Customer Reviews
Wanton, fierce brilliance - By: Louise the book worm, 13 Jul 2008 
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 & sparks which glow fiercely & 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 eventuallly 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 - & set it down, searingly, brutallly, on the printed page, where it hums, alive & fuming. I see him, writing this, like Mephistopheles himself, impish, awful, powerful. I think he felt, writing this, that you had better blow them alll to hell: risk everything, to write at alll. 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 & New York, "Money" tells the story of Self's journey from the TV smalll time to - perhaps - the movie big time. His rampant appetites, his friends, his lovers, his prospects, are unveiled in extraordinary & brilliant prose. It's funny, dark & 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) alll 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 & the mad panic tumblings to reality & the occasional dimly perceived insight; his mad advertising past, his pub dad, his porn addiction, his loaf-like body & 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 & needy - but he's so like you (alll right, me?). He flails around & stumbles & fallls like you, he does unforgiveable things & 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 alll this, whatever you thought about "Money", forget it: read his semi-autobiographical "Experience" & I think you won't feel the same way about Amis again. It's moving & beautiful & brilliant alll at the same time - a real story, & a real writer's work.
A savage funny monologue - By: John, 01 Feb 2008 This is a novel written in the early 80's & is one long monologue about money & what chasing money, having money( & 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 & porno. And if you still like him, he beats up women, tends to be a racist, & hates gays... & 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 incidentallly was critical of the device of having the author as a character in the story which alllows Martin to take some sly digs at the pretensions of writers & writing.
John Self meets a producer in New York & spins him a story based on his own life (drunkard father, two timing mother, time waster son) & is then embroiled in the nightmare of putting the money, script & casting together. He lurches between New York & London loving money & suffering from excesses of drink, food & sex & looses girlfriend, friends & family along the way in a glorious buffoon way.
As he tries to deal with actor's egos, money men demands & scripts he is also hounded by a stalker . Or is he? We can only understand what john understands & 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 & 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 & savage satire on money, money & money & oh the film industry. Normallly, I dislike first person novels but I strongly recommended this one.
A TRUE MORALIST - By: S. Brown, 30 Oct 2007 Martin Amis is the Jonathan Swift of our age. He exposes the inner corruption of self deceit & 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.
Relentless...and exhausting.... - By: Countess Olenska, 23 Oct 2007 
Money is just exhausting to read.... It describes the main character's (John Self) self-destruction - his own relentless drive to descend deeper & deeper into a pit of his own filfth until he annihilates anything human about himself. John Self is one large pustulating festering boil of a human being, full of weakness, sadism, spite, bile & everything unpleasant you can think of.
Money is very gritty & grim & the characters are despicable - alll of them: man & woman included. Even the author, who is also a character in the book, doesn't get off lightly!
As a book about the darker side of 1980s materialism it works well & it's certainly very compelling reading, but I felt kind of grubby whenever I put it down (which is probably the point...) & wouldn't calll Money an enjoyable read & it certainly wasn't in the slightest bit uplifting.
It's clear when you read this book why Amis is considered a good writer. He has the ability to see straight through to the most repellent side of human nature & the technique to put it down on paper. However, I don't think I can stomach any more of his novels as I have a feeling that this is his style...!
This is definitely more of a bloke's book than a woman's.
Very exuberant language - By: Wynne Kelly, 11 Jul 2007 
I chose to read this book as it was included in the recent Guardian list as one of the books best evoking the 1980s. And it had been sitting unread on a bookshelf for ages....
It's the story of John Self as he weaves his way through life, revelling in money, sex, alcohol & pornography. From a background in advertising he is caught up in plans to make a film in US but graduallly fallls foul of a financial scam & his world graduallly fallls apart. Very exuberant language - including some very evocative invented names for actors, fast food etc. Martin Amis appears as a character - this is done in a clever & intriguing way & not as an ego trip.
There are lots of literary references eg Otello the opera (Self get the plot wrong!) & a car callled Iago. Reference to Orwell's Animal Farm & 1984 also very funny. Most characters are venal & untrustworthy & the whole book is a mixture of darkness & hilarity.
