Money

This book contains one of the finest first-person narratives ever written. Coarse and chummy, fretful and alcoholic, the narrator is a Studebaker-sized beast of a man who skates to his ruin on too much booze, bad credit and pornography. Reading this book is like watching a rampaging circus elephant get shot in mid-city traffic, sink slowly to its knees and die.

Great style of writing, but somehow the book lost me somewhere in the middle. It is about John Self, newly rich who burns his life and chases more money. Dialogues are funny, some parts of the novel are very entertaining. But unlike "London Fields", which arouses more and more interest as the plot develops, "Money" becomes repetitive and boring. At least for me.

Maybe I tend to become too emotionally invested in books and overreact, but this book had me physically recoiling in disgust, yelling with frustration, and frequently laughing out loud.
"Money" was so painful at points that it's hard to say that I really enjoyed reading it, but I'm certainly glad that I did. I also really cannot remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book, or at anything really. So read it, but know that it's basically 300+ pages of comic alcoholism, porn, and violence.

This book was great, it's depravity defined. Just when you think a man can't stoop lower in life, the John Self (the name is fitting) amazes you at how low he can go. Highly recommended for those with too much "money" in their pockets...and a small moral lesson that follows with it.

Amis's "Money" has one major strength and two major weaknesses. The strength is that it is extremely funny at times--it's one of the very few books that have caused me to laugh out loud. Unfortunately, 1) It drags in the middle. The book would've been better if the middle hundred pages had been condensed into about ten or fifteen. And, 2) the postmodern element, which unfolds toward the end (and which I won't describe in any detail, in order not to give things away), comes across as tacked-on, overly clever, and even an affront to the reader. If you like postmodern musings on the relationship between subject and object (the writer and the things and people he/she writes about), read Paul Auster's "The New York Trilogy", where this postmodern theme comes through with care and excellent craftsmanship. For Amis, it's just something to tack on in order to seem clever and "with it". (His interviews corroborate that he's much more interested in winning awards and seeming intelligent than in providing a pleasurable reading experience.)

This is a good book to read if you're an aspiring writer; it showcases a talented writer making mistakes. Better to learn from the mistakes of others than your own mistakes, wherever possible!

"Money" is a book that reflects your lowest experiences, but it does with the hard to come by knowledge that life is not a simple, by-the-numbers exercise. Amis reconizes that everything -- experience, fun, sex, drugs -- is overrated; what really counts is honest human contact. And that is something that has escaped our present age. A wonderful, life-changing novel. Please read it, now!!! Besides all this, it is howlingly funny, and it skewers the superficial stylishness of our time like nothing yet.

This is probably the funniest book I've ever read. The consumerism and addiction of modern society are presented with careless and unashamed humor. I would recommend this to everyone who wants a good laugh!

The strangest thing about this novel is that it rips off Brian De Palma's awful film 'Dressed to Kill'--a film which Amis himself mocked in an early 80s magazine article. Amis can write a sentence with the very best of them, but can't construct a plot to save his life. Certainly worth reading, however.

This book contains one of the finest first-person narratives ever written. Coarse and chummy, fretful and alcoholic, the narrator is a Studebaker-sized beast of a man who skates to his ruin on too much booze, bad credit and pornography. Reading this book is like watching a rampaging circus elephant get shot in mid-city traffic, sink slowly to its knees and die.

Amis has succeeded in making a hard-drinking, hard-drugging, and occasional date-rapist a profoundly sympathetic character. The more frequently the protagonist--if he can be called that--overdoses on pornography the more you ask your girlfriend to get up and get you a beer. Such is the state of the tail end of the 20th century, as Amis brilliantly conveys.

this is a great book, immensely well written. but trust me, that after you read enough of martin amis, you should get sick of martin amis---of the personality style and construction of his writing: the man comes through. and that man is excessively showy, deluded, and obsessed with matters of little consequence. or it least it so appears. i'd like to read depressing writing, at least, with more consequence.

This book is awesome, highly readable and very funny. Some of the lines had me laughing out loud and the rest had me sniggering. ENJOY! I am going to search out the rest of this guys work - what have i been missing?

For the most part, I believe drunks like John Self in this novel, crazy people like the Australian pianist in the movie who's name I can't remember, and blow-hards like Citizen Kane don't make interesting protagonists.

It takes a Dickens to create works of art based on characters whose mental life seems so circumscribed and repetitive.