Amsterdam

Rating:
Summary: A Consolation Booker to an Amazing Author
Review: Ian McEwan is one of the more exciting authors writing in Britain today and his Booker Prize is well overdue. However, it is a shame he had to win it for what is by far his least accomplished novel.

Amsterdam concerns two friends who meet at the funeral of their former lover Molly Lane. One is a composer, trying to write the Millenium Symphony, whilst the other is a newspaper editor. Both enjoy great success and live the 'high life'. Upon seeing the undignified way in which their lover perished - after a long, debilitating, degenerative disease - they make a pact ensuring that each would end the other's life should it ever begin to slip away like Molly's did. A dignified death in a time where such deaths are few and far between.

Amsterdam is essentially a 'morality play' - at times funny, sad, and disturbing. It raises some complex issues, particularly the question of what it is that constitutes a life worth living. Unfortunately, however, it misses the mark, ending up shallow and lacking.

Kudos to Ian McEwan. He has finally won the coveted Booker. But how Amsterdam won when Black Dogs, The Comfort of Strangers and, most recently, Enduring Love (which wasn't even nominated) all failed is beyond me. I can't help but agree with the London Literati, who soon after the victory, labelled this one the Consolation Booker.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Start, Lukewarm Ending
Review: Love Ian McEwan. This is a writer who'll call you names, but will giggle still and kiss you afterwards. His comedy and his portrait of modern life (or modern Britain during and after the Thatcher years) is without equal, and one should thank him for it.

But AMSTERDAM, his most critically-acclaimed work so far, is too obscure, too 'crammed' a book for this reviewer to highly recommend (Not that there is a need for it. This one, afterall, won THE Booker Prize). Here, four brilliantly constructed characters attempt to out-manouvre each other for no given reason (or is it perhaps because of pride? you decide). You will find it entertaining and inspiring to read how McEwan engineered each of his plots to deliver a psychological study (no matter how small the examination is) of his four major characters. You will feel their pain, their bitterness, their loneliness, their heartlessness, yet in a narrative that is straightforward and unsentimental. (His Julian Garmony, a cross-dressing politician of brilliant machiavellian talent, is one character you'll either love or hate. McEwan's account of Garmony's grasp of power simply is wonderful). Reading AMSTERDAM is like experiencing a Toni Morisson novel written by a PBS or an Economist (UK weekly mag) journalist, and this, I know, is not a bad thing.

This is a good introduction to McEwan, and a book highly enjoyable. But, as mentioned briefly above, the ending is quite lukewarm...

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, Quick Read
Review: I felt the beginning of Amsterdam would turn me off from reading the remainder of the novel, but I'm glad I plugged along. McEwan's writing is what I would call very British, which to me means a stiffer voice than American writers, and it always takes me a bit of time to get used to British writing. The beginning starts off a bit slow and sort of throws the reader right into the story without much background, leaving the reader to figure out what's going on and why other characters don't like each other.

Before I know it, however, I was already in the middle of the book and really enjoying it. The ending, which I will not give away, wasn't so much shocking as it was sad and in a way predictable, although we only know half the story before reading the ending. McEwan has a good sense of chapters and how to use them. He was flip flop between characters and situations quick enough to keep the ball rolling and to keep the plot interesting plus so that we get to learn more about the characters involved.

I liked how the ending brought in two characters that McEwan didn't write about from their own perspective. It turns the story right around on us. Nice affect and not at all a bit jarring. I also like finding out what people thought about Linley since this perspective was never really shared with us before.

I would definitely recommend!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent visit to a personal Waterloo
Review: I read "Amsterdam" after reading Ian McEwan's amazing "Atonement," and I think the key theme for both books is that bad things happen to relatively good people who commit moral wrongs, while good things happen to those who are innately or inherently bad. That's because good people are burdened with a conscience, a good person's Achilles' heel. After reading this book, I realized that no true "hero" is present in either book, unless you consider the wronged servant's son, Robbie, in Atonement, and Molly Lane, in Amsterdam. Of course, Molly appears in the book only as a reflection, since the story begins at her funeral. But she is the wronged innocent person in this story. All the former men in her life are not really evil, they are just opportunists and egoists. Worst of all, they are all rivals on some level, and that's what does two of them in. The composer Clive Linley and his editor friend Vernon Halliday actually have good intentions, but when the editor betrays Molly after her death (thanks to her now widower husband, George Lane), their intentions go awry, along with their friendship.

