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Money
One of Time’s 100 best novels in the English language—by the acclaimed author of Lionel Asbo: State of England and London Fields
Part of Martin Amis’s “London Trilogy,” along with the novel London Fields and The Information, Money was hailed as "a sprawling, fierce, vulgar display" (The New Republic) and "exhilarating, skillful, savvy" (The Times Literary Supplement) when it made its first appearance in the mid-1980s. Amis’s shocking, funny, and on-target portraits of life in the fast lane form a bold and frightening portrait of Ronald Reagan’s America and Margaret Thatcher’s England.
Money is the hilarious story of John Self, one of London’s top commercial directors, who is given the opportunity to make his first feature film—alternately titled Good Money and Bad Money. He is also living money, talking money, and spending money in his relentless pursuit of pleasure and success. As he attempts to navigate his hedonistic world of drinking, sex, drugs, and excessive quantities of fast food, Self is sucked into a wretched spiral of degeneracy that is increasingly difficult to surface from.
Part of Martin Amis’s “London Trilogy,” along with the novel London Fields and The Information, Money was hailed as "a sprawling, fierce, vulgar display" (The New Republic) and "exhilarating, skillful, savvy" (The Times Literary Supplement) when it made its first appearance in the mid-1980s. Amis’s shocking, funny, and on-target portraits of life in the fast lane form a bold and frightening portrait of Ronald Reagan’s America and Margaret Thatcher’s England.
Money is the hilarious story of John Self, one of London’s top commercial directors, who is given the opportunity to make his first feature film—alternately titled Good Money and Bad Money. He is also living money, talking money, and spending money in his relentless pursuit of pleasure and success. As he attempts to navigate his hedonistic world of drinking, sex, drugs, and excessive quantities of fast food, Self is sucked into a wretched spiral of degeneracy that is increasingly difficult to surface from.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
About the author
Martin Amis
84 books2,791 followersMartin Amis was an English novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His works included the novels Money, London Fields and The Information.
The Guardian writes that "all his critics have noted what Kingsley Amis [his father] complained of as a 'terrible compulsive vividness in his style... that constant demonstrating of his command of English'; and it's true that the Amis-ness of Amis will be recognisable in any piece before he reaches his first full stop."
Amis's raw material is what he sees as the absurdity of the postmodern condition with its grotesque caricatures. He has thus sometimes been portrayed as the undisputed master of what the New York Times has called "the new unpleasantness."
The Guardian writes that "all his critics have noted what Kingsley Amis [his father] complained of as a 'terrible compulsive vividness in his style... that constant demonstrating of his command of English'; and it's true that the Amis-ness of Amis will be recognisable in any piece before he reaches his first full stop."
Amis's raw material is what he sees as the absurdity of the postmodern condition with its grotesque caricatures. He has thus sometimes been portrayed as the undisputed master of what the New York Times has called "the new unpleasantness."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,396 reviews
May 21, 2023
Here to Stay
The enduring legacy of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher isn’t conservatism as a political programme but narcissism as a mode of living. As the aptly named John Self says in Money, “You just gave us some money... but you hate me, don’t you. Yes you do. Because I’m the new kind, the kind who has money but can never use it for anything but ugliness. To which I say: You never let us in, not really. You might have thought you let us in, but you never did. We’re here to stay. You try getting us out ... My way is coming up in the world”
Amis got it exactly right. John Self is now the new normal. The physical embodiment of his ethos is Trump and Harvey Weinstein. John Self is their fictional prototype: coarse, uneducated, racist, misogynistic, overweight, and entirely without taste. He not only became acceptable in polite circles, he became their centre. “You know where you are with economic necessity,” Self opines, by which he means money is the only criterion of value. Therefore more is always better, even if there is no object in having it except having it.
There is only a limited amount of pornography, alcohol, drugs, and sex a human being can consume. And their consumption in excess reduces the ability to consume more (it’s impossible to have seven month long hangover without side effects). This causes an irritability which leads to the potential for violence at any moment. Self knows this and lives in constant fear of himself. This in turn makes him more irritable, and so on. “With violence, you have to keep your hand in, you have to have a repertoire.” Get your revenge in first. Never yield. Always hurt the other guy more than he hurt you. Sound familiar?
For the English Self, New York City is an enormous brothel, with fast food restaurants in close proximity. The place excites him in a curious way: “You step off the plane, look around, take a deep breath–and come to in your underpants, somewhere south of SoHo, or on a midtown traction table with a silver tray and a tasselled tab on your chest and a guy in white saying Good morning, sir. How are you today. That’ll be fifteen thousand dollars . . .” NYC demands money just to stay alive, lots of it. It makes the making of money as a goal in itself comprehensible, even worthwhile.
Lots of literary allusions are peppered through the text, including an increasing number to the author himself, the ultimate hero of the piece, who proposes the redemptive force of literature as an antidote to the Reagan/Thatcherite legacy. Right, that’ll do it. I’ll write to Trump and Weinstein to clue them in.
Good writing. But consequently a sermon heard only by the choir of readers of good writing. Not Trump; not Weinstein, therefore.
The enduring legacy of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher isn’t conservatism as a political programme but narcissism as a mode of living. As the aptly named John Self says in Money, “You just gave us some money... but you hate me, don’t you. Yes you do. Because I’m the new kind, the kind who has money but can never use it for anything but ugliness. To which I say: You never let us in, not really. You might have thought you let us in, but you never did. We’re here to stay. You try getting us out ... My way is coming up in the world”
Amis got it exactly right. John Self is now the new normal. The physical embodiment of his ethos is Trump and Harvey Weinstein. John Self is their fictional prototype: coarse, uneducated, racist, misogynistic, overweight, and entirely without taste. He not only became acceptable in polite circles, he became their centre. “You know where you are with economic necessity,” Self opines, by which he means money is the only criterion of value. Therefore more is always better, even if there is no object in having it except having it.
There is only a limited amount of pornography, alcohol, drugs, and sex a human being can consume. And their consumption in excess reduces the ability to consume more (it’s impossible to have seven month long hangover without side effects). This causes an irritability which leads to the potential for violence at any moment. Self knows this and lives in constant fear of himself. This in turn makes him more irritable, and so on. “With violence, you have to keep your hand in, you have to have a repertoire.” Get your revenge in first. Never yield. Always hurt the other guy more than he hurt you. Sound familiar?
For the English Self, New York City is an enormous brothel, with fast food restaurants in close proximity. The place excites him in a curious way: “You step off the plane, look around, take a deep breath–and come to in your underpants, somewhere south of SoHo, or on a midtown traction table with a silver tray and a tasselled tab on your chest and a guy in white saying Good morning, sir. How are you today. That’ll be fifteen thousand dollars . . .” NYC demands money just to stay alive, lots of it. It makes the making of money as a goal in itself comprehensible, even worthwhile.
Lots of literary allusions are peppered through the text, including an increasing number to the author himself, the ultimate hero of the piece, who proposes the redemptive force of literature as an antidote to the Reagan/Thatcherite legacy. Right, that’ll do it. I’ll write to Trump and Weinstein to clue them in.
Good writing. But consequently a sermon heard only by the choir of readers of good writing. Not Trump; not Weinstein, therefore.
July 29, 2014
Yes, you are right. Money is about ‘Money’. But not the everyday money one needs to go on with the daily business of living. It is ‘The Money’. The sort people go bonkers to attain to overcome their fears. To suppress the ‘thinking monster’ who is ready to rear its head at a moment’s notice, when the guards are low, those fleeting moments when lust or power hang on to relax, freeing the mind from their rein temporarily. But that freedom is ephemeral, for there is no escape from Money.
John Self is a rogue. One, who is impatient to make money, more and more money in life to spend in excess. One who remains drunk all day long. Night too. For days at stretch. Indulges in sex. Want to make porn movies. To make more money. You get the picture, right? And what with the abysmal language Amis writes this work in? What can one expect to find? Why should it be rated five stars?
Well, why shouldn’t it be? This isn’t a work to be disregarded. The writing may be despicable, the characters detestable, but it unveils the ugliness of a society doomed in the mire of lust and money. To render the effect of Money, when it becomes the only driving force of an individual or a society, how it blinds the senses, influences the mind and compels to stifle the conscience, seems the chief concern of the writer. And what better way to illustrate that other than writing it in an appalling language; making the ugliness still more evident. But the work isn’t only that. It is a struggle; a longing to find a meaning, a restlessness to make sense of the living amidst the chaos, while understanding too well that there is no solution to being born. Despair abounds.
Morning came, and I got up ... That doesn't sound particularly interesting or difficult, now does it? I bet you do it all the time. Listen, though — I had a problem here. For instance, I was lying face-down under a hedge or bush or some blighted shrub in a soaked allotment full of nettles, crushed cigarette packs, used condoms and empty beercans. It was quite an appropriate place for me to be born again, which is what it felt like. Obviously it hurts, being born: that's why you scream and weep.
John Self is deplorable, but he tries hard to think. But the hard he tries to think, the harder he tries to suppress it; getting drunk and fornicating.
Number four is the real intruder. I don't want any of these voices but I especially don't want this one. It is the most recent. It has to do with quitting work and needing to think about things I never used to think about. It has the unwelcome lilt of paranoia, of rage and weepiness made articulate in spasms of vividness; drunk talk played back sober.
He suppress it because he doesn’t know what to do with the thinking, how to answer the question when they keep popping. Frank, on the phone, the one who stalks him, seems to be his doppelganger, trying to make John think. Perhaps he is made up by John, so that he can still hear his own voice although trying hard to smother it. Martina too makes him think, although she makes him panicky.
The thing about Martina is — the thing about Martina is that I can't find a voice to summon her with. The voices of money, weather and pornography (all that uncontrollable stuff), they just aren't up to the job when it comes to Martina. I think of her and there is speechless upheaval in me — I feel this way when I'm in Zurich, Frankfurt or Paris and the locals can't speak the lingo. My tongue moves in search of patterns and grids that simply are not there. Then I shout ...
He tries reading books in order to be able to talk to Martina. Though he isn’t very smart, but he knows he is missing something in life which can be grasped by reading books.
The bookish, the contemplative life. Martina, she's even cured my tinnitus. Not a squeak for over three hours. The big thing about reading and all that is—you have to be in a fit state for it. Calm. Not picked on. You have to be able to hear your own thoughts, without interference.
