Success (1978), Martin Amis’s ingenious, comic and disturbing third novel, traces the role-reversal between Gregory Riding and his foster-brother, Terence (Terry) Service, and explores their relationship with Gregory’s troubled sister Ursula. When the novel starts, Gregory is an apparent success, Terry a seeming failure; but as the tale proceeds Gregory’s façade of superiority crumbles and Terry comes to the fore. The figures of Gregory and Terry exemplify Amis’s recurrent concern with doubles, in this case in the shape of apparent opposites who turn out to resemble each other in key ways and to exchange qualities – like the urbane Quentin and the vicious Johnny in Amis’s second novel, Dead Babies (1975). In …

3254 words

Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "Success". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 April 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1855, accessed 26 November 2024.]

1855 Success 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.