The Rachel Papers (novel) - Amis On The Rachel Papers

Amis On The Rachel Papers

In preparing to write his 2010 novel The Pregnant Widow, Amis revealed that he re-read The Rachel Papers for research purposes (as "the time frame is similar").

Amis's view of his debut novel has diminished considerably in recent years. Regarding what he made of the novel upon re-reading it, Amis remarked in a 2010 interview that, by his high standards the novel “seemed crude...Not the writing. That was terribly alive. The craft. The sex. The setups… all incredibly cack-handed.” In a subsequent later appearance at the Sunday Times Literary Festival in March 2010, he criticised his debut further, stating, "A first novel is about energy and originality, but to me now it looks so crude. I don’t mean bad language – it’s so clumsily put together. The sense of decorum, the slowing a sentence down, the scrupulousness I feel I have acquired, aren’t there. As you get older, your craft, the knack of knowing what goes where, what goes when, is much more acute."