But there is no escape from Money, its claws fastening more as one tries to escape. John cannot help it. He cannot hide from Money. And it is his greed, his inability to take control which brings his doom. When he sits there defeated, a part of me can sympathize with him, for the ruin he is faced with, is brought about by a being a part of the society where money is supreme and where ‘thinking’ spirals downwards as debauchery, greed and lust rise to unleash their power.
This book is a masterpiece. Highly recommended.
December 3, 2019
This was really an essential text for me. I first read it shortly after it came out in the U.S. (1985) and it was like nothing I had ever come across before. A hydrogen-bomb of a novel. The sheer speed of the narrative, the word play, the telling detail. In short Money possesses the masterful technique that causes a narrative to jump from the page. Though "originality" we now know is something of a misnomer--every artist has his or her models and Amis has always been frank about his--nevertheless I have found no one who quite equals Martin Amis. He’s unique. He makes it new, as the problematic Ezra Pound is famous for saying.
December 16, 2019
UPDATE: Did I really not give this five stars? What the fuck was I thinking? I rate all other books on Goodreads in terms of as-good-as-MONEY, not-as-good-as-MONEY, and possibly-better-than-MONEY-in-some-ways-but-then-again-not-really.
I don't know what book I thought I was going to find out there, that was going to be an entire star better than Martin Amis' MONEY, but I haven't found it yet.
(If I ever do encounter such a mindbusting blockbender of a book -- I hear TWILIGHT is good -- then I may be forced to come back here and revise Martin Amis' MONEY back down to four measley stars, in order to give that new one five, since it's important that all books in my library someday be shelved linearly from "best" to "worst" so I can prioritize which ones to heat my house with. But that occurrence seems unlikely. For now: five stars. Consider my previous rating "pilot error.")
As an aside, tho, if any Goodreads Developers happen to be reading this: they should consider developing and releasing into the wild another star, a discretionary sixth star -- specifically, the power to harness such a star (in extraordinary situations only) for the purpose of reviewing those rare few books that are just thermonuclearly great. But this power should be granted only to certain users: only those users who have demonstrated consistently exceptional dedication, taste, subtlety, restraint and eloquence in their Goodreadsing. Myself, for example. Possibly others, too. But I would be willing to beta test this new star. Here is why:
Stars are excellent motivators. They are shiny, pointy, universally recognized as commemorative of achievement. Many Americans were trained at an early age to produce well-written text, or at least the correct answers to multiple-choice questions, in exchange for shiny adhesive decorative gorgeous gold stars. Did I mention shiny? certain individuals (hi!) are inordinately hypnotized by them, especially when wasted after a nice night rocking out, and I would like six of them to play with, please.
This new sixth star -- the initial sighting of which, like a tenth planet or a third leg, will send shockwaves of startled awe though the Goodreadsphere, and perhaps mark the dawning of a "new era" in Goodreads "history" -- ought really, I think, to be markedly different, better in every way, than the current barely-adequate "starter quintuplet" of self-similar, mildly drop-shadowed, vaguely Carl's-Juniory stars. The sixth star should be larger, with more bling. It should blink, or rotate, or respond to clicks in a trendy Web 2.0 fashion. Perhaps this new sixth star should be six-pointed, in order to symbolize the number six, as well as maybe Jewishness in some way. For instance: I could use this sixth start to review Joshua Cohen's WITZ, if by chance I read that book and it turns out to be significantly better than Martin Amis' MONEY. That would be a great day for several different symbolic systems, if that were to happen -- although perhaps a melancholy one for Martin Amis. (But, BTW, if there are cultural sensitivity issues that might arise from Goodreads handing its first six-pointed star to a gentile (hi!) then I would totally understand, and a seven-pointed star would be totally acceptable instead, assuming it was sufficiently awesome.)
I don't know what book I thought I was going to find out there, that was going to be an entire star better than Martin Amis' MONEY, but I haven't found it yet.
(If I ever do encounter such a mindbusting blockbender of a book -- I hear TWILIGHT is good -- then I may be forced to come back here and revise Martin Amis' MONEY back down to four measley stars, in order to give that new one five, since it's important that all books in my library someday be shelved linearly from "best" to "worst" so I can prioritize which ones to heat my house with. But that occurrence seems unlikely. For now: five stars. Consider my previous rating "pilot error.")
As an aside, tho, if any Goodreads Developers happen to be reading this: they should consider developing and releasing into the wild another star, a discretionary sixth star -- specifically, the power to harness such a star (in extraordinary situations only) for the purpose of reviewing those rare few books that are just thermonuclearly great. But this power should be granted only to certain users: only those users who have demonstrated consistently exceptional dedication, taste, subtlety, restraint and eloquence in their Goodreadsing. Myself, for example. Possibly others, too. But I would be willing to beta test this new star. Here is why:
Stars are excellent motivators. They are shiny, pointy, universally recognized as commemorative of achievement. Many Americans were trained at an early age to produce well-written text, or at least the correct answers to multiple-choice questions, in exchange for shiny adhesive decorative gorgeous gold stars. Did I mention shiny? certain individuals (hi!) are inordinately hypnotized by them, especially when wasted after a nice night rocking out, and I would like six of them to play with, please.
This new sixth star -- the initial sighting of which, like a tenth planet or a third leg, will send shockwaves of startled awe though the Goodreadsphere, and perhaps mark the dawning of a "new era" in Goodreads "history" -- ought really, I think, to be markedly different, better in every way, than the current barely-adequate "starter quintuplet" of self-similar, mildly drop-shadowed, vaguely Carl's-Juniory stars. The sixth star should be larger, with more bling. It should blink, or rotate, or respond to clicks in a trendy Web 2.0 fashion. Perhaps this new sixth star should be six-pointed, in order to symbolize the number six, as well as maybe Jewishness in some way. For instance: I could use this sixth start to review Joshua Cohen's WITZ, if by chance I read that book and it turns out to be significantly better than Martin Amis' MONEY. That would be a great day for several different symbolic systems, if that were to happen -- although perhaps a melancholy one for Martin Amis. (But, BTW, if there are cultural sensitivity issues that might arise from Goodreads handing its first six-pointed star to a gentile (hi!) then I would totally understand, and a seven-pointed star would be totally acceptable instead, assuming it was sufficiently awesome.)
November 2, 2023
This work was my first book by this author, and it is an encounter with a particular writing style. Martin Amis portrays the life of a satisfied John Self, obsessed with money, alcohol, food, drugs, and pornography. It is a table of the prosperity of the beginning of the eighties, disturbing as much by the excess and the abundance of money that allows this individual to do what he wants; it is a despicable personage. It's catchy, and we arrive at the end of the 400 pages without realizing it because, as mentioned on the last page, the asset of this character is the sense of mockery.
October 29, 2014
Thank You, Dear Gentle Reader
It's 5 pm on a Saturday in New York. The Reader walks into a bar where he works as a barman. In his bag is a copy of the novel "Money", which he has been reading on the subway on the journey to and from work. He hasn't checked the pages, but he's almost finished. Soon after setting up, he is joined by his first customer, a dishevelled, but interesting looking, character he doesn't think he's seen before. The customer is holding a folded piece of paper in his left hand. He slips on the newly disinfected floor and almost knocks a seat over while trying to take a position in front of the Reader at the bar. He gets up off the wet floor, rubbing his left elbow. It's giving him some pain. His eyes are bloodshot, but he doesn't look obviously drunk. He orders a beer and finally sits down. He is still holding the piece of paper. The Reader recognises his English accent and initiates a conversation.
Reader: Are you OK?
John Self: I’m not sure.
Reader: Can I do something to help?
John Self: I don’t know.
Reader: Do you need anything at all?
John Self: Yes.
Reader: What?
John Self: Some more money.
Reader: Haha. We could all do with some more money.
John Self: I know, but it’s not for me.
Reader: Who’s it for then?
John Self: My author.
Reader: What do you mean, your author?
John Self: Martin Amis.
Reader: I know him. He's famous.
John Self: Yes.
Reader: Doesn't he have enough money? Isn’t he already rich?
John Self: No.
Reader: Wow, weird…so he depends on you for money then?
John Self: Yes. He depends on me for money, and I depend on him...for dear life, actually.
Reader: So what happens if you don’t make him enough money?
John Self: I’ll probably die.
Reader: But you’re alive. I can see you. We’re talking to each other. Here in this thread. In this bar. You're drinking a beer.
John Self: Yes, but it could all come to an end.
Reader: Why?
John Self: He could hand me a suicide note.
Reader: Is that the note you’ve got there?
John Self: I’m not game enough to look.
Reader: Where did you get it from?
John Self: Martin gave it to me.
Reader: Do you think he wanted you to read it?
John Self: Yes.
Reader: Well, why don’t you read it then?
John Self: It’s not the end of the novel yet.
Reader: How far away is it?
John Self: I think it must be very close. If I read the note, it will be the end of the novel.
Reader: What’s wrong with that?
John Self: It’ll be the end of me as well.
Reader: Oh, right. Is there any way we could make it last longer?
John Self: Yes.
Reader: How?
John Self: You could give Martin some money.
Reader: I don’t have any more money.
John Self: I can’t be much of a character then.
Reader: Hey, you’re a real character. As real as they get.
John Self: Thanks. You’re very kind. A real gentleman.
Reader: What are you doing?
John Self: I’m going to read the note.
It's 5 pm on a Saturday in New York. The Reader walks into a bar where he works as a barman. In his bag is a copy of the novel "Money", which he has been reading on the subway on the journey to and from work. He hasn't checked the pages, but he's almost finished. Soon after setting up, he is joined by his first customer, a dishevelled, but interesting looking, character he doesn't think he's seen before. The customer is holding a folded piece of paper in his left hand. He slips on the newly disinfected floor and almost knocks a seat over while trying to take a position in front of the Reader at the bar. He gets up off the wet floor, rubbing his left elbow. It's giving him some pain. His eyes are bloodshot, but he doesn't look obviously drunk. He orders a beer and finally sits down. He is still holding the piece of paper. The Reader recognises his English accent and initiates a conversation.
Reader: Are you OK?
John Self: I’m not sure.
Reader: Can I do something to help?
John Self: I don’t know.
Reader: Do you need anything at all?
John Self: Yes.
Reader: What?
John Self: Some more money.
Reader: Haha. We could all do with some more money.
