The Rachel Papers [Paperback]

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

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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.

Having read the book at the same age as its protagonist, nineteen, I found the way in which Amis gets inside the mindset of that age unnervingly brilliant. In the repulsive yet compelling (and in this way prototypically Amisian) character of Charles Highway he not only deconstructs the adolescent psyche from the inside out, but forces readers of Highway's age to do the same to themselves. As such I consider it required reading for male teenagers.

However, it is highly recommendable to readers of any age or sex. Highway is surely one of the greatest characters ever created; the novel's brilliance is derived from this, and no further embellishments are necessary. This is character vile enough to reuse a condom, yet meticulous enough to keep individual notebooks about each member of his family. One highlight is his Anxiety Top Ten. Without giving away Highway's biggest problems I'll list the bottom end: "(7) Being Friendless (8) Insanity (9) Rotting Feet (10) Pimple in Left Nostril."

Highway's arrogant precociousness, shameless egotism and almost unbelievable repellence make for a unique narrative voice (the book is in the first person), which is simultaneously hilarious, foul and cringe inducing. The very essence of adolescence then.

It is noticeable that The Rachel Papers is the work of a young writer, but it is clearly the work of a great one and typically the work of Martin Amis. His way with words is less dynamic than usual, but more enthusiastic, and perfectly suited to his narrator. It would be possible to criticise some of the other characters, particularly Highway's seducee, Rachel, as being somewhat undeveloped, but they are all drawn without a line out of place, and if they seem flat, or neglected by the author, this can be attributed to Highway's self-centredness.

This is a flawlessly written novel in that the narrative voice never misses a step, and nothing ever falls out of place. The emotional core of the story is hidden beneath a perfectly measured layer of lightness. There is always some noticeable weight, but it is largely hidden beneath Highway's character and this makes him even more repugnant and entrancing, and makes The Rachel Papers an exceptional book.