Word: tull
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...Information centers around Richard Tull, a ridiculously obscure, soon-to-be ex-novelist. Richard is of that most quintessentially English brand of heroes: he is a loser. (In fact, the first installations of Amis' novel appeared in an issue of Granta magazine called "Losers.") To some extent, the author embodies, in Richard the stereotypical English hatred of success. His (anti) hero is an unmitigated failure whose humiliations Amis delights in recounting...
Luckily, Richard does have one fan, a psychopath named Steve Cousins (a.k.a "Scozz,") the only person in the world to have read and understood a Richard Tull novel. (He stole it from a hospital library where it was making the patients sicker.) Scozz, "a true professional, someone who hurts people in exchange for cash," agrees to help Richard "fuck Gwyn...
...terminally ill.') And that, in Richard's mature opinion, was definitely that. He had a large and lucent lump on the back of his neck. This he treated himself, by the following means: he kept his hair long to keep it hidden. If you went up to Richard Tull and told him he was in Denial, he would deny it. But not hotly...
...contrast, Tull's friend Gwyn Barry, duller and less gifted, makes millions with two politically correct, feel-good novels. Tull, feeling only jealousy and hatred, attempts to wreck Barry's career and his posh life. The attempts backfire, however, providing a source for Amis' sardonic humor-his elaborate facade for intellectual disdain and largely unearned cynicism...
Perhaps this letdown might have been avoided had Amis included more than one of the seven deadly sins. Pride has possibilities. Then again, envy is not an insignificant emotion-not even in a book review. If not as envious as the caricatured Tull, a critic is still the sort who thinks faster when standing on someone else's feet than when standing...