John Self: I know, but it’s not for me.
Reader: Who’s it for then?
John Self: My author.
Reader: What do you mean, your author?
John Self: Martin Amis.
Reader: I know him. He's famous.
John Self: Yes.
Reader: Doesn't he have enough money? Isn’t he already rich?
John Self: No.
Reader: Wow, weird…so he depends on you for money then?
John Self: Yes. He depends on me for money, and I depend on him...for dear life, actually.
Reader: So what happens if you don’t make him enough money?
John Self: I’ll probably die.
Reader: But you’re alive. I can see you. We’re talking to each other. Here in this thread. In this bar. You're drinking a beer.
John Self: Yes, but it could all come to an end.
Reader: Why?
John Self: He could hand me a suicide note.
Reader: Is that the note you’ve got there?
John Self: I’m not game enough to look.
Reader: Where did you get it from?
John Self: Martin gave it to me.
Reader: Do you think he wanted you to read it?
John Self: Yes.
Reader: Well, why don’t you read it then?
John Self: It’s not the end of the novel yet.
Reader: How far away is it?
John Self: I think it must be very close. If I read the note, it will be the end of the novel.
Reader: What’s wrong with that?
John Self: It’ll be the end of me as well.
Reader: Oh, right. Is there any way we could make it last longer?
John Self: Yes.
Reader: How?
John Self: You could give Martin some money.
Reader: I don’t have any more money.
John Self: I can’t be much of a character then.
Reader: Hey, you’re a real character. As real as they get.
John Self: Thanks. You’re very kind. A real gentleman.
Reader: What are you doing?
John Self: I’m going to read the note.
April 12, 2019
Money features one of the most lovable dingbats I’ve yet encountered in literature, a buoyantly ridiculous, somehow charmingly silly scumbag of an antihero. When you add to that the book’s pervasively outlandish, exuberant energy, its wealth of genuinely hilarious black humor (I must have belly-laughed/giggled/snorted uncontrollably at least 20 times), and its wildly inventive word choices, which are flung at the reader with a blatantly waggish, manic enthusiasm, this thing is truly a fun, entertaining read. Even though it gets a little too cute from time to time, too smirkingly clever (and even obnoxiously pleased with itself), it is still without a doubt the most amusing book I’ve had the pleasure of reading in quite some time. If you ever find yourself in the mood for a twisted, sharp, uproarious commentary on the cult of money, this is definitely the book for you.
June 17, 2010
I loathed this book, especially its reekingly horrid, brain-damagingly idiotic mess of an ending, which felt like watching a drug-addicted alcoholic trainwreck you've seen self-destructing for years finally have his royal rock-bottom meltdown into utter psychosis, destitution, and multiple organ failure.
"But Jess!" you might be yelling. "Wasn't that the point?"
Probably, almost definitely, but really, I gotta ask: was this point really one that needed to be made? I think not, yet close to a year after I read it, Money is still ruthlessly imprinted on my brain. I mean, there are passages and scenes in here that I remember more clearly than I do my own actions at work this morning. So it couldn't have been all bad -- no, it was bad, it was worse, but it was memorably so.
Plus there's this paragraph in here* that still makes me laugh out loud when I think about it, which I do probably at least every three weeks.
So upon further reflection, I am upping it a star to two, not because "it was ok," but because it so totally wasn't. I hated reading this book, and when I think about having read it, I kind of want to throw up. And that's something, isn't it? That must count for something. Oh, Martin Amis. You sick idiot savant fucking bastard.
* Full disclosure: a paragraph about grannies being raped.
"But Jess!" you might be yelling. "Wasn't that the point?"
Probably, almost definitely, but really, I gotta ask: was this point really one that needed to be made? I think not, yet close to a year after I read it, Money is still ruthlessly imprinted on my brain. I mean, there are passages and scenes in here that I remember more clearly than I do my own actions at work this morning. So it couldn't have been all bad -- no, it was bad, it was worse, but it was memorably so.
Plus there's this paragraph in here* that still makes me laugh out loud when I think about it, which I do probably at least every three weeks.
So upon further reflection, I am upping it a star to two, not because "it was ok," but because it so totally wasn't. I hated reading this book, and when I think about having read it, I kind of want to throw up. And that's something, isn't it? That must count for something. Oh, Martin Amis. You sick idiot savant fucking bastard.
* Full disclosure: a paragraph about grannies being raped.
March 20, 2011
How about a story where the narrator is an absolute pig who spends most of the novel blind drunk as he careens from blackout to blackout while being a completely self-absorbed and oblivious asshole who survives on a diet of fast food and pornography? He’s also the kind of guy who gets in bar brawls and occasionally smacks women around. Sound like fun?
Actually, it is.
John Self is a British director of crass TV commercials who is about to make his first movie with an American producer. John ping-pongs between New York and London as he deals with incredibly difficult actors and an increasingly demanding girl friend. Along the way, he also meets a writer named Martin Amis, and he’s hounded by threatening phone calls from someone who claims that John ruined his life. All the while he spends vast amounts of money to support his lifestyle and buy his way out of trouble.
Alcoholic John is completely clueless as to what a massive asshat he is and can’t understand anyone not motivated by greed. He’s just smart enough to realize that money is the only thing that allows him to act the way he does and to feel vaguely disgruntled with his life, but he’s so committed to constant instant gratification that he can’t imagine living any other way. He’s Hunter S. Thompson without the intelligence and rage. He’s Charlie Sheen without the tiger blood and a webcast. He’s that drunken fucktard you hope doesn’t sit next to you on the plane, but if he does, you’ll have stories to tell your friends for hours.
The reckless adventures that John has frequently end in humiliation for him, although he’s not always smart or sober enough to understand that he should be embarrassed. Amis does a magnificent job of making his points through John’s musings without beating the reader over the head with them. My only complaint is that there were points that seemed to get a bit repetitive with multiple blackouts and humiliations that John suffers.
If you can’t stand books with unlikable characters in the lead, then stay away from this. If you’ve got the stomach to hear out a booze soaked moron in order to get a blisteringly funny take on a culture that worships money, then check this book out.
Actually, it is.
John Self is a British director of crass TV commercials who is about to make his first movie with an American producer. John ping-pongs between New York and London as he deals with incredibly difficult actors and an increasingly demanding girl friend. Along the way, he also meets a writer named Martin Amis, and he’s hounded by threatening phone calls from someone who claims that John ruined his life. All the while he spends vast amounts of money to support his lifestyle and buy his way out of trouble.
Alcoholic John is completely clueless as to what a massive asshat he is and can’t understand anyone not motivated by greed. He’s just smart enough to realize that money is the only thing that allows him to act the way he does and to feel vaguely disgruntled with his life, but he’s so committed to constant instant gratification that he can’t imagine living any other way. He’s Hunter S. Thompson without the intelligence and rage. He’s Charlie Sheen without the tiger blood and a webcast. He’s that drunken fucktard you hope doesn’t sit next to you on the plane, but if he does, you’ll have stories to tell your friends for hours.
The reckless adventures that John has frequently end in humiliation for him, although he’s not always smart or sober enough to understand that he should be embarrassed. Amis does a magnificent job of making his points through John’s musings without beating the reader over the head with them. My only complaint is that there were points that seemed to get a bit repetitive with multiple blackouts and humiliations that John suffers.
If you can’t stand books with unlikable characters in the lead, then stay away from this. If you’ve got the stomach to hear out a booze soaked moron in order to get a blisteringly funny take on a culture that worships money, then check this book out.
November 20, 2008
Not for the fainthearted or easily shocked - but if you don't fall into one of those categories, an absolutely first-rate comic novel. Impossible to forget John Self, surely one of the most unattractive anti-heroes ever.
July 12, 2014
Note: Written in 2007, when my prose style was at an all-time low.
I would like to begin this review with a statement: I am not a rich man. The highest amount of capital I have ever accrued amounts to approximately two thousand British pounds, and after reading Money: A Suicide Note from Martin Amis, I can also state in all conviction – that will do quite nicely for me.
I picked this book up expecting a white-hot satire on the power of money to corrupt and infect the individual, and to rot society from the inside out. I also, perhaps, on some level, needed some reassurance that money truly is the root of all evil, that the wealthy people of the world are the most vacuous and corrupted of all and that there is little enlightenment and personal enrichment to be found in the realm of the filthy lucre. So – did I come away reassured? Did I leave this voluminous text (and it is a voluminous text) with the kind of comfort I required, or did it change my perception on the topic entirely? The answer is that this novel left me utterly breathless – in both a positive and negative sense.
The Lowdown
Money: A Suicide Note is a book about extreme excess. It is therefore written under this proviso from the first moment we are introduced to the loutish, amoral protagonist John Self. The voice of the narrator is rather like that of a brutish cockney millionaire high on cocaine, talking noisily about how brilliant he is in a lift to a group of embarrassed, discerning onlookers. Amis’ creation is the image not, it seems, of the archetypal Thatcherite yuppie, but more of an unhinged, self-made businessman who leads a life of exploitation and epileptic unrest; constantly on the look out for the next addiction he can get his greedy hands on. Released in 1984, this book must have struck a chord with those sickened by the “greed is good” ethos of the 1980s and made all those in pursuit of the mega dollars look rather degenerate.
John Self is a repugnant individual, it is true – misogynistic, foul-mouthed, coarse and self-destructive – but is imbued with an extreme intelligence and insightfulness (perhaps merely to accommodate the sheer density and crackling eloquence of Amis’ prose). We get the genuine sense throughout the novel that this is a character who is shallow and unthinking, but in whom lurks a genuine intelligence and an almost insatiable need for some kind of spiritual fulfilment. He is, to me, like some walking brain, split wide open and just hanging there; receptive to almost every kind of stimulus he encounters. It is in his world of jet-set and sleaze we are trapped in for all 400 pages of this text, and despite this full absorption into his world, he appears desolate and almost impenetrable from the outside.
Style & Plot
Excess is adopted throughout each stylistic nuance of this book. The length of the sentences are just a little too long, as are the ensuing paragraphs, in order to give the effect of leaving the reader feeling dazed and bloated. If John Self has just gorged on a whole plateful of burgers, the reader feels that sensation as well. This does not make for the easiest reading style, but it does manage to evoke the feeling of the sheer lack of restraint the character has. When one word would do, Amis uses about three or four, stretching his descriptive capabilities to near breaking point. He also works in more surreal, literary imagery into the text, most of which gets swamped in the sheer ocean of adjectives. The narrator more or less rambles for all 400 pages, and there is no real structure or point to many of the events – we merely wade through the wasteland of his indulgent and decadent life, then build to the moment of his (almost) suicide.
