BOOKS. . . "THE INFORMATION"

The controversy surrounding Martin Amis' new book (Harmony; 374 pages; $24) has far overshadowed the novel, a meditation on envy that TIME book reviewer R. Z. Sheppard says "Evelyn Waugh might have written were he resurrected as a Monty Python." The flap is about Amis himself, a middle age writer who in earlier novels mocked ambition and avarice and who recently displayed ambition and avarice of his own. Amis got an advance of nearly $800,000 for "The Information," and encountered some serious jealousy in British publishing circles. As for the book itself, Sheppard says Amis has reached his limits in his quest to juggle words and push satire further than anyone else, and it's beginning to show.