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April 06, 2005

Ian McEwan - Amsterdam

Amsterdam - Ian McEwan

** SPOILERS **

Tale Of The Unexpected!

Molly dies, and she's been very popular with men during her life. Four men in particular are involved in this tale - Vernon, a newspaper editor; Clive, a composer; Julian, an MP; and George, her eventual husband.

Vernon and Clive are best friends, both dislike Julian. When Molly dies they both sense their own mortality. They don't want to lose their faculties and die confused and cared for by others. The make a pact to arrange each other's euthanasia should this ever happen.

George finds a photograph of Julian that had been taken by Molly. In the photo Julian is wearing a dress and posing to the camera. This is dynamite, as Julian is now vying to become Prime Minister. He sells the photos to Vernon, who immediately decides they must be published. His colleagues aren't so sure, but he manages to persuade them.

Meanwhile Clive is composing a symphony, commissioned for the millennium. He is having some trouble with it, and goes to the
lake district to clear his head. Whilst there, he is witness to an attempted rape, but tells no one about it except Vernon.

So far, all is reasonable, this is a pretty good story, exept for a bit too much detailed description of the symphonic composition process. But then these two old frinds fall out. Julian comes clean about the photos on TV, and the public don't seem to mind too much. Vernon publishes anyway and in the backlash is asked to resign from the paper. Clive has always been against publication, and says so in a note to Vernon, but the tone is misleading and Vernon takes it the wrong way. Vernon tells the police about Clive's experiance in the lake district and has to go back to Manchester to answer questions. This completely shakes his mood, and stops him from completing the symphony properly, he just can't find the melody he needs.

So both 'friends', now mortal enemies, decide to pretend to make it up in Amsterdam, but really to kill each other. They both hire euthanasia vigilanties (it is Amsterdam after all), drug each other with champagne, and are both killed.

There isn't much else to say about this book. It's a tale that Roald Dahl would probably have put into one of his short story collections, being only about 100 pages of large type in length. The shock ending is fairly predictable, but the emnity between the foes isn't properly developed. If you like this, then move on to some of McEwan's better work, which includes any of his other novels in fact. If you don't like it, don't give up on McEwan though.

AE2

Posted by se71 at April 6, 2005 04:34 PM

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