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Amsterdam
Écrit par Ian McEwan
Raconté par Steven Crossley
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The best-selling author of Atonement and Enduring Love, Ian McEwan is known as one of contemporary fiction’s most acclaimed writers. This Booker Prizewinning novel by McEwan finds two men connecting at the funeral of their ex-lover. Distressed by how she was slowly destroyed by an illness, the two make a pact to save each other from enduring such a fate.
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Commencer à écouterInformations sur le livre
Amsterdam
Écrit par Ian McEwan
Raconté par Steven Crossley
Description
The best-selling author of Atonement and Enduring Love, Ian McEwan is known as one of contemporary fiction’s most acclaimed writers. This Booker Prizewinning novel by McEwan finds two men connecting at the funeral of their ex-lover. Distressed by how she was slowly destroyed by an illness, the two make a pact to save each other from enduring such a fate.
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An unusual story of unsympathetic characters in an unlikely storyline, but is quite satisfying nonetheless.
This book was exciting and engaging and wonderfully descriptive almost all the way through. It was the ending that let it down. It was rushed and worse than that....I saw it coming thanks to the image on the cover of my edition. If the ending had been written longer, with more feeling, I could have really loved this book. It describes the friendship of two well-to-do London men. Both in high positions in their fields, and both formerly in love with a recently deceased woman. The two men both find themselves with a moral dilema and can only pick fault with the way the other friend acted. Their bitterness an anger with each other reaches fairly high stakes and the high drama takes place in the Amsterdam of the title.
For 193 pages, this book packs a lot in. There are ebbs and flows of old friendships, division and rapprochement, political intrigue, transvestitism, muckraking journalism, and the composition of a symphony.
The latter passages are where McEwan's literary talents are most evident; his rapturous descriptions of the labor poured into the development of that symphony are practically musical themselves.
Unfortunately, I found the ending -- the dénouement in the titular city -- to be facile and disappointing. Not my favorite work by this author, but, to be fair, even his lesser works contain moments of literary crescendo.
The latter passages are where McEwan's literary talents are most evident; his rapturous descriptions of the labor poured into the development of that symphony are practically musical themselves.
Unfortunately, I found the ending -- the dénouement in the titular city -- to be facile and disappointing. Not my favorite work by this author, but, to be fair, even his lesser works contain moments of literary crescendo.
A tightly woven novel; a couple of selfish decisions spiral into disaster.
I really do enjoy the writing style of this author. I find it to be witty with a sarcastic sense of humor. However, I have a hard time getting past the sad outlook on life that the author maintains. He seems to have the ability to show the worst in people and by ending the story with a double-murder, he confirms his own negative beliefs. This was a very short novel, and I would have liked it better if he had taken more time to explore the world of the two main characters. With all of that said, I would read more from this author.
Brilliant -- funny and sharp.
Beautiful, charming Molly has just died after what seemed like a short illness (perhaps alzheimers). Previous lovers are at her funeral along with her husband, George. Clive Linley is Britain's most successful and famous composer. His best friend, Vernon Halliday is the editor of a major newspaper. Julian Garmony is the Foreign Secretary and his politics are repulsive to both Clive and Vernon. A while after the funeral, George summons Vernon and shows him some very revealing and embarrassing pictures of Julian Garmony. Vernon must make the decision to either publish these photos or not. Clive advises not upsetting Vernon's feelings that the man needs to be brought down for the sake of the country. Tension between the two friends follow as both struggle with the issue. While on a hiking trip, Clive happens to come upon a man assaulting a woman but he turns and walks the other way. As time progresses, Vernon realizes that Clive has seen a serial rapist and did nothing. Due to Molly's impairment, Clive had once asked Vernon to assist him in a suicide if his life became such that he was not in control. Vernon at first was repulsed by the idea. Amsterdam has recently been in the news for having doctors that would help with anyone wanting to kill themselves.As time progresses and the friendship dies, both Vernon and Clive make plans to get revenge on the other in Amsterdam. This isn't a long book but one that has an interesting plot and twist. All of the characters seems very self-absorbed and not particularly likeable, but still are interesting.