The narrator works in the pornographic film industry and the events in the book detail his abusive relationships with actresses, his contemptuous colleagues and with his manifold addictions. These parts of the book can be difficult to swallow, since they engendered in me more anger than humour, but there are some (guilty) laughs to be had in the astonishing wordplay that Amis is able to spindle throughout most of the novel. His ability as one of the best contemporary British authors is never in doubt throughout this text. What is perhaps the most interesting element of the book, for me, is the postmodern twist he has thrown into his work; in this instance including himself as a character in the novel. The intellectual bankruptcy of John Self is revealed when a somewhat sympathetic (and part-human) friend called Martina gets him into reading books. Amis is characterised as a mild-mannered, cantankerous bookworm (which is not entirely inaccurate) and sketches himself well into his own work.
Upon an encounter with Amis in some random London pub, Self decides (with encouragement from Martina) that he should immerse himself in books to attain a higher level of knowledge and begins by tackling George Orwell. It would seem at this point that the bookworm voice of Amis is breaking through the narrative here, and he lectures a little through his character that there is a kind of currency – intellectual currency – money just cannot afford. The text then does that neat tactic of referencing itself later on, as some “text within a text” cleverness I learned about (after three years of English Lit, I remembered something) is introduced, and Self becomes a scriptwriter, working on a film titled Bad Money (later shortened to Money). The honest way in which Amis earns his money (via his writing) is juxtaposed to the repugnant way Self earns his, via sleaze and debasement. Lots to think about. But not just now.
Further Thoughts
Money: A Suicide Note manages to end on something of a poignant note, with the final chapter making startling use of italics over the last monologue as Self, after his near-death experience, sits alone an absolutely shattered individual. Instead of being a mere figure of fun, whose flashy dialogue and brutal cynicism make him out to be a clueless buffoon, he is exposed as a vulnerable, child-like man and is suitably crushed to a pulp by Amis for all his heartlessness. Since Self has spent the text running around like an overexcited child in a candy shop, perhaps this climax is inevitable. It still manages to make for an effective end to the novel, even if the overall message of the text ends up rather dimmed given the density of it all. Or perhaps I was too stupid. Which is more likely.
What is to be taken from this text? As a discourse on the detrimental effects of having too much money, it raises some convincing and crucial arguments. Those who come from poorer backgrounds and who seek nothing but cold, hard cash from an early age, are shown as people with something pointless to prove to themselves who are taking the wrong path in life. It also hectors – quite clearly – that when a person has an unlimited amount of money, it can end up corrupting the person and robbing them of their humanity. Just think of all those benevolent multi-millionaires out there. What ones? My point exactly.
Since all I sought from this novel was a barbed black comedy and a first-rate, scathing social commentary, I came away one pleased consumer. I do believe that Amis could have trimmed some sections of the text (it is voluminous, remember) but that would seem to contradict the OTT nature of the whole thing. Silly me! It can also be difficult to invest bags of reading time (approx. 10 hrs) in such an irredeemable protagonist who is doomed from page one, and care about anything he is doing seeing who most people would avoid this man with all the effort they could muster. However, something I should have mentioned in the beginning – this is a comedic work, and it did make me laugh in some places. I am not the type to be reduced to hysterical laughter with satirical novels, but this one at least raised some guilty chuckles and set my grey matter reeling afterwards. Why did I laugh at that? What does that say about me? Am I an absolute bastard? And so on.
Conclusion
This novel deserves to be included with the finest satires on shallow greed ever published. It does the job nicely, namely exposing the power of money to deaden the individual, and it approaches the issue from a classically British perspective. Which I find pleasing (being British). Perhaps American novels along the lines of Bonfire of the Vanities, or even to a certain extent the ice-cold humour of American Psycho are fine points of comparison to make. Since they are the only two I can think of just now. This novel is recommended to those who require a reminder of the evils of money, who just enjoy seeing the idiots rich exposed as sheer, unenlightened morons and who delight in a wordy, erudite satire that delivers a nice scissor-kick to the groins of those who deserve it. A worthwhile endeavour.
I would like to begin this review with a statement: I am not a rich man. The highest amount of capital I have ever accrued amounts to approximately two thousand British pounds, and after reading Money: A Suicide Note from Martin Amis, I can also state in all conviction – that will do quite nicely for me.
I picked this book up expecting a white-hot satire on the power of money to corrupt and infect the individual, and to rot society from the inside out. I also, perhaps, on some level, needed some reassurance that money truly is the root of all evil, that the wealthy people of the world are the most vacuous and corrupted of all and that there is little enlightenment and personal enrichment to be found in the realm of the filthy lucre. So – did I come away reassured? Did I leave this voluminous text (and it is a voluminous text) with the kind of comfort I required, or did it change my perception on the topic entirely? The answer is that this novel left me utterly breathless – in both a positive and negative sense.
The Lowdown
Money: A Suicide Note is a book about extreme excess. It is therefore written under this proviso from the first moment we are introduced to the loutish, amoral protagonist John Self. The voice of the narrator is rather like that of a brutish cockney millionaire high on cocaine, talking noisily about how brilliant he is in a lift to a group of embarrassed, discerning onlookers. Amis’ creation is the image not, it seems, of the archetypal Thatcherite yuppie, but more of an unhinged, self-made businessman who leads a life of exploitation and epileptic unrest; constantly on the look out for the next addiction he can get his greedy hands on. Released in 1984, this book must have struck a chord with those sickened by the “greed is good” ethos of the 1980s and made all those in pursuit of the mega dollars look rather degenerate.
John Self is a repugnant individual, it is true – misogynistic, foul-mouthed, coarse and self-destructive – but is imbued with an extreme intelligence and insightfulness (perhaps merely to accommodate the sheer density and crackling eloquence of Amis’ prose). We get the genuine sense throughout the novel that this is a character who is shallow and unthinking, but in whom lurks a genuine intelligence and an almost insatiable need for some kind of spiritual fulfilment. He is, to me, like some walking brain, split wide open and just hanging there; receptive to almost every kind of stimulus he encounters. It is in his world of jet-set and sleaze we are trapped in for all 400 pages of this text, and despite this full absorption into his world, he appears desolate and almost impenetrable from the outside.
Style & Plot
Excess is adopted throughout each stylistic nuance of this book. The length of the sentences are just a little too long, as are the ensuing paragraphs, in order to give the effect of leaving the reader feeling dazed and bloated. If John Self has just gorged on a whole plateful of burgers, the reader feels that sensation as well. This does not make for the easiest reading style, but it does manage to evoke the feeling of the sheer lack of restraint the character has. When one word would do, Amis uses about three or four, stretching his descriptive capabilities to near breaking point. He also works in more surreal, literary imagery into the text, most of which gets swamped in the sheer ocean of adjectives. The narrator more or less rambles for all 400 pages, and there is no real structure or point to many of the events – we merely wade through the wasteland of his indulgent and decadent life, then build to the moment of his (almost) suicide.
The narrator works in the pornographic film industry and the events in the book detail his abusive relationships with actresses, his contemptuous colleagues and with his manifold addictions. These parts of the book can be difficult to swallow, since they engendered in me more anger than humour, but there are some (guilty) laughs to be had in the astonishing wordplay that Amis is able to spindle throughout most of the novel. His ability as one of the best contemporary British authors is never in doubt throughout this text. What is perhaps the most interesting element of the book, for me, is the postmodern twist he has thrown into his work; in this instance including himself as a character in the novel. The intellectual bankruptcy of John Self is revealed when a somewhat sympathetic (and part-human) friend called Martina gets him into reading books. Amis is characterised as a mild-mannered, cantankerous bookworm (which is not entirely inaccurate) and sketches himself well into his own work.
Upon an encounter with Amis in some random London pub, Self decides (with encouragement from Martina) that he should immerse himself in books to attain a higher level of knowledge and begins by tackling George Orwell. It would seem at this point that the bookworm voice of Amis is breaking through the narrative here, and he lectures a little through his character that there is a kind of currency – intellectual currency – money just cannot afford. The text then does that neat tactic of referencing itself later on, as some “text within a text” cleverness I learned about (after three years of English Lit, I remembered something) is introduced, and Self becomes a scriptwriter, working on a film titled Bad Money (later shortened to Money). The honest way in which Amis earns his money (via his writing) is juxtaposed to the repugnant way Self earns his, via sleaze and debasement. Lots to think about. But not just now.
Further Thoughts
Money: A Suicide Note manages to end on something of a poignant note, with the final chapter making startling use of italics over the last monologue as Self, after his near-death experience, sits alone an absolutely shattered individual. Instead of being a mere figure of fun, whose flashy dialogue and brutal cynicism make him out to be a clueless buffoon, he is exposed as a vulnerable, child-like man and is suitably crushed to a pulp by Amis for all his heartlessness. Since Self has spent the text running around like an overexcited child in a candy shop, perhaps this climax is inevitable. It still manages to make for an effective end to the novel, even if the overall message of the text ends up rather dimmed given the density of it all. Or perhaps I was too stupid. Which is more likely.
What is to be taken from this text? As a discourse on the detrimental effects of having too much money, it raises some convincing and crucial arguments. Those who come from poorer backgrounds and who seek nothing but cold, hard cash from an early age, are shown as people with something pointless to prove to themselves who are taking the wrong path in life. It also hectors – quite clearly – that when a person has an unlimited amount of money, it can end up corrupting the person and robbing them of their humanity. Just think of all those benevolent multi-millionaires out there. What ones? My point exactly.
Since all I sought from this novel was a barbed black comedy and a first-rate, scathing social commentary, I came away one pleased consumer. I do believe that Amis could have trimmed some sections of the text (it is voluminous, remember) but that would seem to contradict the OTT nature of the whole thing. Silly me! It can also be difficult to invest bags of reading time (approx. 10 hrs) in such an irredeemable protagonist who is doomed from page one, and care about anything he is doing seeing who most people would avoid this man with all the effort they could muster. However, something I should have mentioned in the beginning – this is a comedic work, and it did make me laugh in some places. I am not the type to be reduced to hysterical laughter with satirical novels, but this one at least raised some guilty chuckles and set my grey matter reeling afterwards. Why did I laugh at that? What does that say about me? Am I an absolute bastard? And so on.
