- Paperback: 227 pages
- Publisher: Harmony Books (1 April 1988)
- ISBN-10: 0517567776
- ISBN-13: 978-0517567777
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 12.7 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,161,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Rachel Papers (Vintage Classics)
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Product Description
Review
Amis has brought off the feat of satirizing his contemporaries while making them both funny and, in a bizarre way, moving Scurrilous, shameless and very funny Times Literary Supplement Amis's arrogantly assured manner is a formidable weapon, spraying the target with disdainful wit, ingenious obscenity, astute literariness, loathing, lust, anxiety and an all-pervading hyper-self-consciousness Observer
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Review
"Scurrilous, shameless and very funny." -- "Times Literary Supplement"
"Amis has brought off the feat of satirizing his contemporaries while making them both funny and, in a bizarre way, moving." -- Peter Ackroyd
"Amis's arrogantly assured manner is a formidable weapon, spraying the target with disdainful wit, ingenious obscenity, astute literariness, loathing, lust, anxiety and an all-pervading hyper-self-consciousness." -- "Observer"
"Extravagantly sexual...highly enjoyable." -- "Evening Standard" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
"Amis has brought off the feat of satirizing his contemporaries while making them both funny and, in a bizarre way, moving." -- Peter Ackroyd
"Amis's arrogantly assured manner is a formidable weapon, spraying the target with disdainful wit, ingenious obscenity, astute literariness, loathing, lust, anxiety and an all-pervading hyper-self-consciousness." -- "Observer"
"Extravagantly sexual...highly enjoyable." -- "Evening Standard" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I can't believe I'm the first person to review this book!
The books narator, Charles Highway, is the most charasmatic and endearing charactor in a book since Holden Caufield. The story he tells is a simple one concerning a short time in a young mans life when he has his first proper realtionship. The basic storyline - Charles vows to have a sexual relationship with an older women before he reaches 20, and is prepared to use every means possible to impress the girl he finds (Rachel).
The books is funny and witty as well as touching. Don't be put off by the crude lanuage, Martin Amis has some serious things to say and his observations on teenage attidutes are frightingly accurate. This is a very relevent book. If you looking for non stop action, then look else where, but if your looking for a funny and moving novel that won't take long to read (but an age to forget) then I can't recommend this enough. Ignore people who say the book is too high on crude sexual content, this is nessary to accuratly portray teenage attidutes to sex. Amis is a very hard hitting writer who doesn't hold back in what he says, so the easily offened may be, well, offended by this book.
This, as the title of my review says, is the best book I have ever read. I admire Amis for his bravery and his ability to create a charater so flawed and then have you almost weeping for him. If you liked The Catcher In The Rye or A Clockwork Orange, you should love this
P x
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Allright, I will probably be crazy - but I have never read Amis' debut merely as a satire, a funny book or a study of adolescent psychology (or a combination of all that). There are funny parts, sure, but in a very non-funny way. "The Rachel papers" is, all in all, a very touching and sad book.
Charles Highway, the main character, sees no point in life - that's exactly why he seduces Rachel. There's only a sense of meaningless play left, he's an actor in his own life. And it is that kind of vulnarability that shimmers on the pages.
The whole book, the shape, the tone, the language breathes like that, like Charles wants to hide from that, but he can't. Yet, it seems there's some sense in the act of playing too - and that goes for the writer as well. Very ambivalent and very Amis.
Great to see that this kind of brilliance was already present in his debut. Amis rocks!
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an astonishing novel to be written by someone in their early twenties---the more so when you realise it was first published in 1973, at the height of English hippie-dom's prog-rock flowering. For this is essentially a punk novel written ahead of its time. It tells the story of Charles Highway's run-up to his twentieth birthday, as he falls for, then plans the seduction of, then abandons, the lovely, eponymous, Rachel.
But the first-person description of CH himself is really the core of the novel. Every twisted, nasty thought that any teenager has ever had is there in Charles, while he masquarades to himself and us as a polite, bookish, intellectual. In fact we are quietly led to believe what Charles believes of himself: that he is a cut-above the rest of the world---nasty but moral, calculating yet capable of love. It is only at the end that Amis lets us see the truth: that Charles is really just an intellectual fraud with no redeeeming features at all. He abandons the possibly pregnant Rachel with a callousness that even his much-hated father would have been incapable of. By contrast, Rachel ends up a far more noble charachter than we had any reason to believe when seen through Charles' overly self-regarding eyes.
In a sense this should be regarded as an early feminist novel. The male characters are so odious that it is hard to say a good word for them. (Though why, one wonders, have no female novelists plunged this far into the dark side of women's psyches?) But the question that must really be at the top of everyone's mind when they read this novel is: to what extent is this a portrait of the teenage Amis himself? The answer that most readers will probably come away with is, surely quite a lot. But that makes this novel a colossally brave affair, not just the clever, excoriatingly funny satire, that it seems on first read. A terrific book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Well written, compelling, and funny
The Rachel Papers was my first Martin Amis novel and I liked it enough that I would read Amis again, most definitely. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Troy Parfitt
Unlovely
Got half way through it, and I think that was plenty. More than enough. Unlovely, but probably brilliant when you're nineteen.
Published 8 months ago by Frootle
After this? Would not read Amis again
This was the first Amis book that I have read. I was really excited about this book as reviews seemed pretty favourable. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Wophington
The beast that lurks within
An assured debut from the author ,this is a roller coster of jumping harmons , ladish vulgarity and youtfull search for sexual fulfillment. Read more
Published 22 months ago by One view
Did I miss something?
I found this to be little more than a typical story about a young adult. The central character is unlikeable but I suspected this was done on purpose so didn't have too many... Read more
Published on 28 Oct 2009 by G. Hill
4 and a half stars really!
It's a great book, Martin Amis has an amazing style I dont wanna say too much but yeh, it's definitly worth the read if youre not a total prude about language! xxx
Published on 11 Oct 2009 by Stargazer616
Not completely convincing, but very funny
Martin Amis' fisrt novel, published when he was just 24, describes a few months in the life of Charles Highway, a sex-driven and highly intelligent nineteen-year-old preparing for... Read more
Published on 23 Aug 2006 by D. P. G. Bellinger
I Beg To Differ
Bought book on strength of previous reviews. Got through it with a few laughs but would not recommend it. Read more
Published on 12 Aug 2006 by GR
Brilliant book. Very, very funny.
Of the three Amis books that I have read this is the most light of tone and subject, and is also the one I enjoyed the most. Read more
Published on 15 Feb 2006 by R. Britain
Why haven't I read this until now?
I've never really intentionally avoided Amis' work and only read this after picking it up on the cheap...what a surprise! Read more
Published on 12 Feb 2006 by Mr. R. Fisher
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