Money - Martin Amis (Published 1984)
So I decided to subject myself to the compulsive yet disgusting world of another Amis novel, and I wasn’t disappointed. This I’m told,is the most compulsive and disgusting of the lot.
Money follows the life of John Self,who has to be one of the most nauseating characters I’ve ever encountered. Self is a porn addict, sex addict, drink addict, food addict - basically any kind of bad habit. The one thing that unites all these addictions is money. The main event of the novel follows John working on his first movie,meeting plenty of other unsavoury characters like himself. This is most definitely a satire, too disgusting to be real. But as it’s set in the early 80s, it’s not hard to believe there really were people like this,which is probably the most unnerving thing.
Despite all the drama of Self and his producer Goodney trying to deal with the actors in “Good Money” (which somewhat ironically later becomes renamed as “Bad Money”), the most interesting is the voice of John as he narrates the novel. Although he indulges in the lowest of the low, you can’t help but feel some kind of affection for him,or sorrow as he tries to figure out what is making him feel so terrible all the time, frustrated by his lack of knowledge of ‘real’ life. His character never slips into caricature, despite being painfully funny at times, such as his many drunken nights making a fool of himself in brothels.
There’s no real plot as such - it’s the downfall of a man as his life begins to unravel all around him, and all you can do is sit back and watch. John watches as the world to which he had been so lovingly embraced into turns round and bites him where it hurts. The subtitle of the book is “A Suicide Note” - a suicide note to the life of John Self, even though he doesn’t die. Money leaves a sour taste in the mouth,a warning against the terrible things you can do to yourself, if nothing else.
Rating: 9/10