This book was exciting and engaging and wonderfully descriptive almost all the way through. It was the ending that let it down. It was rushed and worse than that....I saw it coming thanks to the image on the cover of my edition. If the ending had been written longer, with more feeling, I could have really loved this book. It describes the friendship of two well-to-do London men. Both in high positions in their fields, and both formerly in love with a recently deceased woman. The two men both find themselves with a moral dilema and can only pick fault with the way the other friend acted. Their bitterness an anger with each other reaches fairly high stakes and the high drama takes place in the Amsterdam of the title.
A story that develops like clockwork written in an impeccable style, funny with several surprise turns. The end is somewhat disappointing at first but then the aftermath takes you by surprise again. Great read.
I read this book on a Sunday afternoon in utter bliss by a roaring fire under my fur throw. I have been wanting to read Ian McEwan for a while and the marketing people did a good job on me with this one. I was drawn in by the eerily atmospheric front cover of duelling men from a bygone age and the flyleaf tempter of the story to come - a racy woman with several lovers and a funeral - perfect for this racy woman and the month of death and decay. It's a short novel so time investment is minimal and I am glad of that as for a Sunday afternoon piece of light entertainment it did a job. However, somehow I felt a little short-changed by the whole thing considering I am after all reading a Booker prize winner. There was no gasp or moment of revelation for me - knowing what we know of the world and how it works in the media and politics these days nothing came as a surprise - maybe we were a little more naive back in the late 90's about such things when the book was written. The motivation for the two main protagonists Clive and Vernon in bringing the novel to it's climax was for me far-fetched and pretty thin. Certainly a scathing commentary on the viler aspects of human nature that live within each of us during our working lives but at the end of the day - we already know that politicians and the press are a back-stabbing loathsome bunch and that the middle and so called upper middle classes of society are so full of themselves and their own importance that to them anything outside of their sphere of mememe world is irrelevant - so nothing new here and not tackled in this novel in anyway that shakes my perspective on the way it is. That said there were passages in the book which resonated with me and I wanted to carry on reading so in that it did the job of entertaining me for a while although I doubt I will be giving it much after thought as I have done with other books I have read.
A quick read, this novel has some of the best passages I've seen from McEwan. He's just brilliant. It's essentially a tale of greed and self destruction. None of the characters are likable whatsoever. Although the book is may years old, I did find the moral discussions around Garmony so be extremely timely. I highly recommend this book, but do not expect anything lighthearted, humorous, or endearing.
So close to five stars! I really loved Amsterdam, and then the last thirty pages dropped my love to a strong like. I can't verbalize why, exactly. It seemed too, pat, too predictable, maybe. Too easy, and a then again a stretch of believably. I'm good as suspending belief in speculative fiction; I'm not sure that this is what should be happening here, though.What I loved: there was a great discussion about morality here that just struck a chord in me. I won't tell you what it is, because it could spoil a bit of the novel. But Clive's perspective on the morality of Vernon's actions as an editor really touched me. It's something I think we should think about, especially in this age of online attacks using any ammunition close at hand, collateral damage be damned.I also loved the description of Clive's composing process. This was beautiful writing, and I found myself slowing down to really taste the language. McEwan is good at that. Vernon's life as an editor was also interesting, though less appealing to me. That could be just that I identified with Clive, but not at all with Vernon. I wonder if one more extroverted than I am would be the other way around.This is the second McEwan book I've read; the first, On Chesil Beach, also involved music. But: I really didn't like it. This one was much more to my liking. I'll try at least one more McEwan novel before I decide what I think about him.
