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Rating:  -
Close your eyes, now imagine morning rush hour in New York City, or for those of you who are the night owls of this world, an anticipated evening out in the "Big Apple", are you there yet? Ha! ... energizing isn't it! That is the tone of this read, pure energy! And Amis does a fantastic job of bringing the ambiance of the New York life style to light when his protagonist John Self takes a bite out of it. You'll walk it, eat it, breathe it, experience it as you read along, this I guarantee. Now let's board a flight and cross the pond to London. We're not going to hang in the city here, but retreat to a modest little flat, "home sweet home" aaaaah! Surrounded by friends, family, familiarities, your safe haven, and take respite here. Its comfort is like a warm duvet on a chilly damp and rainy day. Mr. Amis' brilliantly painted contrasts fill the book throughout giving you that wonderful feeling of traveling to the exotic and then returning home again. And believe me, you'll appreciate the break!
Martin Amis has not only written one of the most powerful narrative voices to be laid to page in this book, but has pulled off the most unbelievable finish to this saga! My jaw dropped, eyes widened, and I found myself calling a friend to say, " You are never gonna believe this!!!" No, no, no, I'm not going to spoil that bit for you, it's absolutely too wild! Applause Mr. Amis, thunderous applause!
His first person narrator John Self speaks directly to the reader and draws you right into this story, through which an intimate relationship begins to grow with the characters, that transposes this fictional writing into unbelievable realism. The "Verbal Energy" truly dominates the prose throughout this book, as Amis' vast knowledge of the English language continually feeds you platefuls of sonorous articulation. You'll be totally stuffed, but still craving more, one of the reasons I found it so hard to put this book down.
Now if you take a self centered, low life, yes, Mr. John Self, and throw him together with a group of sordid swindlers ... friends, family, lovers, and colleagues, you'll have the guts of Money. But it's the interaction and trickery that Amis has woven between all that makes this book, everything but a "Fiasco".
Now Self, the deplorable anti-hero of this tale, is an abusive, over weight, money loving, blackout drinker, chain smoking, sex seeking, pornography aficionado, that goes through life on the take. But believe me, you are going to find yourself sympathetic towards him as this story unfolds, and you won't know at exactly what point he gained your support. Perhaps when he's gifted the book and begins to read does he begin to see a bit of worth in himself. Hmmm ...
Interestingly enough are the characters of John Self, Martina Twain, and "Martin Amis" Yes, Martin has even written himself into this story. But more so you'll find that the "real" Mr. Amis lives and breathes in this tale to a greater degree. John "Self", is ridden with a dodgy tooth that's mentioned throughout the book, (see Experience A Memoir by Martin Amis) "Martina", well educated and cultured (well is that not Martin Amis? Drop the "a" from the characters name and what do you have?), and "Martin Amis" himself the real life author, and also, as the hired screenwriter for Self's film Bad Money (check out who wrote the screen play for Saturn Five). Not to mention the suicide note addressed to "Antonia" in this story, Amis's first wife. All of the fore mentioned are truths in the real life of Martin Amis. These are just a few of the overt. There are even more shadows lurking deeper within the characters and events, which makes this read even more intriguing!
I thoroughly enjoyed this one! I can, and do, recommend this book highly! What a ride!!
Rating: -
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
Rating: -
This book contains one of the finest first-person narratives ever written. Coarse and chummy, fretful and alcoholic, the narrator is a Studebaker-sized beast of a man who skates to his ruin on too much booze, bad credit and pornography. Reading this book is like watching a rampaging circus elephant get shot in mid-city traffic, sink slowly to its knees and die.
Rating: -
"Money" mesmerized me. With his character John Self, Martin Amis has created one of the most memorable narrative voices ever in literature. While the content differs radically, I would compare the power of the narrative voice to that of "David Copperfield" or "Moby Dick." You live the book as well as read it.
John Self, an English director of commercials, is embarking on a career in the movies. The time is 1981. Self compulsively pursues several simple needs: the need for sex (in a number of different forms), alcohol, drugs at times, companionship, and most of all, money. In these pursuits, he ricochets back and forth from london to New York, from the uptown NYC to downtown, east side to west side and so on. This book is not about the "High Life"--rather about how a lot of money can buy you the "low life."
Through Self's inebriated or hungover eyes, you see a lot of interesting characters. All have one thing in common: money. His "girlfriend" in London, Selina, cuckolds him for a wealthier man.His "alter ego" Martin Amis will write for him but for a price. His New York friend, Martina Twain,is married to a wealthy man.
Amis wrote this in book in the early 1980's. He accomplished an amazing feat: he showed how the sexual and drug excesses of the 60's and 70's morphed into the materialistic excesses of the 1980's. And he did this at the start of the decade-not the end of it.
Oh there are a few dated moments-but they only add flavor to the book. In the midst of Self's pursuit of hedonistic pleasure, he contrasts his "evil" with the purity of the royal wedding of Charles and Diana, which took place in July, 1981. It's worth a few laughs.
I can't say enough about the power of the narrative voice. You feel drunk. You feel hungover. You feel as if you're in the apartment of the seedy movie star who tapes her sexual encounters. It's quite a tour de force.
I would recommend this book to those who like modern literature,particularly of an English provenance. One note:this book is raw and coarse. It is not for the easily offended. But if you can handle the language and situations, you're in for an amazing ride.
Rating:  -
Even though it was written in the mid-'80s and is set in 1981, Amis's novel was probably the first major fictional salvo on the culture of capitalism that pervaded the entire decade and characterized the Reagan/Thatcher era in the West. Almost twenty years after its publication, the book's language and style remain vivid and distinctive, but its satirical power has greatly diminished. The materialism and shallowness of the '80s, especially in certain segments of American and British society, has been so widely skewered to have become cliché, and it's very difficult to read the book now without mentally referencing other major works such as The Bonfire of the Vanities, and especially American Psycho.
The story (what there is of it) is narrated by John Self, a 30ish British director of commercials set to embark on his first Hollywood deal. A figure of Falstaffian excess, he drinks, smokes ("unless otherwise states, I am _always_ lighting another cigarette"), whores, handjobs, and bumbles his way through the book, which switches between New York and London as he works with California golden boy Fielding Goodman to set up his movie. Self is a parody of an insecure, self-destructive, racist, misogynist, money-grubbing alcoholic and Amis beats the reader over the head with this caricature. Are we supposed to be sympathetic toward this loser who has been socially conditioned to value only money and sex, or are his antics supposed to amuse, or both? Various reviewers have suggested one or the other reaction, however, boredom is the more likely response. It's hard to imagine being simpatico with the self-anihilating protagonist-unless one has similar problems in their own lives. Meanwhile, the much vaunted humor of the book is very hit or miss, and grows steadily absent as the repetitiveness of Self's antics wear thin.
It's too bad, because Amis's goal of highlighting the emptiness of packaged objects of desire and the behavior their pursuit encourages, is a very worthy endeavor. And buried in all of it somewhere is some interesting stuff about the relationship between sex and money. Ultimately, though, it's hard to sit through Self's lengthy slide to the gutter without wondering why it's taking so long to get to. At 250 pages, the book might have fully engaged me, but at 350, it feels bloated and a little self-indulgent. Still, it's hard not to appreciate the many fine twists and turns of language Amis employs in the service of his labored satire.
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