Conclusion
This novel deserves to be included with the finest satires on shallow greed ever published. It does the job nicely, namely exposing the power of money to deaden the individual, and it approaches the issue from a classically British perspective. Which I find pleasing (being British). Perhaps American novels along the lines of Bonfire of the Vanities, or even to a certain extent the ice-cold humour of American Psycho are fine points of comparison to make. Since they are the only two I can think of just now. This novel is recommended to those who require a reminder of the evils of money, who just enjoy seeing the idiots rich exposed as sheer, unenlightened morons and who delight in a wordy, erudite satire that delivers a nice scissor-kick to the groins of those who deserve it. A worthwhile endeavour.
July 22, 2022
His most popular and critically acclaimed novel it maybe, but I can think of at least three others that I personally thought were so much better than this. Amis throwing himself into the narrative was a neat trick, but I was starting to bore of the gratifying John Self with all his porn and junk food going into the second half of the book, although, I have to say to some degree, the finale was worth the slog. Unsurprising Amis got a right ear bashing for his representation of women here. Self might be a racist, and homophobic too, but he frequently seems to get more kicks out of his misogynist rants - including rape jokes that just sucked. Interesting to think of John self had he been around in today's world. Most likely he'd be glued to his laptop porn-surfing and ordering burgers, fried chicken and pizzas for evermore on the just eat app. I get that Amis is highlighting the embodiment of 80s greed, but spending nearly 400 pages in the company of someone so utterly intolerable was like watching my fave football team getting a right good spanking from their local rivals. A squalid 3/5
October 29, 2017
One of the books that are hard to read but once you're done, you just would like to read them again. It is just too beautiful that the fulfillment that you get from it is indescribable. My first time to read a Martin Amis book and definitely will not be the last.
Despite the many references that probably only Londoners or New Yorkers (two settings of the story) might be familiar with, the staccato narration and John Self's vicious vices (those I cannot relate with except of course good food), the playful tone and the narration towards the end are simply brilliant. If you stop reading before reaching the last page of the book, I can understand if you dish this book out as a failure. What I am trying to say is this: you have to read all the pages to appreciate the book's riveting beauty.
There are many unforgettable (because they are witty and unconventional yet profound) quotes and will take me a long time to type in here. There is just this passage that struck me most: "I don't see Terry Linex any more because he owes me money. I don't see Alec Llewellyn any more because he owes me money. I don't see Barry Self any more because he owes me money." Reason: I can substitute my friends' names in those statements. I lost friends because they borrowed from me. Wait, some of them might be reading this review. I hope they get the message and they pay me so they'll have the courage to show their faces again and we can continue our friendships. I do miss you, Clare, Ace, Patrick, Zonnie, Enchong and Enteng. I enjoyed your friendships and it was my fault, I lent you some money. This book is true then. Money can destroy people.
Anyway, this book is for tough readers. Not for everyone. But believe you me, this is worth all your time.
Despite the many references that probably only Londoners or New Yorkers (two settings of the story) might be familiar with, the staccato narration and John Self's vicious vices (those I cannot relate with except of course good food), the playful tone and the narration towards the end are simply brilliant. If you stop reading before reaching the last page of the book, I can understand if you dish this book out as a failure. What I am trying to say is this: you have to read all the pages to appreciate the book's riveting beauty.
There are many unforgettable (because they are witty and unconventional yet profound) quotes and will take me a long time to type in here. There is just this passage that struck me most: "I don't see Terry Linex any more because he owes me money. I don't see Alec Llewellyn any more because he owes me money. I don't see Barry Self any more because he owes me money." Reason: I can substitute my friends' names in those statements. I lost friends because they borrowed from me. Wait, some of them might be reading this review. I hope they get the message and they pay me so they'll have the courage to show their faces again and we can continue our friendships. I do miss you, Clare, Ace, Patrick, Zonnie, Enchong and Enteng. I enjoyed your friendships and it was my fault, I lent you some money. This book is true then. Money can destroy people.
Anyway, this book is for tough readers. Not for everyone. But believe you me, this is worth all your time.
June 12, 2014
A sleazy masterpiece of rhythm and voice, Money is Martin Amis at his most decadent and vitriolic. Taking no prisoners, this novel moves at a jetlagged frenzy, hopping back and forth between London and New York City as our narrator, the bloated and repulsive John Self, wheels and deals with perverse moneymen and insecure actors as he tries his damnedest to make his pet project of a movie, Good Money (or Bad Money, depending on which has more appeal with test audiences), a money-spewing success. All that stands in his way is his wayward sneak of a girlfriend, a malicious stalker, a deadbeat father, and his insatiable appetites for food, booze, and drugs. For the most part, Self is an oafish, sexist, slovenly, repulsive, sex-crazed, greedy, mean-spirited drunk, but Amis gifts his creation with enough intelligence and a dim sense of self-awareness to generate some genuine sympathy for the bastard as he goes through a 360-page gauntlet of humiliation. Dumping the burden of blame on the celebration of self-absorption that was the greedy, plastic-sheened 1980s, Amis rolls up his sleeves and goes digging in the cultural refuse clogging up the kitchen sink and pulls out all the stops to make this novel go BANG! Some neo-noir intrigue and the inclusion of a character named Martin Amis – portrayed here in meta-land as a smarmy, ethically clandestine foil for Self – were the cherry on top for this particular reader. But the real jewel to be found between the covers is Amis’s prose: it sizzles, it sashes, it pontificates as it regurgitates, it’s a lunatic howl from a saxophone and always, always, always a pleasure on the page to read and hear.
March 28, 2024
The palimpsest technique
I laughed myself silly reading Martin Amis’s Money. On the bus on my way to work, or in the subway on my way to University, wherever I happened to be reading, I was bursting out laughing every other page. And it was challenging to discover where the comedy came from: was it a genuine laughter fed by traditional techniques, so to speak, such as situation, language, names, characters? Or did it answer some subconscious expectations of mine with its fine parody covering not only a world of money exchange but also a world of words exchange?
I think that one of the most obvious qualities of Amis’s novel is exactly this clever shift from text to metatext without changing the tone, this presentation of a world fair that, quite unexpectedly, becomes the word fair. While there is many a writer who exploited various comic techniques to describe one or other of the two universes, how many focused simultaneously on both? I mean, there is such a perfect blend between plot and meta-plot that at one moment a doubt arises as per who invented who: the author his narrator or the other way around. Let’s see.
The world of the novel is seen through the eyes of its narrator, John Self, thirty-five, who, like all his generation (of the eighties, of all time) worships with his money (and he has plenty) three gods, which are not only his reason of being but also his explanation for all zany situations he restores afterwards from, disparate clues and pains in the ass (literally!) that give an incomplete but funny idea of what must have happened:
I found a three-pack of condoms in my wallet, two joint-ends in my turn up, and a cocktail stick in my rug. Is it any wonder I’ve got a boil on my ass? It must be the booze, it must be the junk, it must be all the pornography.
There is a comically philosophical resignation in this final enumeration that identifies the source of all evils that haunt him, a cartoonish desolation often amplified by visual gags, in the true lineage of black and white comedy films:
…I went off on a run that it would have taken me all the way downtown – further, to the Village, to Martina Twain – if the desert trolley hadn’t been there to check my sprint. The whole restaurant cheered me on as I fought my way out into the night.
Other times the hero struggles (literally, again) with culture, identifying reading with pain (of eyes while following words, of nose while wearing glasses), for the physical effort of going from page to page (from thirty-one to thirty-three and thirty-five “not to mention the even numbers”), or the desperate epiphany that “opera really lasts” (because after a first long half, he expects a second one to follow) is truly exhausting. His extensive cultural knowledge helps him to recognize that the Rimbo one of his friends was talking about is probably a French writer named Rambeau or Rambot (who, he recalls, had a friend with a wine-like name – maybe Bordeaux), and to help find the meaning of “Aesthetics” in a discussions he had with his dentist (who said about a bad tooth: ‘the aesthetics are going to cost you on this one’).
Living in a perpetual hangover does not prevent him to notice a writer who makes him uncomfortable in the beginning (a forewarning, of course) but whose name, Martin Amis, he envies and borrows one time, in a parodic confusion not only of the author with the narrator, but also of the whole authorship concept. For the plot follows John, who wants to become the author of a movie so absurdly autobiographic that it transforms him in a character created by Martin Amis who is asked to write the script. A mise en abyme here, definitely, but which one is the frame and which one is within it – John’s film or John’s life or Martin’s script? From which point of view is the better look? For in the end, over a chess game (and in a parody of a detective story), Martin will explain to John why his film and his life collapsed, claiming the ironclad rule that states the character’s fate depends on its creator:
‘Zugzwang,’ he said.
‘What the fuck does that mean?’
‘Literally, forced to move. It means that whoever has to move has to lose. If it were my turn now, you’d win. But it’s yours. And you lose.’
But, like a Pirandello’s character, our hero refuses to sign his suicide note and breaks free from the end of the book as it had been thought, spooking his Martin Amis who catches a glimpse of him – where else? – in a bar. Despoiled of his money (and his life plot) John Self is stubborn enough to live, challenging thus the powers of his maker, while claiming his own immortality:
I still cry and babble and holler a lot, but then I always did. I drink and have fights, and gangway through the streets. I am still inner city.
Martin Amis (I mean, of course, the Martin Amis in the book) becomes thus as much an invention of the narrator as the narrator is his, in a clever overwriting of scenes and characters and plots that encourages the ludical change of meanings and perspectives in order to simultaneously reveal either the text of the metatext and the metatext of the text.