This is the second novel by Ian McEwan that I've read, and I think I may have to conclude Mr. McEwan and myself just do not get along. "Amerstardam" is what literature might be like if "Mrs. Dalloway" had never happened: there's hardly anyone in this book, who isn't wealthy, extremely accomplished, and very British. It invites comparison, of course, to "Saturday," McEwan's more obvious homage to "Daloway," which featured a successful brain surgeon who had a genius-kid blues guitarist and a prize-winning poet for kids. Clarissa Dalloway, we should remember, was neither particularly bright nor particularly accomplished, though she managed to be pretty memorable. I suspect that McEwan is positioning himself to be the favorite author of the new British ruling class, which probably gets him invited to some pretty good parties. "Amerstam" features the editor of a national British daily, a noted composer, a cabinet secretary, a photographer who'd worked for Vogue, and another prominent politician. You know, just folks. The other similarity to "Saturday" here is the fact that it seems to have an odd distrust of the written word. That book, let's remember, featured a venerable old poet getting socked right in the jaw after daring to stand up to a thug. "Amsterdam" gives us Vernon, a newspaper editor constantly at war with a faction of the staff he dismisses as "the grammarians," you know, newspaper writers who bother with the finer points of grammar and style. True, Vernon is attempting to find his fading paper's place in the new media landscape, but It's still kind of depressing, really, especially since McEwan's writing isn't bad at all. But Vernon's attitude seems to point toward the fact that McEwan, for all his use of the indirect third person, is a writer more interested in systems than people. That's not what I read novels for, though, thank you very much. There are some things to admire about "Amsterdam," beyond McEwan's prose. It features, as other reviewers have noted, a lovely account of the mechanics of artistic creation on the part of the composer, something that's surprisingly rare in fiction. And the book is, as a blurb has it "a well-oiled machine," the plot, with, as another reviewer noted, its Greek tragedy dynamics, really does lock together very nicely. And there's some dry humor here and there. But in the end, "Amsterdam" struggles to justify its existence: its seems a bit like literature for a post-literature world. And it is, at last, refreshingly brief. This thing got the Booker Prize? Heaven forfend!
Molly is dead but the lives of her ex-lovers, Composer Clive, Journalist Vernon, Politician Julian and Caregiver George are entwined and layered in emotion. Ugh! I want to say more but I fear it will give too much away.
Not at all what I expected.
The book is very easy to read. I wish I knew more about music, because there's so much about composing and listening and such that I'm sure it adds layers to the story that I do not catch.
If the bookw as not so acclaimed, I might have dismissed it as popfiction fluff, but there really is a lot here for discussion and contemplation.
The book is very easy to read. I wish I knew more about music, because there's so much about composing and listening and such that I'm sure it adds layers to the story that I do not catch.
If the bookw as not so acclaimed, I might have dismissed it as popfiction fluff, but there really is a lot here for discussion and contemplation.
This book was very odd. The story begins with the death of Molly. Molly who was the friend of several men, and the lover of several others even though she was married. Two of her previous lovers, Clive and Vernon, attend the funeral and pay their respects. Then they go off and continue to live their lives, but they have both been changed as a result of the loss of their mutual friend. I am still trying to figure out what the plot was. Is jealousy the main theme or friendship gone array? Is it the continuation of life after the death of someone very close? Life that follows a depressing path. I don’t have the answer to these questions. I found the writing to be a bit too wordy. I also found the ideas to be choppy and scattered. This is the first McEwan book I have read and I have to say, I am not impressed.
A bit predictable with a bunch of unlikeables. An amazingly beautiful and charismatic woman dies of an unnamed disease that is so quick that she becomes almost immediately helpless and dependent on her pathetic, martyr husband. At her funeral her lovers sigh and remember her perfect moments - oh yes, and all through the novel as well. But alas, she has left behind some photos that are damning and can be used to totally thwart the evil and right-wing foreign secretary (who of course was also her lover)and can destroy his career. And so on and so forth. Not really that interesting, at least to me, and too neat of an ending for my taste.
Loved the film Atonement based on McEwan's book, so will read more of his work.
Loved the film Atonement based on McEwan's book, so will read more of his work.
