" The Huge Artifice:
an interim assessment

Enough of this great work has now appeared
For sightings to be taken, the ground cleared,
Though the main purpose - what it's all about
In the thematic sense - remains in doubt.
We can be certain, even at this stage,
That seriousness adequate to engage
Our deepest critical concern is not
To be found here. First: what there is of plot
Is thin, repetitive, leaning far too much
On casual meetings, parties, fights and such,
With that excessive use of coincidence
Which betrays authorial inexperience.
We note, besides these evident signs of haste,
A great deal in most questionable taste:
Too many sex-scenes, far too many coarse
Jokes, most of which have long lost all their force.

It might be felt that, after a slow start,
Abundance incident made amends for art,
But the work's 'greatness' is no more than size,
While the shaping mind, and all that implies,
Is on a trivial scale, as can be guessed
From the brash nature of the views expressed
By a figure in an early episode, who
Was clearly introduced in order to
Act as some kind of author-surrogate,
Then hastily killed off - an unfortunate
Bid to retrieve a grave strategic lapse.

More damaging than any of this, the gaps
In sensitivity displayed are vast.
Concepts that have not often been surpassed
For ignorance or downright nastiness -
That the habit of indifference is less
Destructive than the embrace of love, that crimes
Are paid for never or a thousand times,
That the gentle come to grief - all these are forced
Into scenes, dialogue, comment, and endorsed
By the main action, manifesting there
An inhumanity beyond despair.

One final point remains: it has been urged
That a few characters are not quite submerged
In all this rubbish, the they can display
Reason, justice and forethought on their day,
And that this partly exculpates the mind
That was their author. Not at all. We find
Many of these in the history of art
(So this reviewer feels), who stand apart,
Who by no purpose but their own begin
To struggle free from a base origin. "

― Kingsley Amis , Collected Poems, 1944-1979