On reading Oxford grad Ben Master’s NOUGHTIES, Francesca Segal proposed desperate measures in The Guardian:

A university novel is a tricky thing; an Oxford novel still trickier. Masters is in his early 20s and, despite the allusions and linguistic play, the book has the rather familiar sense of yet another university novel written by someone still at university; the unavoidable lack of perspective that means the perennial dramas of student experience are narrated as if they are Very Important Indeed, without the wisdom of hindsight and the irony that comes with it. As Martin Amis has put it: “Novelists are stamina-merchants, grinders, nine-to-fivers, and their career curves follow the usual arc of human endeavour. They come good at 30.” Among them is Amis himself – there are only a very few exceptions.

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