Amsterdam

Rating:
Summary: Music in Amsterdam
Review: This book begins with the death of a married woman named Molly Lane who has had many lovers. Among her lovers are Clive Linely, a successful British composer, Vernon Halliday, the editor of a formerly highbrow but failing paper called The Judge, and Julian Garamony, a foreign secretary with even higher political aspirations. The story revolves around the relationships of Linely, Halliday, and Garamony, and their ties to Molly.

Each of the three men is involved in something of a moral crisis. Linely is working on a symphony he hopes will prove his masterpiece when he has to decide whether to interfere in what may be a rape. Halliday has to decide whether to compromise his failing paper by publishing sexually explicit and compromising pictures of Garamony that Molly had taken. Linely and Halliday sign a euthanasia pact and then quarrel over the moral choices each man must face.

The book is slender, elegant, and, alas, superficial. It is pleasant to read but lacks depth. The most interesting part of the book for me is the interest the author shows in music through the composer in the book, Linely. For me, music became the focus of attention in the book, even though Linely is basically arrogant and mediocre and only one of three or four characters in the tangled plot of the book.

At the outset of Amsterdam, Linely is writing a commissioned symphony to celebrate the millenium but is experiencing difficulty in finishing the work and in finding an appropriately lyrical theme to end the last movement. He wants a theme that will capture both the horrors of the 20th Century and mankind's hopes and aspirations for the future -- shades of the Beethoven Ninth in more ways than one. Also like Beethoven, Linely derives inspiration from nature. To find an environment enabling him to complete his symphony, Linely takes a break to visit a wild, lonely place where he witnesses an apparent rape. Linely fancies himself a genius -- which he is not -- and displays something of an imitation of Beethoven's attitude and work habits -- such as the trip to nature. Of course this is hardly the first time a musician has defined himself in reference to Beethoven.

Other works of Linely are mentioned in the course of the novel as are other composers. Linely has set a series of poems called "rage" by an American beat named Hart Pullman. (Hart has also slept with Molly in his younger days.) He has written a piece which was performed only once called "Symphonic Dervishes for Virtuoso Strings." Linely has also written a book called "Reading Beauty" which claims that blues, rock, jazz, and folk have been the truly innovative music of the 20th Century.

One critic dubs Linely the "thinking man's Gorecki" and then recants to call Gorecki the "thinking man's Linely." Gorecki is a mid-20th century composer whose third symphony ("Lamentations") has won deserved fame. There are references to English composers such as Britten, Williams and Purcell. At one point, when his own symphony is about to be trashed, Linely expresses disdain for concertgoers attending a program of Schubert. "Hadn't the world heard enough from syphilitic Schubert?" Linely asks.

I was taken with the discussion of music in the book much more than with the plot and with the egoism, arrogance, and lust that the characters convey. The author has many interesting things to say about music even though they are basically said in passing. Altogether, this is an entertaining book but little more. For me the music is the tail that wags the dog.

Rating:
Summary: Not great McEwan, but it's still Ian- 3 1/2 *s
Review: Amsterdam has the usual sparkling McEwan style, good philosophical touches, and is rewarding but noy richly so. . Any McEwan work is welcome, and this novel was enjoyable though not one of his more profound works. The characters are shallowly absorbed in their own worlds, and their self obsession is often darkly comic. Anyone looking for depths in their souls may be missing the point.
The dream sequences are particularly outstanding. These sometimes better than the characters' actions convey their innermost thoughts.
Some of the plot seemed a difficult to reconcile. This novel seems much less tightly spun then other McEwan's I have read (the profoundly moving The Child in Time and the haunting and chilling Enduring Love). It was hard for me to accept the initial rallying behind the foreign minister after the scandal is revealed. Perhaps an American reader has some difficulty expecting the general public or political officials to support his mode of expression.
The ending, though not unsatisfying was implausible. The characters may have had motivation for their feelings, but their desire to go as far as they went and the effectiveness of their plans was difficult to accept
On the whole, Amsterdam is worth the investment of time, money, and mental energy.. It's yields however, are not as rich as those found in other McEwanian efforts.

Rating:
Summary: A polished exploration of egotism and more compromise.
Review: A married woman with many lovers dies. Two of them, a composer and an editor, are great friends, but come to grief thanks to their own egos abetted by the machinations of the woman's husband. The book has a silly ending, which is supposed to be humorous of the black humor kind, and the characters are somewhat tiresome. Yet the book shines in its exploration of egotism and moral compromise, the prose is highly polished, and it is brief enough to be quite readable.

Rating:
Summary: Amsterdam
Review: Two old friends meet at the funeral of charismatic, gorgeous Molly Lane. The fortyish Ms. Lane has died despicably of some unnamed degenerative disease that cruelly turned her vegetative. Molly, who had been mistress to both friends, was married at the time of her death to an immensely wealthy unlikable man. Vernon and Clive reminisced over their old friend Molly and comforted themselves with the thought she had never even liked husband George, unworthy that he was. But the bleak circumstances of Molly's death disturb the old friends with thoughts of their own mortality and cause them to enter into a peculiar pact.

