Money
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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 p…
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13 Responses to “Money”
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August 23rd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gorgeous writing.
Eloquent and heavy. A fine read. Didn’t entirely grab me, but there were some absolutely gorgeously written passages, insights, and affecting scenes.
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:14 pm
4.0 out of 5 stars
Everything has its price . . .
(Actually, I’d go 3.5 stars on this, mainly for the unnecessary toughness of the first 60 pages)
I’ve often referred to Amis whenever the issue of writing…
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:16 pm
2.0 out of 5 stars
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…
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:19 pm
5.0 out of 5 stars
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.
August 23rd, 2009 at 1:43 pm
5.0 out of 5 stars
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…
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Money. It makes the world go ’round, and that’s the problem. It seems the Earth’s spinning on its axis has less to do with physics and more to do with those who don’t have money chasing those who have it. And novelist/satirist Martin Amis cashes in on the corrupting influence of currency with his delightfully savage book, MONEY.
Director John Self is a self-admitted loser. There’s not much to like about him: he smokes too much, drinks too much–he’s an irresponsible buffoon with an addiction to porn and prostitutes. But he’s got money, and as he waits for the financing of his next film to come together, he makes London and New York his sinful playgrounds. Leapfrogging back and forth across the pond, he leaves a shambled trail of self-destruction in his wake. Over the course of his bizarre journey, John shares his thoughts and philosophy on the intricacies of life: Life according to John Self, a drunken bugger with money. In fact, the story happily plays a second fiddle to John’s reflections, and John’s reflections carry the story from one zany mishap to the next.
Amis is sheer genius. He writes with a demented pomposity–a politically incorrect finger-in-your-eye–that has the reader laughing one moment, cringing the next. With a clever tongue-in-cheek device to show nothing is sacred, he even inserts himself into the story. It’s fascinating reading, as Amis allows his protagonist’s thoughts to wander all over the dysfunctional map of human corruption (often within the same paragraph). MONEY is a triumphant satire that blasts away at our consumer culture and reveals our fragile human foibles. It is the type of book I wish I had the backbone to write.
–D. Mikels, Author, WALK-ON
August 23rd, 2009 at 3:44 pm
4.0 out of 5 stars
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.
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:30 pm
This is one of the most well-written and funny books you’ll ever read. My copy has multiple dog ears because I keep going back to look up this or that hilarious passage: Lorne Guyland’s rambling dissertations, John Self’s drunken careen through a NY restaurant, the chess game near the end (an amazing metaphor-packed *action* scene that you’ll read wide-eyed at the fact that anyone could write with such style). Some readers don’t seem to understand that you’re supposed to despise John Self while still marveling at his antics. I feel bad for those people; I feel pity for those people–oh yes. But for those who like densely written, wildly stylish fiction that also has a point, from a writer at the top of his game, you *must* read this book!
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:21 pm
3.0 out of 5 stars
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.
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Writing doesn’t get any funnier than this. Readers who find deep vein humour in black, sexual comedy such as Portnoy’s Complaint and (even blacker), Lolita, will revel in Money. The unreliable narrator, John Self is a brilliantly drawn character. Physically and emotionally repulsive, materialistic, a string of unwholesome vices – drugs, porn, fast food, dirty women and most of all money, and a stunning voice which is at one yobbish yet shamefully poetic.
In fact, Martin Amis has declared this to be a voice novel. When form goes out the window and the voice takes over. Like Saul Bellow finding his broad, socially and intellectually panoramic style in The Adventures of Augie March, Amis finds the voice to skewer the absurditites of Western Urban Capitalism, and the disorientated place of the modern male within the system. Money contains so many of the classic Amis riffs and set pieces – the tennis match, the dinner party, the brothel visits, the porn shows – as John Self is put through one humiliation after another in his pursuit of Mammon. The comic detail is stunning. There are so many exquisite phrases. Amis learns from another of his major literary heroes, Nabokov, and distorts the aesthetic, baroque high style into a low life screamer of a book. Marvellous.
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:03 pm
4.0 out of 5 stars
quirky fun
Martin Amis’s Money is a stumbling, swirling, sodden romp though the protagonist’s brain. As anti-hero John Self bounces back and forth between London and New York, pursuing a…
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:00 pm
4.0 out of 5 stars
Amis’ Best
Perhaps the best of Martin Amis’ novels; he seems to have been struggling to reinvent himself – with highly variable levels of success – in the years since.
August 24th, 2009 at 1:02 am
4.0 out of 5 stars
It is an alluring dream, is it not?
John Self, named such by Amis to represent all of humanity, is a man whose world is controlled by money and sex.