This is the second book by Ian McEwan that I have read and the second one that I have been disappointed with. Makes me wonder whether or not it was a very poor year when this won the Booker prize.Firstly the book is beautifully writen and it is obvious that the author has done his homework but is really little more than a novella and the writer's knowledge rather deadened the plot for me rather than add to it.Molly Lane dies of some (thankfully) unspecified disease and two old lovers and friends meet outside the crematorium and make a pact which will change their lives. Yet in truth it seems that these two lovers are the ones with the disease, that being self-obsession and an ignorance to the feelings and needs of society around them. Vernon Halliday wants to ruin the Foreign Secretary and increase the sales of his broadsheet newspaper with little thought to how it will affect others while Clive Linley is so interested in finishing his symphony and achieve greatness that he overlooks an attempted rape. But in truth I found little to like about any of the books characters (although I did have a sneaking admiration for Garmony's wife). Perhaps the present revelations about the News International 'phone-hacking' saga so much in the news over here clouded my judgment although this is something we will never know for sure. All in all I found this book fell a little 'flat' with no real spark to the story but others obviously think differently
Not a super big fan of Amsterdam, but I do love McEwan in general. The ending was slightly dissatisfying and at times I felt that it was a chore rather than a pleasure to read. A chore in that I lost interest pretty quickly.so/so.
Short novel re 2 friends, one a journalist, who gets fired, the other a symphony writer. Girlfriend who dates all these men, and reveals compromising pictures of a powerful cabinet minister. Too short.
A trifle that had me wondering what all the fuss was about McEwan, read in 1999.
I thought this was tightly plotted and therefore hard to put down. I enjoyed the minutiae of his writing - words and phrases - but when I got to the end, I thought the plot turned out absurd so felt rather cheated. Did it really win the Booker? Quite surprised! I enjoyed it but only with reservations.
Excellent, clever read, in true McEwan fashion. A short study of everyday human behaviour, really, and how we end up hurting and hurt in the process.
Since there already so many good reviews. I'm just going to say I enjoyed it and after thinking about it . Reminded me of a Hitchcock or a Twilight Zone thriller. Which made it fun.
A thrilling page turner with very strong characters. Amsterdam is not quite a psychological thriller, but much of the drama is internalized. Remarkably the author gets a lot of mileage from the buildup to events the reader knows are coming. I needed to reread the ending to figure out exactly what had happened.
This extremely far-fetched story begins at the funeral of 46-year-old Molly Lane, and the main characters are three of her ex-lovers and her husband. It becomes clear that free-spirited and vivacious Molly had atrocious taste in men, as all four are thoroughly despicable in different ways. I read all 178 pages in one insomniac session in the early hours of this morning, and although it didn't send me back to sleep, I can't say that I ever really got into it.
After a lovers death, two friends meet a funeral and her death haunts them. Clive, a composer, and Vernon, a journalist, are at the apex of professional success when an an ethical decision alters their life.
I absolutely loved this until the last chapter, but the ending is simultaneously predictable and implausible, so much so that, until then, I'd assumed it couldn't possibly be heading the way it looked like it was: this is a Booker Prize-winning novel, after all.That said, it is a beautifully written book. As a musician, I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of music and the process of writing it. The characters are sympathetic, even in their narcissism, and have some depth to them. And the issues it raises are interesting and deftly handled.In other words, very good, but not quite as good as I expected.
Understated and fast-moving, this is a graceful novel that asks difficult questions. I'd been told by others that this is McEwan's best work (at least as of a few years ago), and from what I've seen I whole-heartedly agree. McEwan's style is delicate here, his authorial voice not so overpowering as it is in some of the other novels I've read. The characters he creates here are not just believable, but sympathetic--something I've found lacking in some of his other works. Additionally, he creates some adept passages about artistry and music especially, to the point that some of the passages reminded me of favorite moments in work by James Baldwin and others who let music so influence their work. Those passages combined with graceful writing throughout and an engaging quick story made this book well worth exploring, and perhaps even returning to as well.I'd absolutely reocmmend this to folks who are looking for a taste of McEwan or a fast-moving escape, as well as to any readers who have an interest in fiction that deals ethics or with the place of the artist and or artistic morality in society. Readers interested in detailed character studies should appreciate McEwan's work in general.
Having read On Chesil Beach for book club I was curious to read another of his. This was sort of enjoyable about two men's friendships with each other, but the ending was so contrived and pretentious that it detracted from the story up to that point. It left me feeling that I didn't actually like any of the main characters, having agreed and disagreed with their actions throughout the book and wasn't really bothered by what happened to them. Even the interesting points raised became tainted.