Product Description: The story of John Self and his insatiable appetite for money, alcohol, drugs, porn and more. Ceaselessly inventive and thrillingly savage, it is a tale of life lived without restraint; of money and the disasters it can precipitate.
Amazon.com Review: Absolutely one of the funniest, smartest, meanest books I know. John Self, the Rabelaisian narrator of the novel, is an advertising man and director of TV commercials who lurches through London and Manhattan, eating, drinking, drugging and smoking too much, buying too much sex, and caring for little else besides getting the big movie deal that will make him lots of money. Hey, it was the '80s. Most importantly, however, Amis in Money musters more sheer entertainment power in any single sentence than most writers are lucky to produce in a career.
Drunks don't make interesting protagonists For the most part, I believe drunks like John Self in this novel, crazy people like the Australian pianist in the movie who's name I can't remember, and blow-hards like Citizen Kane don't make interesting protagonists.
It takes a Dickens to create works of art based on characters whose mental life seems so circumscribed and repetitive.
DIARY OF A LOUT Sure Martin drops the ball at the very, very end. But, until then, this is "in my opinion" the best, the funniest, the greatest celebration of pure loutishness every written. i lent it to a friend, he read it, and i asked him what he thought. his reply was simple and encapsulating; he responded, very matter-of-factly, "it's the Bible". i couldn't concur more. now, i'm not one to burst out laughing alone on the subway, but i couldn't help myself. if you have have never read Money, you're in for a treat. Like being a thirty-year-old virgin - lot to look forward to. i once described it as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" with a bit less drugs and a lot more sex. That one also caused me to laugh out loud. but, if you happen not to like it, don't let it discourage you from reading "Money". it's more or less a totally different experience. it has everything: sexism, racism, alcoholism - what more could you ask for in a book! oh, as far as it being politically correct, it couldn't be further from it. - david
A savage funny monologue This is a novel written in the early 80's and is one long monologue about money and what chasing money, having money( and not having money) does to John Self the central character. He is a successful Ad director but at heart a fast talking East end boozing womaniser addicted to fast food and porno. And if you still like him, he beats up women, tends to be a racist, and hates gays... and horror of horror smokes. But he does have a turbulent broth of family relationships to deal with!
This could be an echo of real life as Martin Amis had a troubled relationship with his father Kingsley Amis. Who incidentally was critical of the device of having the author as a character in the story which allows Martin to take some sly digs at the pretensions of writers and writing.
John Self meets a producer in New York and spins him a story based on his own life (drunkard father, two timing mother, time waster son) and is then embroiled in the nightmare of putting the money, script and casting together. He lurches between New York and London loving money and suffering from excesses of drink, food and sex and looses girlfriend, friends and family along the way in a glorious buffoon way.
As he tries to deal with actor's egos, money men demands and scripts he is also hounded by a stalker . Or is he? We can only understand what john understands and as he is drinking several bottles of whiskies on week long benders he is a little hazy some times on the details. During the story we get to find out what the truth of his rise to the Money as well as family secrets and who cheats who.
As the novel is set up to be a long suicide note you can sense the depths of his pain. So is this a gloomy, slash your wrist Leonard Cohen fun feast? No it's a very funny and savage satire on money, money and money and oh the film industry. Normally, I dislike first person novels but I strongly recommended this one.
Money- the new face of the British novel Martin Amis's Money flies in the face of the nostalgic critic who would say that the best of British fiction is in the past. This meta-fictional post modern styled novel not only subverts conventional novel structures but is also able at the same time to present social messages which were relevant to its initial 1980's audience and can still find relevance in the society of readers today.
Broadly, Amis's novel satirizes the boom of consumerism and excess experienced in the 1980's. The central protagonist would-be-film maker John Self, rolls between London and New York, binging on cigarettes, alcohol, pornography, women, drugs and anything else that money can buy. John Self's complete lack of self control or restraint can be seen as reflective of the political policies of Thatcher (and to an extent Regan) which were being implemented in England and America at this time, policies which assigned a fiscal value to everything and turned virtually anything into a saleable commodity, promoting capitalist values en masse with very little attention to the development of accompanying policies of social responsibility.
Without revealing too much of the plot, Self eventually reaps the consequences of his lifestyle however it is not a social or moral lesson, Self does not develop, grow or undergo any kind of mental or emotional transformation, in moral essentials he leaves the novel, much as he entered it. This lack of moral justice inflicted upon Self is arguably one of the major centres of dislike pitted against this novel. Amis does not provide a social or (using the words of his father, realist author Kinglsey Amis) "human lesson." It presents the seamy, grimy underside of the epicentres of western (and capitalist) society but presents no exoneration or punishment for John Self or the societies which he populates. The frustration of the reader in not seeing the protagonist regretful or even adequately reflective of his lifestyle seems to deny a perceived need of the novel to distribute and/or advocate for some kind of social justice or responsibility.
Some critics (and even authors) of contemporary British literature suffer the belief that the 'hey-day' of English literature is passed, that nothing written in the present can possibly match that which was written in the past. One reason attached to this negative opinion of current British literature is that it is unable to produce a 'state of the nation' style novel, that is a book which encompasses what DH Lawrence in 1956 described as "the whole man alive."
This is ultimately a flawed ideal though, as modern society is a highly complex beast- arguably much more so than the 1950's world in which Lawrence wrote his comment. The expectation of a modern novel to be able to swallow the moral, ethical and social dilemmas faced each day by the modern citizen seems implausible and runs the risk of producing fiction which critic Nick Rennison describes as "dead on the page."
In Money, Amis seems to have disregarded these nostalgic, backward looking critics and instead of aiming for an all encompassing view of society he has set his satirical sights on a few principle social issues which were pertinent to his time. The fact that his comments on the dangers of excessive consumerism, capitalism and the potential banality and emptiness of modern life are as relevant in 2007 as they were in 1984 is testament to the sharpness of his political and social awareness.
Although the book centres around a self proclaimed 'yob' protagonist, the text is not lacking in sophistication, Martin's lush and innovative prose style and structure prove as much. His constant references to highbrow literature seem to reinforce this idea. For instance there is an underlying allegory to Shakespeare's Othello which underlies a great majority of the novel and Amis peppers the texts with the names of great writers, such as the pub named the Shakespeare, the characters Martina Twain and Fielding Goodney, as well as references to literary places such as Room 101 (from Orwell's 1984) which is also ironically, Self's hotel room.
This novel is a high speed ride through modern life as seen through the eyes of perhaps one of its worst inhabitants. It has a particular brand of satirical and ironic humour which is confronting, but also enlightening in terms of the ultimate message which the book is attempting to make.
I haven't finished the book Great style of writing, but somehow the book lost me somewhere in the middle. It is about John Self, newly rich who burns his life and chases more money. Dialogues are funny, some parts of the novel are very entertaining. But unlike "London Fields", which arouses more and more interest as the plot develops, "Money" becomes repetitive and boring. At least for me.
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