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'There were long conversations about her move to
the main house which she dreaded and resisted, knowing it would be a one-way
journey. The alternative was a nursing home. Vernon and all her other friends
advised her to stay in Holland Park, believing familiarity would serve her
better. How wrong they were. She would have been freer, even under the
strictest institutional regime, than she turned out to be in George's care.'
When Molly Lane dies, her lovers gather at her
funeral. Vernon Halliday is editor of the broadsheet newspaper The Judge and
his best friend is Clive Linley, composer extraordinaire, commissioned to write
a piece to mark the Millennium. Together, Vernon and Clive loathe Molly's
husband, George. Also present is another of Molly's lovers, Julian Garmony, who
just happens to be Foreign Secretary. Their lives are thrown into collision
when it emerges that there are some rather embarrassing pictures of Garmony,
taken by Molly. Should Vernon publish them despite Clive's protestations that
to do so would spurn Molly's memory? And have they both become too preoccupied
in their work?
'Amsterdam' won Britain's 1998 Booker Prize,
despite many critics preferring McEwan's previous novel ('Enduring Love'). True
enough, 'Amsterdam' starts very slowly, and seems dull by comparison. Vernon's
career as an editor seems quite unconvincing, and could have done with more
research. But McEwan has made all the chilli sink to the bottom... The end of
the novel is delicious, and very unexpected. It may seem silly, but this is due
to the large dose of Waughian black comedy. How truly do we regard our friends?
Both Clive and Vernon seem like Frankensteins, unaware of the monsters they
create in their work. So, did it deserve to win the Booker? The answer is
undoubtedly NO. The CWA Gold Dagger would have been a more suitable award...
Kevin Patrick Mahoney
|
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our Ian McEwan page,
for Ian McEwan biography, Ian McEwan bibliography, Ian McEwan articles, Ian
McEwan interviews, and Ian McEwan essays |
