Martin Amis

[kev67]

His book Money regularly appears in lists of top 100 books, at least over here. I am about 100 pages through. I gained the impression from reading Goodreads reviews that he had peaked, but I am not sure. Money is the 3rd Martin Amis book I've have started reading. The first was London Fields, which was dark and sick. Then I read Lionel Asbo, published a couple of years ago, which was dark, sick and laugh-out-loud funny. Money is in the same vein, written in the 80s, although not as funny. Does Martin Amis write about different types of characters? Money, London Fields and Lionel Asbo all centre around cultural philistines on the make. Keith Talent from London Fields is a low-level criminal. He likes drinking, eating hot curries, playing darts, and sex with various women, one under-age. He mistreats his missus and neglects his child. Lionel Asbo is another low-level criminal. He likes dogs, drinking, and threatening people, although he is not really all that keen on women. John Self from Money is more intelligent and high achieving, but basically he is into making money, booze, pornography, strip shows, sex. Amis's female characters do not seem to be an awful lot better. They tend to be manipulative gold-diggers of low moral virtue. I wonder what a book like the Rachel Papers would be like. From the title, you would not think it would be so dyspeptic.

[KJMarin]

Hi Kev. I have just finished reading Money myself, but have not yet had the opportunity to read Amis' other works. I interpreted the book as a sort of modern Picaresque novel, at least to the extent that a commentary on society is given through the ironical and turgid misadventures of the central character. I found myself having to read every single sentence of Money with a certain degree of comical skepticism. As someone who has been growing increasingly tired of the super-realist, 'snippet-of-life' novels that pass as literature nowadays, I found this book to be rather refreshing. For me, it manages to effectively sum up the snarling hypocrisy of the 1980s...and displays wonderful, twisting usage of the English language. Nevertheless, I imagine that this mode of narration must begin to grind somewhat after the second or third book. Would you recommend London Fields? It has been on my list for some time.

[kev67]

If you liked Money there is a fair chance you would like London Fields. It is even darker. Amis's characters tend to be rather flawed. They certainly are in London Fields.

Money was written and set around the early 80's. It is quite a long time ago. Prince Charles and Lady Diana were about to get wed. Apart from there being no internet and no mobile phones, it does not seem all that different to today. One thing that amused me is that Amis had to invent names for certain products, presumably to avoid being sued for copyright infringement. George Orwell had a similar problem with Keep the Aspidistra Flying. He had to replace well known advertising slogans with original ones and did not have much time to do it. Amis did a better job with names of cars and titles of magazines. For example, John Self drives a Fiasco, while his business partner, Fielding Goodney, is driven around in an Autocrat. At one stage, John Self is harangued by a woman for reading pornographic magazines in a shop. They had titles like Lovedolls, Plaything International and Jangler, all part of the satire.

[WICKES]

I like Martin Amis, but I have never read anything by him that impressed me as much as Lucky Jim (by his father).

[Ecurb]

I like Martin Amis, but I have never read anything by him that impressed me as much as Lucky Jim (by his father).

Lucky Jim rules! I just read it (for the second or third time). I particularly like the way Bertrand says, "You sam" for "you see", in his twitty, artsy accent. Very funny book!

[kev67]

Lucky Jim is funny. I never read any of Kingsley Amis's other books. The only other of his books that I heard discussed was The Old Devils. Martin's writing style is very different to his old man's.

I am about 2/3 through Money, and it is quite good, but I thought Lionel Asbo was at least as good. I am not sure I would agree that Money was Martin Amis's best book, or that he had peaked.