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“The tooth is still viable,” he said. I picked up my coat in the hot floral waiting room – two people there, indistinct and self-sufficient, like all ghosts in waiting rooms. I paid the chick who lurks with knitting in her windowless stall: fifteen pounds, cash, and a video cassette. No receipt. Black economy. I run Selina on the black economy. We don’t keep any books: there is nothing, no letter, no notes. There is no gentleman’s agreement. There isn’t even a handshake. But we both understand(76).”
Amis’s style thus far can be characterized by two distinct features, which are illustrated above. First, Amis’s character John Self likes to stick to the facts. Not just any facts, but the essential ones that are in some way definitive of his character, who seems to be portrayed in a continually doomed light. This pressing reality is something John seems aware of but only in a way that continues to push him to the edges of his physical limits. As if he is racing the clock, banking on the success and finances of his new film in order to begin remaking himself, or find ways to prolong his bad habits. To this point the cold hard facts that sum up his dental visit is that the tooth which has been causing him pain is “viable”(or capable of living). It is not healthy, but viable, a fact he seems unconcerned with as he makes no future plans to address his “upper west side”. As he leaves the office, the lack of descriptions of those in the waiting room serves to reinforce not only his description of those things relevant to him, or quantitatively significant, but also bolsters the second characteristic of the narrative.
This second characteristic is similar to the first in that it is matter of fact in its content, but more importantly is the way in which it is delivered. He pays the women and begins explaining, his economic methods, indeed a habit of his with which we are not unfamiliar. The way in which it is delivered not only demonstrates John’s obsession with these facts and the way they operate in his life, but also affords him a tone of total assurance in his methods. There is no hesitation and the tempo of such short punctuated sentences gives the reading an almost directive quality- as if he is trying to endow the reader with some wise words on how to live.