe New RepublicHe brings his scrutiny to bear on contemporary masters of fiction, such as Don DeLillo and Philip Roth, as well as the \'twin peaks\' of his literary education, Vladimir Nabokov and Saul Bellow. His perspicacity in the field of genius-level prose makes Amis highly qualified to analyze the mechanics of his beloved forebears ... Clichés matter. The Rub of Time reminds us how much is at stake in the matter of language, and how much originality, in thought and expression, really means ... Using language without respecting it: This, for Amis, is the cardinal sin. The point is to do better than platitudes and empty phrases.
A. O. Scott
MixedThe New Republic...confessions are deployed in a somewhat mawkish question-and-answer format modeled, he says, on Paris Review interviews. I would have preferred him to be direct without the gimmick. Scott intended this, covertly, to be a book about himself—about his habits and sensibilities, his education and taste. The glimpses are fine. But it’s his parochial view of his craft that proves most illuminating.
