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Amsterdam (Paperback)

by Ian McEwan (Author)
2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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  • This item: Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

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    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
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Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (3 Nov 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099272776
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099272779
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.9 x 1.7 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 24,575 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #15 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > McEwan, Ian
    #21 in  Books > Fiction > Contemporary Fiction: 1970 Onwards > Popular Fiction

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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'
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Customer Reviews

61 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:
 (9)
3 star:
 (11)
2 star:
 (14)
1 star:
 (20)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
2.5 out of 5 stars (61 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars A contrived plot ruins the story, 1 Mar 2002
By Penguin Egg (London, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
Ian McEwan is Britain's leading literary artist, so anything he publishes should be greeted with enthusiasm. However, this is a disappointment. This is a story of two men: one is a composer, Clive Linley, who is busy writing a symphony; and the other is a newspaper editor, Vernon Halliday, who publishes a series of photos in order to ruin a right-wing politician's career. A mutual lover, Molly Lane, who has since died, took the pictures. To publish them, Linley believes, would be to besmirch the memory of Molly Lane, whom they both loved. They fall out and their friendship sours; eventually, after a series of misunderstandings, themselves plot contrivances, turning to hatred. I won't give away the ending. I will only say that it is ridiculous. McEwan should read more Ian Banks to see how to develop clever but plausible twists to his endings. Failing that, just read a couple of Agatha Christies.

There is a lot that is good in this novel. The characterisation of the two main protagonists is excellent, and the description of the creative process of a composer is marvellous, but this does not save the book. The story fails totally to engage.

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars At least it's short, 18 Feb 2006
I bought Amsterdam at an airport bookshop for less than perfect literary reasons - price, pockability and not being The Da Vinci Code. I finished it in a day and a half, which isn't like me and is probably, in part, a testament to the lucidity of McEwan's prose. The first fifty or so pages make an intriguing set-up, and I rather enjoyed his description of Clive's creative process, so I was looking forward to finding out about the 'disastrous moral decision' each man was about to make.

And after that, as others here have said, it all goes horribly, predictably, unconvincingly, pointlessly wrong. The conclusion is less 'blow to the gut' than 'I can see how this will end and I've still got 100 pages (out of 180) to go'. I've enjoyed McEwan before and had high hopes of this but it really isn't worth even the short time it takes to read it.

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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars What a load of b*******, 25 Feb 2004
By A Customer
Can this be the man who wrote Enduring Love, Atonement, The Child In Time, or even The Innocent? (not one of his best) surely not!! perhaps he went on holiday and left it to a GCSE student to write it. The characters are completely unbelievable, the plot is just complete nonsense, and the ending so predictable that I nearly didn't bother to finish it. Never can there have been a greater case of somone being presented with a Booker on their passed merits rather than the prize book itself. I wouldn't have given it 1 star, even the cover was off putting. Don't waste you time reading it, even if you are a McEwan fan as I was, it will put you off him forever!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful ideology but shallow everything else
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. Read more
Published 8 days ago by Meghan Kawka

3.0 out of 5 stars When best friends become bitter enemies...
Ian McEwan is a popular author because in the main he writes good stories and he writes them well. However, he writes in a style that I find condescending and I sometimes get the... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Trevor Coote

2.0 out of 5 stars McEwan should atone for this book
Having read "Atonement", which was beautiful, sophisticated and poignant, "Amsterdam" was one hell of a comedown. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mrs. S. Biddulph

5.0 out of 5 stars Amsterdam
My Gran simply cannot understand why I like Ian McEwan novels and I simply do not understand why she cannot like them. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Simon Savidge "savidgeread...

4.0 out of 5 stars There's nothing about the coffee-shops...
An ex-photographer and a well known restaurant critic, Molly Lane had been a beautiful, lively and funny lady. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Craobh Rua

1.0 out of 5 stars A Booker prize ???
Mundane bordering the banal. It would have been a good short story (if less than 40 pages) but in this extended version one can't wait to get rid of it and the climax ending... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Roger

3.0 out of 5 stars A Good Yarn?
There is something compelling about Mc Ewan's books that makes one want to keep on reading;`Amsterdam' is an extended short story which keeps the reader hooked (I read it in two... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Mark Dickens

5.0 out of 5 stars So over looked
I understand the frustration people may have with this book. It is short, a little rediculous and in all fairness there isn't too much to it. Read more
Published on 24 Oct 2007 by A. Dixon

4.0 out of 5 stars A subtle, bewitching diversion
I disagree with many of the reviewers of this book. It's no masterpiece, but I thought it was a subtle, bewitching diversion -- easy to read, but beautifully written; and while... Read more
Published on 15 Oct 2007 by A A Catenaccio

1.0 out of 5 stars Simply didn't work for me
I was reccommended this book by someone whose literary opinions I usually value. I have to say I was very disappointed. Read more
Published on 5 Oct 2007 by D. J. Patterson

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