Aug 09 2005
Amsterdam. Ian McEwan
The book won the 1998 Booker prize.
The book is a short, intense and easily flowing read. It follows 5 wealthy people, a dead woman and her surviving husband, the editor of a national broadsheet, the govenrment foreign minister, and a composer.
You learn details of their daily lives and values as the plot evolves around several distinct morale decision points that lead in an almost invisible, inevitable, chain to the conclusion.
John Sutherland, of The Sunday Times summed up my experience quite well with -”Never mind the width, feel the quality“ I found it outstanding. I am a little biaised.
Here’s a contemporary review published by the Guardian that includes some basic plot and character details:
Review excerpt
Ian McEwan is a damned good writer. [Will] Self said that he read the novel in two hours, while also looking after children and doing a spot of bank business; I read it pretty quickly too, and I suggest that this is not only because of the book’s slightness, but because of the compulsive nature of McEwan’s prose: you just don’t want to stop reading it, even when he’s writing about musical composition, or the difficult characters and bad behaviour of ‘creative’ people. (’These types - novelists were by far the worst - managed to convince friends and families that not only their working hours, but every nap and stroll, every fit of silence, depression and drunkenness bore the exculpatory ticket of high intent.’)
Wendy what-should-i-read-next?
write the first thought on Amsterdam. Ian McEwan