February 4, 2012
Let me begin by saying that this novel is certainly well worth the money -- a masterpiece always is. I hardly know where to begin as I was so moved by this literary tour de force on fiat currency. Martin Amis is a writer's writer, a novelist's novelist, a poet's poet. The syntax is elegant, exquisite, delicious, a joy to read -- it's a book you want never to end. Amis worked hard and even fought to add value to every single word in this allegorical novel or as William H. Gass said, you will discover "a world in every word." John Self is not himself. He suffers debilitating fits of unwellness which all trace back inevitably and prolifically to money, the primary driver of his existence. He is the penultimate lout, an oaf, a drunk, a brutish womanizer, a first-rate hedonist and producer of pornographic films -- he is the penultimate anti-hero of the late 20th century and we also see his cousins who bear a strong resemblance to the protagonists who populate the novels of JP Donleavy. John Self is victim of every shallow relationship and makes every mistake in the book but he just can't help himself -- he's only human. He is driven senseless, nearly out of his mind, by money to become an agent of his own demise, his own doom, his own destiny. John Self drives a car which model is branded a Fiasco and it is prone to capricious fits and starts, breakdowns of every variety, unreliable, expensive to repair and perpetually riding along the brink of disaster. Myriad memorable quotes haunt this epic, picaresque, existential, tragicomic allegory. "Do you want to know the meaning of life? Life is an aggregate, an aggregate of all the lives that have ever been lived on the planet Earth." Ultimately, John Self is responsible for the pain of every sin he commits which intrigue by virtue of their seemingly infinite variety -- how can one man inherit so much chaos and suffer such crisis over one midlife? If only he could end the pain and suffering which cause him to ponder his own suicide at the bloody hands of banknotes -- the ultimate suicide note. At one point the pornographic film producer, who considers himself an artist, discovers this: "But the clouds obey their natural functions and do not know or care how beautiful they are. What does know, what does care about its own beauty? Only beautiful women -- oh yeah, and artists, I suppose, real artists, not the sack, piss, con and bullshit varieties that I've always had to work my way around. I am an artist -- an escape artist." Aren't we all? One of many brilliant strokes in the story line is the repeated meeting of John Self with the author in a literal and allegorical chess match. If character is destiny, then it was bound to happen sometime. The dialogue is rich, real and idiosyncratic ripe with wit, honesty and meaning. The storyline is a labyrinth in which it is most agreeable to wander and come out right in the end, it all comes out in the wash. The odd, richly nuanced characters are credibly and honestly cast fresh off the streets of New York and London. I was genuinely thrilled finally to discover Martin Amis and really can't recommend him more highly as a post-modern master. Fish out your wallets and pay the price in hard currency because "Money" by Martin Amis is absolutely priceless.
September 29, 2012
This is a hard book to review. 'Money'. I'll probably have to let the whole thing soak. It was brilliant, nimble, sharp, hard, completely balls-out-nuts and pornographic (not really in the PORNporn way, but in the MONEYporn way--yeah, folks, listen to the book you won't understand till you listen to it).
If you put 'Money' together with Gaddis' JRand Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities and then sprinkle it all with the vibe and intensity and amorality of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow you begin to get the literary footprint of the financial crisis of 2008 AND a peepshow into how reading/listening to 'Money' feels. Anyway, this is a novel I will need to chew on for a few weeks, months or decades before I've fully digested how I feel about it. Was it Bad Money or Good Money? Or just Money?
For me it just wasn't as good as 'JR' and a day and plane ride from Manhattan later, I still feel a tad beat up by it (and my feet are still swollen from the City, the plane, or Martin Amis, or all three), so 4 stars, but absolutely brilliant still.
If you put 'Money' together with Gaddis' JRand Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities and then sprinkle it all with the vibe and intensity and amorality of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow you begin to get the literary footprint of the financial crisis of 2008 AND a peepshow into how reading/listening to 'Money' feels. Anyway, this is a novel I will need to chew on for a few weeks, months or decades before I've fully digested how I feel about it. Was it Bad Money or Good Money? Or just Money?
For me it just wasn't as good as 'JR' and a day and plane ride from Manhattan later, I still feel a tad beat up by it (and my feet are still swollen from the City, the plane, or Martin Amis, or all three), so 4 stars, but absolutely brilliant still.
August 20, 2019
Money is an entertaining social critique of society's obsession with the power derived from money. Later authors like Bret Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk echo some of the same sentiment. It's a great read, albeit a tad long-winded. I enjoyed the journey.
May 18, 2013
I made an unwise choice here. I was swayed by the good reviews I read and naturally assumed the book would be excellent.
I didn't like the character of John Self at all. I found him empty in "spirit", didn't go with his life style, neither was I taken with the form of the writing, as it lacked, to me, any sense of art or beauty. So the book has been despatched to the "clouds" in Kindle to enjoy eternity in the ether.
Normally the reviewers are very good and I can be persuaded to follow their way of thinking and decide that I need to read a certain book, but regrettably not on this occasion.
I didn't like the character of John Self at all. I found him empty in "spirit", didn't go with his life style, neither was I taken with the form of the writing, as it lacked, to me, any sense of art or beauty. So the book has been despatched to the "clouds" in Kindle to enjoy eternity in the ether.
Normally the reviewers are very good and I can be persuaded to follow their way of thinking and decide that I need to read a certain book, but regrettably not on this occasion.
May 15, 2014
There is a song "The Changeling" by The Doors: "I live uptown. I live downtown. I live all around. I had money and I had none. But I've never been so broke that I couldn't leave town. I'm a changeling. See me change".
The novel Money by Martin Amis emanates the same murky aura as that song by the legendary band.
“Money doesn't mind if we say it's evil, it goes from strength to strength. It's a fiction, an addiction, and a tacit conspiracy.”
Money is evil and the only greater evil is to have none.
The novel Money by Martin Amis emanates the same murky aura as that song by the legendary band.
“Money doesn't mind if we say it's evil, it goes from strength to strength. It's a fiction, an addiction, and a tacit conspiracy.”
Money is evil and the only greater evil is to have none.
November 13, 2019
3 1/2 stars. I think I enjoyed all the things everyone else seems to dislike about this book.
The narrator - John Self - is literally one of the most repugnant characters you will ever meet. He's that despicable misogynistic alcoholic over there in the suit, drowning in his own excess. Alcohol, pornography, hedonism and, of course, money are his life, and he is a cringy embarrassment even to the reader.
That being said, his pitiful stumbling from one ridiculous sex and booze-fuelled scenario to another is quite funny, especially when paired with his biting social commentary. Unsurprisingly, the book leaves us with the idea that having unlimited amounts of money is a suicide note in itself (hence the alternate title - Money: A Suicide Note) and, unlike many readers, I liked the ending. It was unexpected and - I thought - clever.
However, I don't see the comparisons to Nabokov's Lolita beyond the very basic sense that both books have abhorrent narrators. Humbert is far more dramatic and charming, a poet who chooses his words and seduces the reader; John Self has no such charm and his narrative is crude and ranty. I much preferred Nabokov's work.
My biggest issue was not the repulsive narrator, nor the unusual ending that completely demolishes everything he is, but the middle third of the book that grew repetitive and tiresome. I'd lost a little of the initial buzz by then and was starting to become bored by John's adventures that all seemed to lead down the same path. I was glad the ending pulled it all back together and gave the book a "message".
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The narrator - John Self - is literally one of the most repugnant characters you will ever meet. He's that despicable misogynistic alcoholic over there in the suit, drowning in his own excess. Alcohol, pornography, hedonism and, of course, money are his life, and he is a cringy embarrassment even to the reader.
That being said, his pitiful stumbling from one ridiculous sex and booze-fuelled scenario to another is quite funny, especially when paired with his biting social commentary. Unsurprisingly, the book leaves us with the idea that having unlimited amounts of money is a suicide note in itself (hence the alternate title - Money: A Suicide Note) and, unlike many readers, I liked the ending. It was unexpected and - I thought - clever.
However, I don't see the comparisons to Nabokov's Lolita beyond the very basic sense that both books have abhorrent narrators. Humbert is far more dramatic and charming, a poet who chooses his words and seduces the reader; John Self has no such charm and his narrative is crude and ranty. I much preferred Nabokov's work.
My biggest issue was not the repulsive narrator, nor the unusual ending that completely demolishes everything he is, but the middle third of the book that grew repetitive and tiresome. I'd lost a little of the initial buzz by then and was starting to become bored by John's adventures that all seemed to lead down the same path. I was glad the ending pulled it all back together and gave the book a "message".
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April 18, 2014
I finished this book days ago, and I have to say that I am glad I read it. Many times Martin made me laugh outloud......I am having a very hard time deciding what kind of review to write for this....it's about Money,and how Money jades you,makes you a sinner, etc. etc. etc.
I have to say then when I got to the end of this novel that I actually liked it quite a lot....at times I found it tedious,and a good friend/reviewer of mine kept asking me if I had finished it yet,and how it seemed like it was taking me quite a while to finish. Part of it was busy at work, busy at home, getting sick in the midst of the pages,and then to be honest, I had to take a break from it.....
So, to say that I loved it....no, can't say that I did. To say that I hated it, absolutely not.....
Maybe if I didn't feel pressured at work,and felt more carefree I would have been able to read it faster. To me , this was not an easy read, but like I said, I am glad I read it,and I find Martin to be quite an interesting character....his friendship with Christopher Hitchens prompted me to read this book. I find Christopher's writing to be fantastic,and very very amusing. Martin's writing to me seemed more subtle, more subdued....intelligent writer,and for that I am glad I read the book.
I gave it 4 stars, at first, and then changed it to 3. I'd love to hear others' perspectives on this one,and see your reviews....I am still out and about on this one........
I'd say read it.....it needs to be experienced......
I have to say then when I got to the end of this novel that I actually liked it quite a lot....at times I found it tedious,and a good friend/reviewer of mine kept asking me if I had finished it yet,and how it seemed like it was taking me quite a while to finish. Part of it was busy at work, busy at home, getting sick in the midst of the pages,and then to be honest, I had to take a break from it.....
So, to say that I loved it....no, can't say that I did. To say that I hated it, absolutely not.....
Maybe if I didn't feel pressured at work,and felt more carefree I would have been able to read it faster. To me , this was not an easy read, but like I said, I am glad I read it,and I find Martin to be quite an interesting character....his friendship with Christopher Hitchens prompted me to read this book. I find Christopher's writing to be fantastic,and very very amusing. Martin's writing to me seemed more subtle, more subdued....intelligent writer,and for that I am glad I read the book.
I gave it 4 stars, at first, and then changed it to 3. I'd love to hear others' perspectives on this one,and see your reviews....I am still out and about on this one........
I'd say read it.....it needs to be experienced......
