Rating: 
Summary: Good book; weak ending
Review:
'Amsterdam - Ian McEwan (1998, Booker Prize Winner)
A clever well-written book about two-faced duplicity and treachery in human relationships; about one-upmanship and mutual shafting; about the discrepancy between our outward faces and our inward ones; about how easily and casually human beings are prepared to damage and ruin one other, stitching one another up; about how the 'friends' we meet often aren't friends at all; about how easily a friendship built up over a lifetime can be cast aside in a moment; about 'single event' downfall; about how general opinion is steered and manipulated; about how a small event often changes a life...
This book is economically written, covering a lot of ground with a minimum of material. There are some great lines here, and a lot of food for thought.
The ending (in the last three chapters) seemed weak and improbable, at least on a literal interpretation.
Marks: 4 out of 5
Rating: 
Summary: Not credible
Review: The pivotal plot in "Amsterdam", not much critically examined by other reviewers here, is a story about two not really successful people at the midlife crisis where settling for less becomes life's main burden, both self indulgent (a musician/composer and a newspaper editor) conspire to murder each other. They come to this unlikely idea at the end of a life long friendship because - it seems - of perceived slights although this too is not adequately charted in the novel, and both come to the same idea at the same time and select the same method. They elect to go to Amsterdam where they find corrupt medical practitioners who agree to commit euthanasia for large sums of money paid in cash. They pull off this trick by falsely identifying themselves as the other, then switching places at the last moment, and so simultaneously kill each other. The mechanics of this unlikely swap are not adequately explained, but in more essential ways the plot line is deeply flawed.
The description of the place could not be more wrong; not that McEwan got things like street names in Amsterdam wrong. His researchers made sure of such trivial accuracy. It is his complete failure to understand the Dutch society and her institutions that ruins the book.
The Netherlands, and especially its capital, Amsterdam, is - in the minds of many native English speakers - a den in iniquity, showing how little they know about this, arch conservative and, in many ways, intolerant country. This simply could not happen. Euthanasia is strictly controlled in the Netherlands. There is compulsory notification to the Department of Justice, independent medical examination of the dying patient by at least two physicians who must lodge their reports with the authorities, and an independent counselor must give guidance to the patient, a lawyer is appointed to wrap up the affairs of the patient taking care of final taxes and distribution of assets to the heirs, following which there is a required period for re-consideration, and an independent psychiatrist must judge that the patient is not making the decision in a desperate moment of despair or treatable depression but is fully competent and capable of making an informed decision, and a final family reconciliation in which survivors of the patient are also able to apply for and receive counseling, and then the actual day of death in which there must be certain people present as witnesses. A sort of ritual takes place, a kind of funeral at which the dying person may be able to listen to his or her eulogies. Actually the Dutch society is drowning in rules and regulations. A more credible book would describe the adventures of people who die of old age while waiting in Kafkaesque lines, but that would not win any prizes; the suspension of action has already been done in "Waiting For Godot".
The story told by McEwan, at least this main subplot, could not possibly happen. It is actually the fantasy of an ignorant English author, serving his readers the jingoistic moral saber rattling that foolish people need in order to reaffirm their perceived cultural and individual superiority over the persons of a foreign country they do not understand and have no inclination to learn anything about.
The English way of committing euthanasia, in which nothing official is arranged, and decisions are made in an ad hoc manner behind closed doors, make it more likely that Dutch people would go to the UK to find corrupt doctors for such a deal; assuming that the unlikely plot could be taken with a sufficient serving of suspended disbelief by readers anywhere.
Why this won the Booker Prize, I cannot fathom. It should have been Atonement, which is a likely, gripping tale.
Rating: 
Summary: CHECK THIS PIECE
Review: My favorite book is now Amsterdam. A quick read that moves along at a great pace. Perhaps the most rewarding part of this book is the way McEwan ties up all the loose ends in the conclusion. While the ending is a bit predictable, the way it exploits subtle details is not. Don't be surprised, however, if you find yourself laughing out loud at some parts of the novel. One thing to look for in pretty much all of McEwan's writing is a dark aspect. In Amsterdam, this aspect is definitely present, but does not take away from the lively pace of things, as well as the symmetrical structure of reciprocating main characters.
Rating:
Summary: Fine quality entertainment
Review: From ALAS! DECEIVED [1994] by Alan Bennett: "As it was, lovers on the grass in Pearson Park would catch among the threshing chestnut trees the dull glint of binoculars, and on campus errant borrowers, interviewed by the Librarian, found themselves eyed up as well as dressed down."
From AMSTERDAM [1998] by Ian McEwan: "The overstated and contemptuous cartoon, for example, and the crowing leader with its childish pun on 'drag', the doomed crowd-pleaser of 'knickers in a twist', and the feebly opposed 'dressing up' and 'dressing-down'."
Mere coincidence? Methinks you don't give a crap, so I won't press it. I liked the way that Linley opposed Halliday's smear-job even though Linley hated Garmony. And I was delightfully tickled at the way that all 3 characters had surnames that end in the letter "y". I'll take that troika with a "y" over Liza with a "z" anyday. (Sorry about that gratuitous showbiz non-sequitur, but whenever the subject-matter is euthanasia, Liza always seems to spring immediately to mind.)
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.
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