Amsterdam
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Amsterdam for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
When good-time, fortysomething Molly Lane dies of an unspecified degenerative illness, her many friends and numerous lovers are led to think about their own mortality. Vernon Halliday, editor of the up-market newspaper The Judge, persuades his old friend Clive Linley, a self-indulgent composer of some reputation, to enter into a euthanasia pact with him. Should either of them succumb to such an illness, the other will effect his death. From this point onwards we are in little doubt as to the novel's outcome--it's only a matter of who will kill whom. In the meantime, compromising photographs of Molly's most distinguished lover, foreign secretary Julian Garmony, have found their way into the hands of the press, and as rumours circulate he teeters on the edge of disgrace. However, this is McEwan, so it is no surprise to find that the rather unsavoury Garmony comes out on top. McEwan is master of the writer's craft, and while this is the sort of novel that wins prizes, his characters remain curiously soulless amidst the twists and turns of plot. --Lisa Jardine
David Profumo, Daily Telegraph
'Easily his most enjoyable book-McEwan writes here with unobtrusive panache'
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Ian McEwan is, without a doubt, one of the greatest writers of dark fiction today. But his novella "Amsterdam" is something of a misfire, reading more like the sluggishly-filled-out outline for a novel rather than a novel itself. While it has the seeds of genius, his usual introspection and depth is both missing and sorely missed.
Molly Lane is dead, her mind and body wrecked by an unspecified disease. Now her assorted lovers and friends reunite one last time, including Molly's ex-boyfriends Clive and Vernon, respectively a prominent composer and a not-so-respected newspaper editor. Because of Molly, they are friends -- and they enter into a pact because of her death.
But things go awry when Vernon gets his hands on photos of the Foreign Secretary Julian Garmony, cross-dressing and photographed by Molly. Eager to bring down Garmony and bring up his readership, Vernon wants to publish the photos in his newspaper; Clive is disgusted by this, yet he allows a rapist and murderer to go free for the sake of his musical inspiration. Which man is worse?
"Amsterdam" is like a city in winter: pretty at a distance but rather empty and cold when you walk through it. In theory it has all the elements needed for a great novel, but it feels vaguely unfinished, as if McEwan was expanding an outline into a full-fledged novel but somehow never finished the job.
The characters are lacking in the complexity found in most of McEwan's other books, where many dimensions can be found. Clive is almost impossible to connect with; Vernon is more understandable, given his waning career. But if these characters aren't really connectable, McEwan uses them to make us look at morality, hypocrisy, and where our bad intentions can lead us.
Aside from the characters, the prose is simple and straightforward: it describes what the characters do, but very little of what they think. As a result, some of the actions -- such as Clive watching a woman being attacked -- seem almost random. But in places, such as Mrs. Garmony's public speech about her husband and Vernon, his brilliance shines forth, and the entire ending is lit up by the irony.
So while an acceptable novel by most standards, it's perhaps the least of McEwan's works thus far. Has its moments of pure brilliance, but in large patches, it's dreary and empty.
Molly Lane is dead, her mind and body wrecked by an unspecified disease. Now her assorted lovers and friends reunite one last time, including Molly's ex-boyfriends Clive and Vernon, respectively a prominent composer and a not-so-respected newspaper editor. Because of Molly, they are friends -- and they enter into a pact because of her death.
But things go awry when Vernon gets his hands on photos of the Foreign Secretary Julian Garmony, cross-dressing and photographed by Molly. Eager to bring down Garmony and bring up his readership, Vernon wants to publish the photos in his newspaper; Clive is disgusted by this, yet he allows a rapist and murderer to go free for the sake of his musical inspiration. Which man is worse?
"Amsterdam" is like a city in winter: pretty at a distance but rather empty and cold when you walk through it. In theory it has all the elements needed for a great novel, but it feels vaguely unfinished, as if McEwan was expanding an outline into a full-fledged novel but somehow never finished the job.
The characters are lacking in the complexity found in most of McEwan's other books, where many dimensions can be found. Clive is almost impossible to connect with; Vernon is more understandable, given his waning career. But if these characters aren't really connectable, McEwan uses them to make us look at morality, hypocrisy, and where our bad intentions can lead us.
Aside from the characters, the prose is simple and straightforward: it describes what the characters do, but very little of what they think. As a result, some of the actions -- such as Clive watching a woman being attacked -- seem almost random. But in places, such as Mrs. Garmony's public speech about her husband and Vernon, his brilliance shines forth, and the entire ending is lit up by the irony.
So while an acceptable novel by most standards, it's perhaps the least of McEwan's works thus far. Has its moments of pure brilliance, but in large patches, it's dreary and empty.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As usual McEwan has a knack of leading you in one direction and then taking you off on a completely different and unexpected path . This is what i love about all the McEwan books i have had the privilage of reading and this one is no exception. In true McEwan fashion the tale begins with the funeral of Molly Lane, a whirlwind of a character who we get to know through her husband, George and three of her ex lovers. From this the repercussions of Molly lanes' relationship with these men is skillfully played out with twists and turns and shocking punches. I wont go on about the plot too much but all i will say is that it is a wonderfully crafted novel which expertly deals with themes of euthanasia, ethics and midlife crisis. A must read for any McEwan fan.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
When Molly Lane dies, two of her friends meet outside a crematorium to express both their remorse and their view of Molly's last days. Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday are a pair of extremely successful men who at one point or another had an affair with Molly. Molly died in what they consider a horrible way; she just started to lose it suddenly, became ill, and required her long-suffering husband to nurse her. Clive, the most famous composer of his age, and Vernon, editor of a top newspaper, make a pact after Molly's death that rebounds against them in a way they'd never expected.
