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'Terribly, terminally funny: laughter in the dark, if ever I heard it'

Guardian
'Terribly, terminally funny: laughter in the dark, if ever I heard it'

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27 Reviews

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4.6 out of 5 stars (27 customer reviews)

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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smart-ass brilliance, 15 Feb 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Money: A Suicide Note (Paperback)

Amis gets a bad press, and you can see why. Why is a middle class novelist from London writing in this smart-ass cool American jargon? Why is he so clearly in love with this disposable cynical money grabbing pornographic transatlantic culture that this book is rubbishing? I started the book in this mode of thought, ready to hate it. But the language and the rhythm and the wit are so brilliant, and so energetic, that I was completely won over after 50 pages or so. This is a Hogarthian world of exploitation and indulgence. John Self tries to get on the gravy train but ends up being shafted himself.

The book is also very, very funny. The scenes when John explains to the young Hollywood brat pack movie actor Spunk Davis that it might be helpful for the British market if he changed his first name, and when a prostitute asks him if he is very excited at the impending Diana and Charles wedding had me laughing out loud.

I even forgive his having John meet a dull British novelist, one Martin Amis, in a caf� and signing him up as screenwriter.

Sure it is self consciously clever. But I would rather have the brilliance that is here than not at all. And it is good to read a serious book that is actually dealing directly with our times rather than some time in the past (like most of the contemporary novels I read).

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very exuberant language, 11 Jul 2007

By	Wynne Kelly "Kellydoll" (Coventry, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

I chose to read this book as it was included in the recent Guardian list as one of the books best evoking the 1980s. And it had been sitting unread on a bookshelf for ages....
It's the story of John Self as he weaves his way through life, revelling in money, sex, alcohol and pornography. From a background in advertising he is caught up in plans to make a film in US but gradually falls foul of a financial scam and his world gradually falls apart. Very exuberant language - including some very evocative invented names for actors, fast food etc. Martin Amis appears as a character - this is done in a clever and intriguing way and not as an ego trip.
There are lots of literary references eg Otello the opera (Self get the plot wrong!) and a car called Iago. Reference to Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 also very funny. Most characters are venal and untrustworthy and the whole book is a mixture of darkness and hilarity.

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Grubby stuff, 11 Aug 2006

By	Room For A View - See all my reviews

This review is from: Money: A Suicide Note (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)

Amis's punchy narrative, infused with colloquial wordplay and urban street talk, complements his hero's (the intriguingly named John Self) socially schizophrenic lifestyle. Self is launched into the money rich pseudo reality of the film industry bumping backwards and forwards between the pub based childhood memories of his London origins and a New York fantasy world of strip joints and intoxication. I found the author's style highly engaging, packed with comic material (fruit machine rage, junk food diets, Martin Amis) and themes of a dark cynical nature. I enjoyed the historical backdrop: allusions to the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana in contrast to news of serious rioting in London. The characters inhabiting both urban settings are hilarious, scheming, self-indulgent egotists and caricatures of attention seeking celebrity, society's misfits and money obsessed grifters. And how I laughed! I had to put the book down on several occasions due to passages such as the one describing Self's driving paranoia. This was the first Amis I had read and it took me a few pages to get on the right `wavelength' and enjoy the rhythm of Amis's literary style. For Self the status and prestige bought by money and the blinkered desire to have money are shown to be a destructive cycle of self inflicted physical and mental abuse, sexploitation and violence. I don't think Self is a nice person but his story is deeply funny.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars My favourite book of all time
I got this book on loan from a friend, and it sat gathering dust on my shelf for months.

When I got round to reading it, I was amazed - it's an amazing, witty,... Read more

Published 5 days ago by Steven Brown

5.0 out of 5 stars Painfully relevant
Martin Amis may come out with some (very) silly things, but this book is a work of utter genius. It is a grotesque indictment of our until recently, unchecked consumerist culture... Read more

Published 3 months ago by Mr. David Wallis

5.0 out of 5 stars More please...
I loved this book, it is my favourite by Martin Amis so far. Its darkly funny, and I think quite a clever plot. Read more

Published 10 months ago by Richard BJ

5.0 out of 5 stars Wanton, fierce brilliance
My personal theory about Martin Amis is that he's a great writer in need of a great story. I think he doesn't often find one: so his extraordinary literary brilliance is just... Read more

Published 12 months ago by Louise the book worm

5.0 out of 5 stars A savage funny monologue
This is a novel written in the early 80's and is one long monologue about money and what chasing money, having money( and not having money) does to John Self the central... Read more

Published 17 months ago by John

5.0 out of 5 stars A TRUE MORALIST
Martin Amis is the Jonathan Swift of our age. He exposes the inner corruption of self deceit and the lies that money brings. Read more

Published 20 months ago by S. Brown

3.0 out of 5 stars Relentless...and exhausting....
Money is just exhausting to read.... It describes the main character's (John Self) self-destruction - his own relentless drive to descend deeper and deeper into a pit of his own... Read more

Published 21 months ago by Countess Olenska

4.0 out of 5 stars The only Martin Amis Novel worth reading
Once upon a time young Martin got a lot of adolescent novels published on the strenth of being Kingsley's boy. Read more

Published on 15 Dec 2006 by W. Jones

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't read this when you're ill!
When I read "Money", I was suffering from a nasty virus, some of whose symptoms were similar to those experienced in a severe hangover. Read more

Published on 13 Jul 2006 by M. Padgett

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
I loved this book; it sees the attempts, both successful and failures of John Self, an intriging character who takes the reader through a journey of money, sex, alcohol, George... Read more

Published on 6 April 2006 by Mr. R. Aherne

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Money: A Suicide Note (Paperback)

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