Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #108198 in Books
• Published on: 1986-03-27
• Binding: Paperback
• 363 pages

Guardian
'Terribly, terminally funny: laughter in the dark, if ever I heard it'

Guardian
'Terribly, terminally funny: laughter in the dark, if ever I heard it'

Synopsis
Porn freak and jetsetter, John Self, is the shameless heir to a fast-food culture where money beats out an invitation to futile self-gratification. Out in New York, mingling with the mighty, Self is embroiled in the corruption, the brutality and the obscenity of the money conspiracy.

Customer Reviews

Wanton, fierce brilliance
My personal theory about Martin Amis is that he's a great writer in need of a great story. I think he doesn't often find one: so his extraordinary literary brilliance is just thrown out in showy flashes and sparks which glow fiercely and die instantly. It's his curse: impelled to write, lacking that great theme, what he writes seems to just invite these extremes of opinion. I don't know, I'm baffled by it - is it the whiff of nepotism? The casual, wrist-flicking brilliance of his prose with its aura of presumptuous arrogance? But eventually he stumbles upon something perfect: an actual story. "Money" feels as though he made a deal with the devil over this one, to everyone's benefit.

"Money" is an absolute classic, there's no doubt whatever. Amis has taken the temperature of the times - the early 80s - and set it down, searingly, brutally, on the printed page, where it hums, alive and fuming. I see him, writing this, like Mephistopheles himself, impish, awful, powerful. I think he felt, writing this, that you had better blow them all to hell: risk everything, to write at all. And I'm so glad he did: many years on this is still a powerhouse, still has something to tell us about humanity.

John Self is the 'hero' of this story: dividing his time between London and New York, "Money" tells the story of Self's journey from the TV small time to - perhaps - the movie big time. His rampant appetites, his friends, his lovers, his prospects, are unveiled in extraordinary and brilliant prose. It's funny, dark and very, very human.

Patrick Hamilton frequently gets compared to Dickens, but this is just as true of Amis: never mind the descriptive character names, I don't care about (or for) all that. John Self - yeah, yeah, I get it. It's not that - it's the eyes-peeled exploration of the grubby, nasty world around him; the ability to find the (black) humour in the grimmest of situations; the trough, the mire of hellish circumstances that Amis paints, that makes him like Dickens. I love listening in my head to his John Self: the awful lonesome midatlantic ex-glottal barking, the stone drunks and the mad panic tumblings to reality and the occasional dimly perceived insight; his mad advertising past, his pub dad, his porn addiction, his loaf-like body and his unforgettable, bruiser face. I love the slang John Self uses - hurls - at life: "mad rugs", flailing back in his costly, barely-running "Fiasco" to his "sock". It's made of brilliance, it assails you with brilliance. You come out a little scorched yourself - brief contact with life in Hell. But it's a hell full of fiery humour - you kind of like it there: your normal life, after "Money", is perhaps just a teensy bit dull.

John Self is a truly unforgettable hero. He's such an awful, awful man, his appetites so gross and needy - but he's so like you (all right, me?). He flails around and stumbles and falls like you, he does unforgiveable things and feels bad about it afterwards; he's rejected his past but hasn't embraced the new world he thinks he could be part of - he's not, of course; he never will be. I defy anyone not to pity Self just a little as he flails around the tennis court during his match with Fielding Goodney, or realises that he's messed up again with The Girl.

Having said all this, whatever you thought about "Money", forget it: read his semi-autobiographical "Experience" and I think you won't feel the same way about Amis again. It's moving and beautiful and brilliant all at the same time - a real story, and a real writer's work.

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.

A TRUE MORALIST
Martin Amis is the Jonathan Swift of our age. He exposes the inner corruption of self deceit and the lies that money brings. He brings a brilliant searchlight into the dark corners of our civilisation. A fearless prophet for our time: read his essays on Islamism.