On the back cover, this is described as "a sharp contemporary morality tale, cleverly disguised as a comic novel", and I can't say it better than that. The comedy to me appears to come from how ridiculous these men are, how they are so wrapped up in themselves that they can't hear and don't care about the outside world at all. By the end of the novel, they have each truly become like Molly, lost to the world without realizing what has happened to them. They've been overtaken by an illness, and that illness is, according to Ian McEwan, the ills of public society and the selfishness that it takes to ignore the needs and wellbeing of fellow humans while taking care of number one. The disturbing thing is that neither of them realize it; what they're doing is so normal to them that they don't understand what's wrong. They think they're adding to society when really they're just adding to the problem.
Anyway, in that way, this novel is so deep in so few pages that it's hard to say whether or not I liked it. This is one of those books that I want a class on. There's a lot here to pick at and just writing that paragraph above has helped me clarify it in my mind. I think I could write a paper on it. It's less than two hundred pages long, so it didn't take me very long to read, but it packs in so much thought-provoking material in with the ridiculousness of the situation. The worst part is that, when dissected, the behavior of neither of the characters is ridiculous. They're doing what has been done countless times before and that is eerie and worrying, especially given the extreme dislike I felt for both of them by the end of the novel. Really the problem with the novel is that it isn't a very good story. The story and the characters exist only to prove McEwan's point, which is a strong one, but it doesn't work very well at a surface level.
In conclusion, there is a very good reason that Amsterdam won the Booker Prize. It's a truly haunting commentary on society that still manages to be slightly ridiculous enough to make it interesting. I haven't even touched on all the issues here, but I can tell I'm going to continue thinking about this for some time to come. It isn't as good as a book as Atonement is, in my humble opinion, particularly because it is shallow in everything but its overall meaning. I still think it's worth a read.
On the back cover, this is described as "a sharp contemporary morality tale, cleverly disguised as a comic novel", and I can't say it better than that. The comedy to me appears to come from how ridiculous these men are, how they are so wrapped up in themselves that they can't hear and don't care about the outside world at all. By the end of the novel, they have each truly become like Molly, lost to the world without realizing what has happened to them. They've been overtaken by an illness, and that illness is, according to Ian McEwan, the ills of public society and the selfishness that it takes to ignore the needs and wellbeing of fellow humans while taking care of number one. The disturbing thing is that neither of them realize it; what they're doing is so normal to them that they don't understand what's wrong. They think they're adding to society when really they're just adding to the problem.
Anyway, in that way, this novel is so deep in so few pages that it's hard to say whether or not I liked it. This is one of those books that I want a class on. There's a lot here to pick at and just writing that paragraph above has helped me clarify it in my mind. I think I could write a paper on it. It's less than two hundred pages long, so it didn't take me very long to read, but it packs in so much thought-provoking material in with the ridiculousness of the situation. The worst part is that, when dissected, the behavior of neither of the characters is ridiculous. They're doing what has been done countless times before and that is eerie and worrying, especially given the extreme dislike I felt for both of them by the end of the novel. Really the problem with the novel is that it isn't a very good story. The story and the characters exist only to prove McEwan's point, which is a strong one, but it doesn't work very well at a surface level.
In conclusion, there is a very good reason that Amsterdam won the Booker Prize. It's a truly haunting commentary on society that still manages to be slightly ridiculous enough to make it interesting. I haven't even touched on all the issues here, but I can tell I'm going to continue thinking about this for some time to come. It isn't as good as a book as Atonement is, in my humble opinion, particularly because it is shallow in everything but its overall meaning. I still think it's worth a read.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Well written, but not convincing
This novel is about fatal conflict among four British men sharing, at different times, one woman, Molly, until recently culinary columnist of a major British paper. Read more
Published 2 months ago by P. A. Doornbos
King's new clothes
Other one-star reviewers have said it all, but having just read this clunkily written junk I endorse everything they say. Read more
Published 5 months ago by James Lizard
shockingly bad
I always thought I should like Ian McEwan as he is so lauded and so much part of the literary establishment. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Lyn
Pointless
I'm a huge fan of Ian McEwan, starting with when I read 'Atonement' years back, and following that I've read almost every one of his other books. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Alana The Geek :)
A true gem!
I cannot believe I waited 13 years to read Amsterdam by Ian McEwan! It proved to be a great cocktail of different themes such as friendship, (office) politics, 'big' politics,... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Dirk Verburg
His farce from his elbow...
You're browsing Amazon, or walking down the aisles of your local bookshop or library, and your eyes land on this... 'Amsterdam', by Ian McEwan. Read more
Published 13 months ago by David Llewellyn
Unpredictable
After the funeral of ex-lover, Molly Lane who deteriorated rapidly into a strange mental illness, Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday spend much time thinking about their own... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Poppy Smart
A McEwan Masterpiece
A morality tale with devastating consequences.
I used to be what I class myself as a `boring reader', sticking to the monotonous romances seen in novels like that of... Read more
I used to be what I class myself as a `boring reader', sticking to the monotonous romances seen in novels like that of... Read more
Published 17 months ago by ameliaajane
Disappointing
Having been a fan of some of Ian McEwan's previous work, Atonement and Enduring Love, I fully expected to enjoy the Booker winning Amsterdam a great deal. What a let down. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Mr. M. Read
Oh my god, i couldn't read this any longer!! zzzzzz
This is the first book i have had to stop reading ( got half way through),
The most slow and boring book I have ever read. Read more
The most slow and boring book I have ever read. Read more
Published on 31 May 2010 by M. Unsworth
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
