Rating: 
Summary: McEwan Channeling Shakespeare?
Review: Not unlike other reviewers, I scratched my head as I put down Ian McEwan's "Amsterdam" for the final time. I had thoroughly enjoyed much of the novel but was concerned that McEwan was slowly backing his characters into a corner. Would it be the unrealistic (or even preposterous) end that I expected? Yes. But then it dawned on me that something seemed familiar - McEwan's chess-like moves reminded me of a Shakespearean tragedy. Suddenly things started to make sense; of course, the novel could NOT end in any other way. McEwan not only had the chutzpah to do this (and in doing so, challenge -- or frustrate -- readers to accept it in modern day London) but also created a work that is a deliciously satiric look at politicians, the media, and "creative geniuses." Additionally, McEwan peppers in many moral/ethical dilemmas to complicate the characters' lives. There is certainly a lot of substance in this slyly simple and slim novel. This was my first venture with McEwan and it certainly will not be the last. "Amsterdam" is a novel that only gets better the more you think about it.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Words
Review: A beautifully written book about four fascinating baby-boomers. A politician, a newspaper editor, a composer and George (whose occupation is not quite clear.) Richly descriptive words on the creative process of a musician are the best I have ever read. So is the image of a man lying naked in his bed contemplating intercourse with his wife, girlfriend or masturbation. All evolving around a tight storyline about men's ambition, jealousy, conceit and death. Although brief, I truly enjoyed reading each word by word.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful, Clever, and Moving
Review: "Amsterdam" is the first Ian McEwan novel I have read, but it will not be the last. I look forward to see what he can do when he gives himself more space. Though under two hundred pages, "Amsterdam" pretty well says all it needs to say. Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday are long-time friends at the top of their respective professions, and are also former lovers of a woman, Molly, who clearly attracts men marked for greatness in one way or another. Her death opens the novel, and precipitates her widower's decision to destroy the reputation of her most famous of infidelities, the man next in line for the British prime minister's office. The complicity of Vernon in this scheme (he's a newspaper editor) stretches his friendship with Clive, and accelerates the undoing of each. McEwan's prose is clean and direct. It's possible that McEwan was thinking of his own writing when he makes the composer Clive think about a melody: "In it's simplicity lay all the authority of a lifetime's work" Regardless, "Amsterdam" asks more questions than it answers, as any superior work of art should, whatever the artist's choice of media. It also cuts directly to the heart of what motivates men at crucial moments in their lives, the type of moments that can cost them everything they hold dear. It rewards the reader with much more than some might expect due to its shorter length. At worst you can write it off as an enjoyable intellectual quickie!
Rating:
Summary: Much better than Child of Time
Review: I enjoyed this book in a sense that it gave me what a personnaly felt was a glimpse into what the lives of a composer and a tabloid editor must be like. The deadlines for them both ran their lives until ultimately it destroyed them and their friendship. Very good book - would recommend it to others.
Rating: 
Summary: I Must Have Missed a Chapter or Two
Review: Throughout this superficial excuse for a novel, I kept waiting for something to happen that could make me say: oh, that's what this is all about. I also continuously looked for a character, any charcter, to do or say one thing that was interesting, profound, wicked, or indicative of someone alive and struggling with the human condition. Maybe Garmony's wife in her press conference. Did Clive actually have an illness? I can't figure that out. What would drive him suddenly to suicide? Was it suicide? Did Vernon have a brain tumor? Why was his head sensation discussed at all? Did George set them up? Did George know what happened to them in the end? Did they deliberately poison each other, or was it suicide? Who was the man and woman who walked up the staircase behind Vernon and gave a nod to Clive? Does this author think non-musicial composers (the vast majority of potential readers)would actually find his bland discussions of the process of composition engaging? Snooze, snooze, snooze. Was Clive the Lakeland rapist? I guess not, but what was the point of all that? Did Clive and Vernon deliberately murder the critic? This inexplicable ending just comes along, out of no where, with no build-up, and no real rationale behind it and I seriously thought that I had missed a chapter or two. Now that I think about it, I wished I missed every chapter.
Rating: 
Summary: This won the Booker Prize?
Review: This isn't a bad book; it's short, well-written, and the story moves along at a brisk pace. It's not a _good_ book, either. The characters, while well developed in terms of "quirks," never seem anything more than puppets used to advance the plot- a plot that, while moderately clever, never seems anything more than a way of getting to an ending that doesn't mean a whole lot. The fact that this won the Booker Prize is somewhat distressing. I haven't read much of McEwan's work, but The Cement Garden is immeasurably superior to this novel. All in all, Atonement is a light bit of darkness that received far more attention than it deserved. You read it once, you don't need to go back to it.
Rating:
Summary: Short and bittersweet
Review: Deceptively simple and delightfully grim, "Amsterdam" is, at its best, an autopsy of Thatcherite Britain. McEwan covers everything from the loss of the Pastoral to the decline in public and private morality. He's particularly strong on the deluded selfishness which can lie at the heart of both commerce and art - especially as practiced by coddled baby-boomers. His perfectly structured plot is more than matched by the exquisite rhythm and playfulness of his language. But what's most impressive here is that McEwan manages to be witty, bitter, yet still quite sincere. Both comic and deadly serious, this novel is a pleasure on every level.
Rating:
Summary: Enduring Wit
Review: Wit is such a rare phenomenon in contemporary literature that we often cannot recognize it. And when we do, we underestimate it. It's all so 18th century and so, so not now. McEwan spins a short, simple tale of two men who once vied for the same woman's favors coming together at her funeral and vowing eternal friendship ... and a few other things which I can't divulge. It's pretty hard to identify with the two gentlemen -- one the editor of a newspaper and the other a renowned composer. The first bets the farm on publishing some compromising photographs of an up-and-coming Tory politician (who also was one of the late lady's lovers); the other watches a serial rapist at work in the Lake District and continues composing his symphony rather than risk involvement. The two friends take umbrage at each other and their friendship turns to bitter antipathy. The ending is as neat and symmetrical as Mozart's MARRIAGE OF FIGARO or COSI FAN TUTTI. If I need to wear a powdered wig to enjoy such entertainment, let it be so! McEwan has a wicked sense of humor and a deft touch with this little entertainment. (And it was a nice diversion after reading 730 pages of Proust.) Let the petards be hoisted and the games begin!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and Enjoyable
Review: "Amsterdam" features two totally realized characters -- a major composer and the editor of a major newspaper -- who are friends, suffer career catastrophes, and blame each other. Throughout, the book has consistently brilliant technique, with McEwan fully realizing a character's mental state or experience of the moment and then moving on seamlessly to the next. My favorite element in the book is McEwan's description of the creative process. Here's Clive, the composer, thinking about his work. "He knew exactly what he wanted. He was working backward really, sensing that the theme lay in the fragments and hints in what he had already written. He would recognize the right thing as soon as it occurred to him. In the finished piece the melody would sound to the innocent ear as though it had been anticipated or developed elsewhere in the score. Finding the notes would be an act of inspired synthesis. It was as if he knew them but could not yet hear them." Excellent Work!
Rating: 
Summary: promptly forgot about it after I was finished
Review: This is not a novel that sticks with you. Some 40something woman dies and two of her many ex-boyfriends enter a suicide pact at her funeral. Then they get paranoid as they each try to kill each other. I was glad when I finished this .... I hear his other work is better.
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