- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (27 Mar 1986)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140077154
- ISBN-13: 978-0140077155
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 307,747 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Money: A Suicide Note
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
61 of 65 people found the following review helpful
Format: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 café 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).
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have mixed feelings about this book. Despite containing some moments of the wit and satire that Amis seems to be able to dash off so easily, it never feels like it totally justifies the price of admission.
Like the central character John Self, the prose feels bloated at 368 pages long. There's a kind of rhythm in the repetition of the constant acts of gluttony, depravity and violence of Self that I suppose you could argue form the basis of the satire. The problem I have with this is that if this book is intended as a satire, it doesn't feel like the aim is precise enough- it's more of a scattergun approach in which all of the targets receive a blast of Amis's caustic style.
What this leaves you with is a fairly stretched story full of unlikable characters (although I did enjoy John Self's dead pan reflections and utter lack of regret on events that would horrify most of us- being thrown out of bars, losing fights, throwing up in front of important people) interspersed with some genuinely funny moments.
It comes down to personal taste, as I know there are plenty of people who rate this book, but ultimately I found it comes off like an overlong speech by a very witty, though very drunk friend.
Like the central character John Self, the prose feels bloated at 368 pages long. There's a kind of rhythm in the repetition of the constant acts of gluttony, depravity and violence of Self that I suppose you could argue form the basis of the satire. The problem I have with this is that if this book is intended as a satire, it doesn't feel like the aim is precise enough- it's more of a scattergun approach in which all of the targets receive a blast of Amis's caustic style.
What this leaves you with is a fairly stretched story full of unlikable characters (although I did enjoy John Self's dead pan reflections and utter lack of regret on events that would horrify most of us- being thrown out of bars, losing fights, throwing up in front of important people) interspersed with some genuinely funny moments.
It comes down to personal taste, as I know there are plenty of people who rate this book, but ultimately I found it comes off like an overlong speech by a very witty, though very drunk friend.
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format: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
... a bullhorn, a set of scope sights and a coptered pig drawing a...
Not his best - too turgid, too predictable. Should have been called "Drunk". I hate to say this about Amis, whose work I have almost always enjoyed immensely, but it felt to me as... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Eileen Shaw
Sharp satire of Yuppie years
Set in the 1980s, John drinks excessively, eats too much junk, indulges under red light, and is occasionally and proudly violent. Read more
Published 6 months ago by jacr100
Better than a hand job, a giant burger and bottle of scotch
This has to be one of the best books I've ever read. The John Self character is a masterpiece the eloquence of the writing is beautiful. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Ausogood
Swing and Amis
For a novel written by someone of Amis' linguistic ability, and usually excellent grasp of dramatic action, 'Money' is a disappointingly frustrating and uncharacteristically flat... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mr. D Burin
Lying in that slipped zone, where all thoughts and words are...
Amis has been in the press a lot recently. I had to find out what all the fuss was about. I mean, is he any good. So, I picked up Money. I was not disappointed. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mr. N. R. Birkhead
Has its moments
I picked this up for light relief from Conrad. That was a mistake. This isn't literature. It's amusing in places: the tennis match, some of the drunken escapades, the speeches of... Read more
Published 16 months ago by L. Paulson
A complete waste of time
Reading this book was a complete waste of time, and it required CONSIDERABLE willpower to finish it; I must admit to jumping the many repetitive passages. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Donald Hughes
Tedium. He is an essayist not a novelist
My experience in reading this novel was one of bone crushing tedium. Amis has no observation, he cannot characterise, he is unalterably juvenile in his inner mentality. Read more
Published 20 months ago by M. J. Powell
Good Money, Bad Money...a bit of both
This book is, for want of a better phrase, very 'Martin Amis'; heck he even stars in it as a character. Read more
Published 20 months ago by M. Mallia
Reluctantly loved it
I thought this was going to be about Wall Street but it's about a load of petty crooks in the film business. Read more
Published 22 months ago by P. Bird
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