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| Books,
Justin Harries,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F3
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The first thing that struck me about McEwan's latest is that it is a novella disguised as a novel. Do not think this is stinginess on my behalf. McEwan's writing is always so succinct that all waste is jettisoned, just that after a long wait it would be good to sink into a more substantial tome.
One has the feeling that McEwan has subsided into a middle class torpor - that there has been achievement, followed by coalescence, a decline that is echoed by the novel's protagonists, a successful publisher and a composer. As they have bent the world around them to bear in their own shape, their misguided attempts to fortify, even justify this success immerses them dangerously blind to the needs of each other. Such is their undoing. This bitter tone is carried throughout the book; so, in effect we have are awaiting and contemplating their fall. In this way, coupled with its brevity, Amsterdam reminds me of a Tales from the Crypt comic book. McEwan as the cowled Crypt Keeper, cackling over the demise of his characters, is an easily imagined image.
Amsterdam, while an improvement of the somewhat BBC thriller Enduring Love, seems a little malnourished after the rich psychosis of earlier works. There was something luminous amongst the horror, with Amsterdam we witness a darkening, an inevitable decline that cannot be stopped by the act of creation, or even the conviction to create.
Vintage
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