As in Atonement, the struggle between good and evil is chiefly internal. In Atonement, one of the main players is undone by a self righteous deed performed during a bout of heightened self importance. In Amsterdam, Clive and Vernon suffer the same fate, turning on each other when confronted by the immorality of their actions. And, as in Atonement, the more unsavory characters continue on their way, unburdened by any conflict of internal doubts. If Ian McEwan had written It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey would have jumped into the river, after convincing himself to do something crookedly noble to replace the Savings and Loan's missing money and then having to face his conscience as a result; and at the very end, Mr. Potter would be counting his new money, having no conscience to make him second guess any actions on his part that helped lead to Bailey's death or the collapse of the Savings and Loan. "Amsterdam" is filled with dark humor, and a lesson that men of good conscience had best follow it. However, though "Amsterdam" won the Booker Prize and "Atonement" did not, I still believe "Atonement" is the far greater achievement.

Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: The writing style is Nabokovian without Nabokov's sensuality and his intimacy with the environment.

The characters are cardboard caricatures, that limp along at an indolent pace.

There's precious little dialogue, largely replaced by the author's narrative of their reactions and intentions

The pieces fit together provided logical segues are not a prerequisite. The story is about two friends -- who withdrawn into their own private worlds. They are drawn into a conflict over photos of a Foreign Secretary in drag. The cross-dressing Secretary also wants the Prime Minister's job, which the photo will undermine. The editorial friend knows he has to pander the pictures to increase circulation of which he is editor.

Conflict is just theorectical, because each character can only act as circumstances of each demands that theydo what they would obviously do. And, to tidy matters in the end, our two friends try to poison each other.

Obviously, the plot is thin. So is the book, which is large print on less than 200 pages.

Rating:
Summary: Not TOO MUCH of a waste of time.
Review: I guess it must be the fact the I borrowed the copy that said this was a "Booker Prize" winner that kept me going on till the end. The book isn't wholly bad. The writing is elegant at times; when McEwan describes one of the characters (I can't remember the name anymore) on a train journey and a hike.

But, other than that, I don't remember anything except the ending. THIS IS A SPOILER. The two characters are in Amsterdam and they both manage to lay their hands on some drugs and they poison each other's drinks. HOW silly is that? It's a total disappointment to have started off thinking hey this seems like a serious plot, and then McEwan goes and does something like that. It's too unbelievable, the ending. The characterisation become more and more naive and coerced towards the lame end. Thank goodness it was all so brief.

Glad I didn't pay money for it. Oh, and I must add, why are the Booker Prize winners always such disappointments?

Rating:
Summary: A Beautifully Dark British Satire
Review: McEwan does a wonderful job portraying two very dark and self-absorbed characters. The book is a very funny satire of British culture (McEwan even takes a few shots at himself)and British people. All of the characters are seemingly horrible people, except for Molly who seems to tie the characters in the book together. McEwan uses over-exageration beautifully in this book. Although overall this was a very entertaining and amusing satire there were parts that were dull and grosly sexual in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: Well crafted, a bit cold
Review: McEwan knows how to construct a story - he richly focuses on small moments in his tale and insightfully removes pieces other authors would find the need to write about. It's one of those books that helped me write better just by reading it.

On the downside, I didn't buy the motivation behind the characters and felt the book's stark construction left me cold.

I've heard his other work is much different - he obviously talented, so I'll read more of him for sure.

Rating:
Summary: A new low for the Booker Prize
Review: I read this novel as part of an AAUW (American Association of University Women) Reading Group and it was roundly condemned by the same. Thank goodness I checked out of a library and didn't spend any money on this book. It is obvious and crass. This novel's brevity was only reason I completed its reading, along with a gross fanscination akin to observing the scene of a car crash. I kept thinking, it won a Booker Prize, it must get better at some point...

Rating:
Summary: Greatly Marred by Lazy, Implausible Ending
Review: Ian McEwan is Britain's leading literary artist, so anything he publishes should be greeted with enthusiasm. However, this is a disappointment. This is a story of two men: one is a composer, Clive Linley, who is busy writing a symphony; and the other is a newspaper editor, Vernon Halliday, who publishes a series of photos in order to ruin a right-wing politician's career. A mutual lover, Molly Lane, who has since died, took the pictures. To publish them, Linley believes, would be to besmirch the memory of Molly Lane, whom they both loved. They fall out and their friendship sours; eventually, after a series of misunderstandings, themselves plot contrivances, turning to hatred. I won't give away the ending. I will only say that it is ridiculous. McEwan should read more Ian Banks to see how to develop clever but plausible twists to his endings. Failing that, just read a couple of Agatha Christies.