Over at Takimag, the dissenting doctor ponders the meaning behind the books of the recently deceased Martin Amis, and disputes the lefty Guardian‘s description of Amis as “an era-defining novelist.”

I suppose the problem arises when the lower depths predominate; that is to say, when much of society comes to resemble its former lower depths, whose way of life is fashionable rather than merely the object of prurient interest. When Martin Amis said that the people who wanted signed copies of his books were sleazeballs, or what might once have been called degenerates, I do not think he was being self-critical, but rather self-congratulatory.