Rating: 
Summary: Cynical and funny
Review: Oh, these poor, poor people. I couldn't stop laughing. Thanks Ian McEwan for an enlightening peek at the selfish beast within. I too was disappointed when the ending stretched credibility but not enough to diminish the bittersweet pleasure afforded by the book. Best read in a single sitting; the book is enveloping enough to make that easy.
Rating: 
Summary: Amsterdamned
Review: When Molly Lane dies, her lovers gather at her funeral. Vernon Halliday is editor of the broadsheet newspaper The Judge and his best friend is Clive Linley, composer extraordinaire, commissioned to write a piece to mark the Millennium. Together, Vernon and Clive loathe Molly's husband, George. Also present is another of Molly's lovers, Julian Garmony, who just happens to be Foreign Secretary. Their lives are thrown into collision when it emerges that there are some rather embarrassing pictures of Garmony, taken by Molly. Should Vernon publish them despite Clive's protestations that to do so would spurn Molly's memory? And have they both become too preoccupied in their work?'Amsterdam' won Britain's 1998 Booker Prize, despite many critics preferring McEwan's previous novel ('Enduring Love'). True enough, 'Amsterdam' starts very slowly, and seems dull by comparison. Vernon's career as an editor seems quite unconvincing, and could have done with more research. But McEwan has made all the chilli sink to the bottom... The end of the novel is delicious, and very unexpected. It may seem silly, but this is due to the large dose of Waughian black comedy. How truly do we regard our friends? Both Clive and Vernon seem like Frankensteins, unaware of the monsters they create in their work. So, did it deserve to win the Booker? The answer is undoubtedly NO. The CWA Gold Dagger would have been a more suitable award...
Rating:
Summary: Where is the beef
Review: This is really a long short story. As a novel it does not quite satiate. Its climax is cynical to the max, but does not really follow up on th build-up. A surprising choice for the Booker prize
Rating: 
Summary: Potent and Masterful
Review: Ian McEwan's Amesterdam had two great Mcguffins, one is the late (and rather promiscious) Molly Lane, the other, her surviving husband George Lane. The former, lays the ground work, the latter sets the events in motion for this icy drama of friendship. McEwans gives us Clive(who may or may not be a genius) but believes his work to be too important to be inturrupted by the silly business of helping a woman being raped. Vernon, who in comparison, is more down to earth, only wishes to save the future of his country by exposing its fast rising fascist foriegn secertary as a cross dresser. This ofcourse sounds like a sordid tale of betrayel and scandel, which it is, but in between McEwan writes some of the most beautiful passages I've ever read. The process by which Clive "Recieves" and "Creates" his symphony is particularly engrossing. Vernon the editor on the other hands starts losing feeling in his face when left alone, parts of him physically die, a "Diluted man", but is later ressurected by the prospect of vengence. This a truly terrific novel, don't be fooled by how short it seems, as it is really rich. You may actually want to reread it when your done , just to absorb it all. Then we come to the truly inspired ending, which looks tragic on the surface, but somehow manages to convey a sense of peace for all concerned. I have to admit, I bought this book becuase of the Booker prize, but boy am I glad I did. The last Booker prize winner I read was The God of Small Things which although worthy and well written was no where near as enjoyable as this one.Amesterdam is brilliant.
Rating:
Summary: Fast and Furious
Review: Satire doesn't get darker, tighter, more lethal than "Amsterdam," a fast-moving morality tale about the swift demise of a friendship (and two careers along the way). If this tragicomedy isn't particularly poignant or resonant (the characters, after all, have about as much moral weight as a flea), McEwan's jaded look at politians, journalists, and musicians--and their pomposities, self-justifications, and vicious acts--is right on target. Why is that only the Brits seem to have this gift of poison pen? If you like McEwan's style of writing, you might also want to try Fay Weldon's deliciously malicious novels.
Rating:
Summary: Clever, sad and a bit disappointing
Review: I bought this book because it was a Booker Winner. Rohinton Mistry it's not. Still, I found it enjoyable and the idea behind it very clever. The ending left me feeling let down. The idea, of course, was of a dark novel. But other than a few bon mots I took from it, I doubt this one will illuminate my life. Still, I recommend it because it's fast paced, funny, and smartly written.
Rating:
Summary: The Yahoos Disguised
Review: An appraisal of this novel from a vantage point of the serious realistic literature, literature of bright and impressive characters and profound feelings, can excite only sheer disappointment: though author's style is worthwhile, his characters are shallow, motivations of their deeds are week, turns of the plot are absolutely predictable. But since the time of great Jonathan Swift (at least!) a strong satirical tendency exists in English literature. Ian McEwan's 'Amsterdam' is a cold satire on 'high society', its heroes are modern Yahoos, members of a loathsome race of brutes having the form and all evils of humans, depicted in Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels'. These up-to-date Yahoos are even more horrible and dangerous because having abominable essence of their literary harbingers they now disguised as the noble Gouyhnhnms in luminous apparels of ostentatiously beautiful words and righteous thoughts. Author's diagnosis is unconsoling and unfavorable: the society is incurably ill, euthanasia is the best remedy. Not being an ardent devotee of satirical literature myself, I prefer to give this book only three stars as its rate.
Rating: 
Summary: A great disappointment
Review: It took me weeks to read this interminably short novel. I'd previously found McEwan's short stories and "Enduring Love" to be enthralling, in both language and subject; but "Amsterdam"'s prose and subject are the stuff of pure tabloid, all sour character and sullen, bitter description. There are none of the astonishing, sudden sympathies or recognitions that seduce me in his previous work; McEwan's trademark cruelties here are patent and obvious. A pretty book jacket, tho.
Rating:
Summary: A literary chocolate eclair
Review: Ordinarily I find McEwan's work thrilling, but was disappointed by Amsterdam. Although the writing is masterly and the plot keeps you turning the pages, the story is insubstantial and ultimately unsatisfying. Who knows why it won the Booker Prize? Surely The Comfort of Strangers or The Innocent deserved it more. Other reviewers have suggested variously that the committee felt guilty about ignoring McEwan's previous work, or because the book featured an interplay between theme and character brilliant enough to justify the award. I interpret that to mean that the judges thought it clever that the novel's characters were shallow, and that the newspaper Vernon Halliday edited was shallow, and that the symphony Clive Linley wrote was derivative and fatally unvaried, and that ultimately the book itself was shallow, too, and so decided Amsterdam was a brilliantly self-referential piece of---I don't know, meta-fiction or something. Maybe so, but some of the social commentary in the book reads like a magazine article rather than a novel, like a 2,000-word piece in a weekend supplement, and I expect more from McEwan: strong characters and images and themes that resonate in your head like a fascinating bad dream. Amsterdam is light entertainment, a finely written but forgettable tale by a brilliant author who's capable of producing much, much better work.
Rating: 
Summary: Average read
Review: I read 'Amsterdam' because it was a prize winner! And I was disappointed. Characters and themes fall apart at times but the story goes on. Yes there is a story. But if there was a point beyond it I missed it. It is well written but an average read.
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