Amsterdam

Rating:
Summary: Compressed Quaility
Review: McEwan's booker prize-winning novel traces the consequencesof a Machiavellian attitude towards work. Clive Linly a composer withan established reputation and Vernon Hailliday, editor of the struggle daily paper, The Judge, renew their former friendship at the funeral of their former lover, the larger than life forty-something year old Molly Lane.

There they meet George Lane, Molly's husband and another former lover Julian Garmony, the Foreign Secretary, who's despised by Molly's former lovers.

The novel traces the lives of the four men after Molly's funeral when they all face pinnacle moments in both their private and professional lives.

Amsterdam is a book without heroes. The characters fail to grab your sympathy, but this adds to the reader's curiosity as you try to unravel their true worth and nature. It's not a book about how the strong and ruthless survive but rather how obsession with work can turn into self-obsession and ultimately destruction as the books characters take personal desire over public responsibility.

The book's 196 pages make it more of a novella than a novel and some would argue that more time should have been given over to plot and character development. However an expansion of the books length could have faltered the quick tempo, that McEwan's rich language lends to the book, and the vagueness of the characters leads us to question rather than condemn them at the end, allowing for the books effect to linger long after the final page has been read.

This books quality has been questioned in comparison to other Booker winners but Amsterdam, a book so rich in dramatic irony should be judged on its own merits. This socio-political satire manages to examine such a thorny issue as human morality in a humorous and entertaining fashion and is a recommended read.

Rating:
Summary: A short but enjoyable read
Review: The ending of this novel is expertly set up. There were clues strewn throughout the book but it might be difficult to spot the minor details. Amsterdam is a great book to pick up if you want to be introduced to the works of Ian McEwan -- arguably one of the finest writers in the world today. Also, pick up Enduring Love which was surprisingly omitted for the Booker's short list in 1997. Enduring Love is McEwan's masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: With His Little Finger
Review: Harold Goddard once wrote that in comparison to his great tragedies, Shakespeare's comedies seem as though they were dashed off by his little finger.

Sometimes saying something was dashed off with one's little finger is a compliment, as if to say the writing is so good it seems effortless. And this is true of this novel. If you are after good prose, this novel is for you.

But, sometimes saying that something was dashed off with one's little finger is a put-down, as if to say the author didn't seem to take enough time constructing the novel. At 193 pages, this is also true of this novel. Perhaps, I'm guilty of judging what this novel could have been rather than what it is, but given the potential with which it began, the novel is disappointing.

So this gets a three star rating. It's wonderfully written but lacks length and development. Also, the ending is kinda silly.

Rating:
Summary: why a novel is different from a poem or a play
Review: As Amsterdam won the 1998 Booker Prize, I was shocked to find it tipping the scales at a modest 193 pages and consumable in under three hours. The book is good demonstration of the unique potential of the novel as literary form. With poetry, you get the interior. With theater, you get the exterior. In Amsterdam, you find

Mourner: "It's a great honor, Mr. Linley. My eleven-year-old granddaughter studied your sonatina for her final exam in violin and really loved it." Clive (the composer): "That's very nice to know." The thought of children playing his music made him feel faintly depressed.

There is a lot of interesting material about successful British middle-aged men: "How properous, how influential, how they had flourished under a government they had despised for almost seventeen years. ... Nurtured in the postwar settlement with the state's own milk and juice, and then sustained by their parents' tentative, innocent prosperity, to come of age in full employment, new universities, bright paperback books, the Augustan age of rock and roll, affordable ideals. When the ladder crumbled behind them, when the state withdrew her tit and became a scold, they were already safe..."

McEwan is also interesting when writing about old friendships and jealousies, the struggle to create, and the pain of self-doubt about accomplishments. Bottom line: there is more than enough here to keep you thinking for three hours and it is a fun plot-filled three hours...

Rating:
Summary: so thin, so smug, so complacently cheeky
Review: I was terribly disappointed by this novela. It astounds me that it could have been awarded the Booker over Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge. This is meretricious fluff! Satire should be thoughtful as well as pointed and self-conscious. the story seemed out of focus, even though spare, and somehow very angry without the substance to draw my care, my concern into these lives. There was a kind of hovering above the action with a disagreeable smirk as though the author hadn't suffered along with all the rest of us all-too-humans. A great disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Thin, empty, and an impostor.
Review: I have read other winners of the Booker Prize, and have found them to be rewarding and stimulating. This novel is an imposter with no place in that category. It reads like the outline of a story and certainly not a complete novel. The plot is drawn too thinly, as is every character, situation, and location. But in the end, no rational justification is established for the double murder of the two main characters. A snit between two middle-aged men that leads to mutual murder could provide a rich territory for exploration. Here, the opportunity is completely lost. "Amsterdam" is not even a good read in a lonely airport. A thin, empty, waste of time.

Rating:
Summary: Really 3.5 stars (spoilers)
Review: This book held me wondering at the end. Ian McEwan has wrote a book that displays his incredible ability to examine the flawed relationship between two friends, and the catalyst for their destruction. However, I didn't care about the characters at the end. He makes them rather unsympathetic creatures (one of them will not go identify a rapist because he has a symphony to finish), so he undermines his brilliant plot, and gives us characters who deserve the ironic ending.

Rating:
Summary: Super Market Literature
Review: I usually stick to classics and happened to see Amsterdam on the "classics" list. It is an extremely boring book that should not be classified as a classic. It deserves to be placed next to Jackie Collins rather than Leo Tolstoy. There are no surprises in Amsterdam. Its plot isn't exciting and the characters are unlikable and uninteresting. It seems to be the kind of novel an author might whip out to fulfill a contract.

Rating:
Summary: Why did this book win the Booker Prize?
Review: I picked this book up after reading The God of Small Things (which I loved), thinking that another Booker Prize winner would be worth checking out. But Amsterdam was really a bore: loathsome characters, predictable and idiotic plot turns, and basically nothing at all enlightening or thought-provoking. A genuine disappointment whose only redeeming quality in my opinion was that it was under 200 pages long.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping, yet a little light
Review: This book is fascinating and kept me reading non-stop. McEwan's writing style is simply brilliant. He has a gift to capture the reader. Not only that, this tale about a deteriorating friendship is cleverly engineered with an enrapturing build up to its striking climax. This social satire reminds me of parts from Ayn Rand's Fountainhead.

However, for a briliant writer, I can only say that this book seems like an exercise for him. This novel seemed a bit short and unfulfilling, somehow. It does seem more like a short story than a novel.