McEwan's skill and craftsmanship make Clive and Vernon's thoughts and actions familiar to us, and the prose sparkles. Yet both men seem tinder dry, unengaged and hollow. Neither seemed more than his professional success; Clive an international composer---Vernon, a noted newspaper editor. The friends have a bitter falling out, and the crux of the novel, whether their friendship will be strong enough to overcome their differences plays out like a Greek tragedy.

On the down side, I never cared enough about either man to be more than academically interested in their rise and fall. The small book (193 pages) almost demands to be read in one sitting, as it is one continuous arc. Mr. McEwan doesn't fail in giving us a story, very well told, but I wished the vibrant Molly had not died before the tale began.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Ah--that Booker prize!
Review: I came to Amsterdam AFTER reading Atonement. And am I ever glad that I approached them in that order. Amstedam, is only sporadically literate and interesting. Its conclusion most definitely leaves very much to be desired. It seems, unfortunately, to have been the point of the book but it is hardly justifiable in terms of the character's lives in the book. It may be technically literate and clever--but it is not very credible. It is almost as if McEwan were struggling with his story to get to that point.
I also kept waiting for the "humor" mentioned in the reviews on its cover to reveal itself. It never did.
I can't help but believe that the best character in the book is dead before the novel begins. We do attend her funeral and meet her lovers. It is hard to believe that someone as interesting as she is presented to be would have had much to do with the two central characters. Though McEwan is at great pains to assure us that her husband is dull and possessive,the lovers that she is allowed to choose are hardly any better.
But in the end,I should have known better. Amstedam did win the Booker Prize, after all, and that is usually a "stay away" sign for me. I would suggest not missing Atonement for any reason and to read this one in your spare time if you have a lot of said.

Rating:
Summary: A Five for Style Alone
Review: ...I read the entire book in an almost breathless three and a half hours, reading it from the front door to the table for lunch, which I ate while I read... I took a bath so I could continue reading uninterrupted and then left an hour late for my evening social engagements.
McEwan's prose is spare and elegant, the sort that any writer might think he could write, until he tried it. It has been so long since I read a book without a preponderance of authorial intrusion that, paradoxically, I found the absence of looming omniscience and clumsy stage directions jarring, then irresistible. Character development is subtle and persuasive, and even the most self-destructive and outrageous turns are justified and believable.
McEwan's rendering of musical composition is as gripping as a good thriller. In general, his work writing is very good. Topical subject matter is included in a manner that is neither heavy-handed nor obtrusive, but rather gives the novel a definitive grounding in a contemporary that should translate well into the future.
I took particular enjoyment in the Jacobean conclusion. Many other readers have criticized the ending as implausible, but I am persuaded that they have missed many of the important cues in the book, which Mr. McEwan claims to have written so it might be read in one sitting. This is a morality play; reprehensible behaviour, betrayal, irresponsibility, and inhumanity all have their comeuppance in a manner reminiscent of the Classical tragedian bloodbath. This book clearly references many similar dramatic traditions.
I heartily recommend this book to a variety of readers. Aspiring writers (especially American ones) should take particular note of McEwan's style, emblematic of good contemporary British prose.

Rating:
Summary: Hopelessly contrived denouement
Review: If someone had handed this brief novel to me without telling me its author, I would have guessed it was the work product of another Booker Award winner, J.M Coetzee. Booker judges appear to favor novelists who write taut, economical and hopeless tales. While Amsterdam evidences a master craftsman's work in the use of the language, the denouement challenges even a good faith effort at the willing suspension of disbelief. The contrived close is impossibly, fatally flawed by its farfetched implausbility despite the remarkable set-up by the author. The author evidences extraordinary skill in his minimalist style. With only a few brush strokes the characters come alive and are true to life. I haven't read a more lush or imaginative rendering of the composition of music since Proust's rich renderings of the "little sonata" of Vinteuil as played by Morel. Bag the Bookers and turn instead to Pulitzer winners, who seem to offer some semblance of a glimpse of hope for humanity.

Rating:
Summary: starts slowly, ends badly
Review: Because it was a Booker Prize winner and short, I slogged along wondering when something worthy of the effort would happen. The plot did finally pick up at about 100 pages but this burst of energy only led to a silly ending. Some of the writing was beautiful, especially about the musical passages. But it was hard not to feel that this was anything more than McCewan showing off that he was a intellectual to be reckoned with.

Rating:
Summary: Shallow and predictable
Review: This is the worst book I have read in a long time. The story provided the unusual combination of being unbelievable and predictable. I knew how the book was going to end on page 28.

Based on the awards the book has received, I expect interesting characters, a believable plot, and philosophical substance. I was disappointed on all counts.

The book's only redeeming quality was its brevity.

Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal
Review: McEwan is a modern-day literary master. With sensational prose, McEwan has composed a must-read page-turner full of vivid imagery and character development. This is one of the most memorable books I have read recently.