Book Review – Money by Martin Amis
A Satirical Novel on the Value of Morals and the Value of Money
Though the prose in Money (Penguin Non-Classic, ISBN: 0140088911, 1986) is sparkling and overflowing with brilliance, the story is thin and too reliant on cheap gimmicks to keep the reader turning the pages. Martin Amis has a strong wit, but it gets the best of him more often than not.
A Tough Beginning
Once the novel kicks in, the reader will find that the desire to keep going is much stronger. Those first sixty pages are tough, though, and may require a focused plow-through just to get to the real meat and find out if it would be worth finishing.
Once past the hump of the first fifth of the book, a reader will see that Amis maintains his glorious, descriptive prose throughout the whole novel. With the remainder, he goes on to shape a solid cast of supporting characters to surround his classic anti-hero
John Self: The Anti-Hero
The anti-hero (the 21st-century-addict and ridiculously named John Self) is too much like too many peoples' little quirks to hate. He is such an exploded version of those quirks that he takes the need for an occasional drink, cheeseburger, sexual release, or violence to the level of being an alcoholic, fast food junkie, pervert, and misogynist.
Self is a fine creation, and it’s amazing how Amis is able to put so much faith in the character that the reader will constantly find herself cheering for Self when he tries to turn his life around and never feeling sorry for him when he messes it up (again and again). He's not a friend, and oddly enough, the reader has the same relationship with Self that the character of Martin Amis does.
Martin Amis, Self-Indulgence, and Coincidence
Interestingly enough, the character of Amis serves a few purposes in the way of plot (rewriting the Doris Arthur script, explaining the whole thing at the end, serving as a counterpoint to Self's overblown lifestyle), but the fact that Martin Amis put himself into the book is eye-rollingly boastful. Perhaps he did it just to break down the fourth wall a bit and say, "Hey, this John Self guy, he isn't me. I'm me. And here I am!" Regardless, it’s cheap.
Coincidence is another technique that Amis overuses There are numerous times where something is said to Self the night before and he doesn't remember because he's too drunk. He meets the elusive Frank the Phone one night in a bar and doesn't remember any of it. That doesn't stop him from telling the reader that he doesn't remember when someone tells him he should.
Even more offensive is Self just flat-out refusing to tell the reader certain things that Doris and Selina said to him, but still saying that they've told him unbelievably terrible things that he can't comprehend. The reader should be propelled forward by the plot and the writing, not bad cliffhangers that distract from the text.
Following the Plot
Self is an interesting character with his descriptions of things, and it all comes out with a great vocabulary plastered all over the backbone of money. He can see the beauty of things, even describe them as being beautiful, but it doesn't mean anything to him at all. It's something beautifully frustrating about Self, regardless of there not being much in the way of plot. Even at the end of the book, it’s unclear as to what the reader was supposed to be caring about the whole time.
The reader will have to make a decision about what to follow, whether it be the movie Self was trying to make or the information about his personal life. Depending on the reader, she could become attached to Self's issues with Selina and Martina or to the on-set problems at the shooting-location and money problems surrounding the actors and script of the movie (Good Money or, as it was changed to later on, Bad Money).
Despite Its Shortcoming, the Novel is a Success
Though the novel has problems, it has great characters and a well-written density that more than make up for it. Amis takes the concept of writing like Dickens and modernizes it, making it possible to be read without inducing a coma.
Amis manages to shoot all of his straws up in the air towards the beginning and watch them all fall down into place at the end not unlike Great Expectations, where the reader meets a person here and there over the course of the first 50 pages and then they pop in and out of the story, each having an important effect on the story.
Perhaps dropping the plot out completely was a good idea for this novel, and a traditional storyline like the coming-of-age of Self as a grown up, trying to grow as a Pip-like character would have bogged the novel down. Amis instead leaves it up to the situation that he puts his characters in, and his dynamic characters themselves: the sexy, sex-fiend, money-driven Selina, the cool, wealthy, eccentric Fielding Goodney, the rich, yet pure and smart, Martina, and the moneyman himself, the money obsessed John Self, who brings everything back to a dollar amount and nothing more.
Money, Amis
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