March 14, 2013
This book took me a LONG time to read, and the despicableness of the protagonist, John Self, had a lot to do with it. I just couldn't get past how disgusting and loathsome he was, and didn't understand why anyone would want to waste their time reading about such an unlikable character. After struggling through the first half, however, the second half gripped me and I found that I couldn't put it down.
Amis is an excellent writer, using witty, refined prose to describe a fairly abhorrent lifestyle and the consequences brought about by such a life. This is dealt with so effectively that you find yourself unable to stop thinking about the story long after turning the final page. A strange, difficult, but ultimately enjoyable read on the pitfalls of indulgence.
Amis is an excellent writer, using witty, refined prose to describe a fairly abhorrent lifestyle and the consequences brought about by such a life. This is dealt with so effectively that you find yourself unable to stop thinking about the story long after turning the final page. A strange, difficult, but ultimately enjoyable read on the pitfalls of indulgence.
April 13, 2018
Il piacere (mancante)
Ricordo di avere visto qualche anno fa a teatro uno spettacolo di Alessandro Bergonzoni, comico famoso che, testuale da Wikipedia, "sviluppa i temi comici che lo caratterizzeranno nella sua figura di artista: l'assurdo comico, il rifiuto del reale come riferimento artistico e la capacità di giocare col linguaggio per creare situazioni surreali paradossali".
Mi sedetti alla mia poltrona in platea, attentissimo e pronto per la visione di uno spettacolo che si preannunciava divertente.
Dopo un minuto ero pancia a terra dal ridere.
Dopo cinque ridevo alla grande.
Dopo dieci ridacchiavo.
Dopo venti dormivo alla grande.
Dello spettacolo ricordo solo la scomodità delle poltrone, nemmeno un cuscino su cui appoggiare la testa.
Ecco, questo è l'effetto che mi ha fatto Money. Non un romanzo in cui l'ironia serpeggia qua e là, ma ironia continua in cui qua e là serpeggia qualcosa di serio. Per me l'effetto è la stucchevolezza.
Non ci penso proprio a parlare della "validità" del romanzo, che vuole colpire e scardinare un mondo fasullo basato sul denaro.
Nemmeno voglio parlare di "valore letterario" o cose del genere; lascio queste riflessioni ad altri più titolati di me.
Io leggo per tante ragioni, una delle quali è il piacere. Un libro non deve solo dire cose importanti, ma mi deve anche dare piacere mentre lo leggo.
La lettura di Money non me ne ha portato affatto. Qualche risata qua e là, qualche considerazione interessante ogni tanto (per me nulla comunque di non già visto altrove). Troppo poco.
Troppo sarcastico, troppo lungo, troppo noioso.
April 15, 2017
Bạn có tưởng tượng ra có độc giả nào đọc “Chuyện của nông trại” – Trại súc vật của Orwell mà lại chỉ băn khoăn cái cửa hông là cái cửa gì chứ hoàn toàn không biết nó phúng dụ ám chỉ toàn trị toàn tiếc chính trị chính em gì không?
Bạn có bao giờ đọc một cuốn tiểu thuyết mà phá vỡ mọi luật lệ, dinh luôn tác giả vào thành một nhân vật trong truyện, thế là không chỉ có một hiện thân mà cùng lúc là hai không?
Bạn có bao giờ hình dung nếu Nabokov thay vì viết chuyện ấu dâm, tập trung vào một thằng béo thích tất cả các loại dâm cũng như đồ cồn và ma túy và thức ăn nhanh và lảm nhảm không kém gì Humbert Humbert thì sẽ như nào?
Chào mừng bạn đến với một kiệt tác hiện đại, được coi là đỉnh cao của thập kỷ 80, hay của cả thế kỷ 20, cuốn sách được Time bình chọn vào 100 tác phẩm vĩ đại nhất của văn chương Anh từ 1923 đến nay, “Tiền,” của ông tướng Martin Amis, trai đểu trai hư của văn học đương đại Anh, kẻ gây bao xì căng đan vì ngủ lang tóe loe và vô số chuyện đời tư bét nhè khác, và kẻ sẵn sàng nhảy theo mối lợi bỏ mặc chiến hữu Julian Barnes cùng vợ vốn là người đại diện, vì còn phải lo lấy thân với cái mồm rặt răng sâu, con trai của nhà văn lớn Hiệp sĩ Kingsley Amis.
“Tiền” lấy bối cảnh ở một nước Anh năm 1981 khi cuộc hôn nhân hoàng gia của Diana chuẩn bị diễn ra với nhân vật trung tâm là một thằng béo nửa Anh nửa Mỹ đang cố làm một bộ phim ở New York. Thằng béo này có cái tên cực hài hước: John Self (một thủ pháp đặt tên rất quen thuộc của Amis mà độc giả có thể bắt gặp ở các cuốn khác), một cái tên như định mệnh sẽ đóng vai trò là một cú twist choáng váng ở cuối truyện. Tôi xin chỉ nói vậy không nhiều vị lại dùng dép tổ ong táng vào mặt tôi.
Như chính lời Amis trả lời trong một phỏng vấn, “Tiền” cơ bản là một truyện không có cốt truyện, nó là hàng trăm trang độc thoại, lải nhải, dông dài, rỉa rói, lang thang, vạ vật, của đạo diễn mới giàu có chút tiền nhờ sử dụng yếu tố dâm loạn khi quay quảng cáo bán đồ ăn nhanh. John bay đi bay lại giữa London và New York để chuẩn bị cho một bộ phim của mình, hợp tác cùng những đối tác rất không ăn ý và đầy trục trặc, những Fielding Goodney, Christian Spunk Davis, Lorne Guyland… Một bộ sậu những nhân vật dớ dẩn và hài hước mà tác giả đã tạo dựng để vây quanh nhân vật chính khôi hài không kém. Bộ phim ban đầu mang tên “Đồng tiền lương thiện,” sau lại đổi thành “Đồng tiền bất lương”.
https://www.facebook.com/phianhaz/pos...
Bạn có bao giờ đọc một cuốn tiểu thuyết mà phá vỡ mọi luật lệ, dinh luôn tác giả vào thành một nhân vật trong truyện, thế là không chỉ có một hiện thân mà cùng lúc là hai không?
Bạn có bao giờ hình dung nếu Nabokov thay vì viết chuyện ấu dâm, tập trung vào một thằng béo thích tất cả các loại dâm cũng như đồ cồn và ma túy và thức ăn nhanh và lảm nhảm không kém gì Humbert Humbert thì sẽ như nào?
Chào mừng bạn đến với một kiệt tác hiện đại, được coi là đỉnh cao của thập kỷ 80, hay của cả thế kỷ 20, cuốn sách được Time bình chọn vào 100 tác phẩm vĩ đại nhất của văn chương Anh từ 1923 đến nay, “Tiền,” của ông tướng Martin Amis, trai đểu trai hư của văn học đương đại Anh, kẻ gây bao xì căng đan vì ngủ lang tóe loe và vô số chuyện đời tư bét nhè khác, và kẻ sẵn sàng nhảy theo mối lợi bỏ mặc chiến hữu Julian Barnes cùng vợ vốn là người đại diện, vì còn phải lo lấy thân với cái mồm rặt răng sâu, con trai của nhà văn lớn Hiệp sĩ Kingsley Amis.
“Tiền” lấy bối cảnh ở một nước Anh năm 1981 khi cuộc hôn nhân hoàng gia của Diana chuẩn bị diễn ra với nhân vật trung tâm là một thằng béo nửa Anh nửa Mỹ đang cố làm một bộ phim ở New York. Thằng béo này có cái tên cực hài hước: John Self (một thủ pháp đặt tên rất quen thuộc của Amis mà độc giả có thể bắt gặp ở các cuốn khác), một cái tên như định mệnh sẽ đóng vai trò là một cú twist choáng váng ở cuối truyện. Tôi xin chỉ nói vậy không nhiều vị lại dùng dép tổ ong táng vào mặt tôi.
Như chính lời Amis trả lời trong một phỏng vấn, “Tiền” cơ bản là một truyện không có cốt truyện, nó là hàng trăm trang độc thoại, lải nhải, dông dài, rỉa rói, lang thang, vạ vật, của đạo diễn mới giàu có chút tiền nhờ sử dụng yếu tố dâm loạn khi quay quảng cáo bán đồ ăn nhanh. John bay đi bay lại giữa London và New York để chuẩn bị cho một bộ phim của mình, hợp tác cùng những đối tác rất không ăn ý và đầy trục trặc, những Fielding Goodney, Christian Spunk Davis, Lorne Guyland… Một bộ sậu những nhân vật dớ dẩn và hài hước mà tác giả đã tạo dựng để vây quanh nhân vật chính khôi hài không kém. Bộ phim ban đầu mang tên “Đồng tiền lương thiện,” sau lại đổi thành “Đồng tiền bất lương”.
https://www.facebook.com/phianhaz/pos...
March 10, 2012
Hands down the funniest thing to come out of the 1980's. The best by leagues ahead of so many other novels of the period also depicting despicable greedy sensuous drug addicted lecherous fashionable movie industry people doing disgusting and hilarious things. It was the first thing I ever read of Amis'. I tried his baby-step book 'The Rachel Papers' after this, which didn't stand out from the herd of '60s college-kid books. Then Time's Arrow punched me in the face. Tried reading London Fields, but it didn't capture my attention at the time. I'm sure I'll try it again.
June 6, 2013
I’m just going to come out and say it, John Self is the best character in literature written in the twentieth century; well to me he is anyway. The voice Martin Amis gives him is one of grit, lust, and obsession, a voice that’s true, real, hilariously comical and enlightening. I want to write a full review but I have a hangover from reading “Money”, so soon! I'm noting going to write full review.
October 18, 2021
Attenzione:
non dirò nulla sulla trama che potete leggere in quarta di copertina.
Dirò molto, invece, di come ho vissuto questa lettura e del perché non riesco a dare un giudizio preciso.
💥⛔
Etica narrativa, realismo, consumismo e tanti soldi
Condizioni post lettura pari a quelle postprandiali nel giorno di Natale:
un senso di pesantezza fisica e psichica.
Finito da due giorni.
Da due giorni combatto con me stessa per definire un giudizio.
Mi son detta:
«Tranquilla! La notte porta consiglio e domani saprai precisare la tua opinione».
Mica vero.
Sono seriamente combattuta e non posso nascondere cosa sia successo durante questa lettura.
Ho sofferto tanto perché per almeno fino alla prima metà non sopportavo niente:
mi sono annoiata terribilmente e la tentazione di abbandonarlo è stata forte.
Non l’ho fatto perché sono patologica e difficilmente (ma questo in tutto ciò che faccio) sopporto di non finire ciò che inizio.
Poi è andata meglio.
Ho iniziato a provare interesse e quel senso di repulsione nel riprendere la lettura stava quasi scomparendo.
Dico quasi perché, in realtà, nella seconda parte ci sono stati alti e bassi per godermi, poi, un magnifico finale.
Splendido per l’ironia dissacrante e l’uso proprio dell’arma letteraria;
noioso perché l’ironia sì ma è ripetuta-rigirata-rimasticata.
Amis ha cercato in tutti modo di farmi odiare John Self ma io ne ho provato, fin dall’inizio, una gran pena.
Un uomo che non vede al di là del suo pene ed uno scrittore con ego talmente smisurato da
Amis mi piace?
Si. Una grandissima penna.
L’ironia, il sarcasmo che non risparmia nessuno (neppure se stesso) e niente dato che anche i nomi ironizzano sulle caratteristiche (negative) dei personaggi (persino la macchina si chiama “Fiasco”!!!)
E’ il negativo del mondo anni ’80.
Il lato del mondo che abbiamo visto (e vediamo, in realtà) sui rotocalchi di terz’ordine.
Copertine patinate in cui troneggiano le paparazzate dell’attorucolo e/o l’attricetta di turno. Immagini confezionate per occhi che hanno bisogno di bere questi cocktail di menzogne anche per dimenticare una vita fatta di sudore e miseria.
Un mondo di adoratori del dio denaro.
Noi abbiamo avuto la “Milano da bere”.
New York e la California sono bocconcini da masticare voracemente.
Amis ha creato un protagonista che difficilmente scorderò:
John Self è un incubo che cammina: il re della dipendenza, violenza, misoginia, razzismo...
��� E voi invece detestate me, giusto? Ma sì, certo. Perché io appartengo alla nuova razza, sono il tipo che ha i soldi ma che sa spenderli solo in volgarità.”
Mi ripeto perchè è strano a dirsi ma io non l’ho odiato piuttosto ho provato gran pena per lui (”consumato dal consumismo”) e quello che rappresenta.
Un anti eroe degli anni ’80 ma anche di oggi.
Ora capisco perché questo libro ha diviso molto i lettori.
Il problema è che io sento di stare in mezzo.
Le tre stelline che metto non rendono giustizia al caos di considerazioni che ho fatto...
”Declino ogni responsabilità per una buona dose dei miei pensieri.
Non è da me che arrivano.
Vengono da questa manica di clandestini e abusivi che ho nella testa, da tutti questi individui che mi passano accanto come roditori emancipati e naturalizzati (con tanto di passaporto e permesso di soggiorno in regola), questa specie di ratti promossi di rango, che sventolano una zampa e mi danno del tu, e io sono costretto a starmene zitto e buono e guardarli che fanno il caffè o lavano i cessi... io non posso far niente per loro. Il posto in cui mi trascino attualmente è un bilocale senza ingresso né corridoio, una topaia da studenti piena di libri che non posso leggere. La gente che abita qui, e il sottoscritto tra gli altri, né meglio né peggio e in assoluta equanimità di impotenza, sembra una colonia di pipistrelli malati o di scimmie esauste con addosso calzoni da hippy e magliette con tre bottoncini davanti. Io non posso far niente per loro, questi sconosciuti terrestri.”
non dirò nulla sulla trama che potete leggere in quarta di copertina.
Dirò molto, invece, di come ho vissuto questa lettura e del perché non riesco a dare un giudizio preciso.
💥⛔
Etica narrativa, realismo, consumismo e tanti soldi
Condizioni post lettura pari a quelle postprandiali nel giorno di Natale:
un senso di pesantezza fisica e psichica.
Finito da due giorni.
Da due giorni combatto con me stessa per definire un giudizio.
Mi son detta:
«Tranquilla! La notte porta consiglio e domani saprai precisare la tua opinione».
Mica vero.
Sono seriamente combattuta e non posso nascondere cosa sia successo durante questa lettura.
Ho sofferto tanto perché per almeno fino alla prima metà non sopportavo niente:
mi sono annoiata terribilmente e la tentazione di abbandonarlo è stata forte.
Non l’ho fatto perché sono patologica e difficilmente (ma questo in tutto ciò che faccio) sopporto di non finire ciò che inizio.
Poi è andata meglio.
Ho iniziato a provare interesse e quel senso di repulsione nel riprendere la lettura stava quasi scomparendo.
Dico quasi perché, in realtà, nella seconda parte ci sono stati alti e bassi per godermi, poi, un magnifico finale.
Splendido per l’ironia dissacrante e l’uso proprio dell’arma letteraria;
noioso perché l’ironia sì ma è ripetuta-rigirata-rimasticata.
Amis ha cercato in tutti modo di farmi odiare John Self ma io ne ho provato, fin dall’inizio, una gran pena.
Un uomo che non vede al di là del suo pene ed uno scrittore con ego talmente smisurato da
Amis mi piace?
Si. Una grandissima penna.
L’ironia, il sarcasmo che non risparmia nessuno (neppure se stesso) e niente dato che anche i nomi ironizzano sulle caratteristiche (negative) dei personaggi (persino la macchina si chiama “Fiasco”!!!)
E’ il negativo del mondo anni ’80.
Il lato del mondo che abbiamo visto (e vediamo, in realtà) sui rotocalchi di terz’ordine.
Copertine patinate in cui troneggiano le paparazzate dell’attorucolo e/o l’attricetta di turno. Immagini confezionate per occhi che hanno bisogno di bere questi cocktail di menzogne anche per dimenticare una vita fatta di sudore e miseria.
Un mondo di adoratori del dio denaro.
Noi abbiamo avuto la “Milano da bere”.
New York e la California sono bocconcini da masticare voracemente.
Amis ha creato un protagonista che difficilmente scorderò:
John Self è un incubo che cammina: il re della dipendenza, violenza, misoginia, razzismo...
��� E voi invece detestate me, giusto? Ma sì, certo. Perché io appartengo alla nuova razza, sono il tipo che ha i soldi ma che sa spenderli solo in volgarità.”
Mi ripeto perchè è strano a dirsi ma io non l’ho odiato piuttosto ho provato gran pena per lui (”consumato dal consumismo”) e quello che rappresenta.
Un anti eroe degli anni ’80 ma anche di oggi.
Ora capisco perché questo libro ha diviso molto i lettori.
Il problema è che io sento di stare in mezzo.
Le tre stelline che metto non rendono giustizia al caos di considerazioni che ho fatto...
”Declino ogni responsabilità per una buona dose dei miei pensieri.
Non è da me che arrivano.
Vengono da questa manica di clandestini e abusivi che ho nella testa, da tutti questi individui che mi passano accanto come roditori emancipati e naturalizzati (con tanto di passaporto e permesso di soggiorno in regola), questa specie di ratti promossi di rango, che sventolano una zampa e mi danno del tu, e io sono costretto a starmene zitto e buono e guardarli che fanno il caffè o lavano i cessi... io non posso far niente per loro. Il posto in cui mi trascino attualmente è un bilocale senza ingresso né corridoio, una topaia da studenti piena di libri che non posso leggere. La gente che abita qui, e il sottoscritto tra gli altri, né meglio né peggio e in assoluta equanimità di impotenza, sembra una colonia di pipistrelli malati o di scimmie esauste con addosso calzoni da hippy e magliette con tre bottoncini davanti. Io non posso far niente per loro, questi sconosciuti terrestri.”
March 18, 2023
No, non ci siamo. Non lo sopportavo più. Ho faticato a finirlo. Scrittura magistrale di Amis, ma non basta. Il degrado morale e lo sballo dei magnifici anni ‘80 ci stanno tutti, ma non bastano. Le tristi vicende porno-alcoliche di John Self, regista pubblicitario inglese in cerca di successo in America (nella forma di un film che dovrebbe fare la sua fortuna) e dei suoi collaboratori, amici, attori e attrici non hanno destato il mio interesse ( un eufemismo per non dire che non me ne poteva fregare di meno), nessuno dei personaggi mi ha fatto simpatia, neanche Martina, la donna che avrebbe potuto salvare John dal degrado della sua esistenza, Selina poi, l’oggetto del desiderio sessuale di John, non ne parliamo neanche. Era questo l’obiettivo di Amis, che non voleva certo suscitare simpatie per la sua disincantata lettura degli anni ‘80, quindi bravo. Il problema sono io, che giravo le pagine prima di leggerle per vedere dove sarebbe finito ogni capitolo, un supplizio.
Ovunque regna incontrastato il potere del denaro, vera ossessione di John, unico mezzo per permettergli una vita di eccessi che rappresentano quasi uno status symbol di un periodo storico che è lontano ma sembra oggi.
Ovunque regna incontrastato il potere del denaro, vera ossessione di John, unico mezzo per permettergli una vita di eccessi che rappresentano quasi uno status symbol di un periodo storico che è lontano ma sembra oggi.
January 13, 2016
I never thought anyone could make me sympathetic towards a drunk, drug addled, sex addicted porn film producer. But Martin Amis seems to have managed it. Though, a lesser person may have put it down before they got to that point.
The only thing in my favor? It was an interlibrary loan! Damned if I wasn't going to get my $2 worth!
The first half of the book? Dreadful. But once things started happening, I did start being much more interested. It took me a week to read the first half and two days to read the second.
Another thing, the more I read books set in New York City like this one and like The Bonfire of the Vanities, the more I realize that NYC is another country, another planet, a whole other culture from the place I grew up and live in: eastern Washington State.
I'm not sure if I really needed "to read this before I die", but I don't regret the time spent.
The only thing in my favor? It was an interlibrary loan! Damned if I wasn't going to get my $2 worth!
The first half of the book? Dreadful. But once things started happening, I did start being much more interested. It took me a week to read the first half and two days to read the second.
Another thing, the more I read books set in New York City like this one and like The Bonfire of the Vanities, the more I realize that NYC is another country, another planet, a whole other culture from the place I grew up and live in: eastern Washington State.
I'm not sure if I really needed "to read this before I die", but I don't regret the time spent.
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