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3.0 out of 5 stars
The Opening Salvo, Sep 16 2003
Even though it was written in the mid-'80s and is set in 1981, Amis's novel was probably the first major fictional salvo on the culture of capitalism that pervaded the entire decade and characterized the Reagan/Thatcher era in the West. Almost twenty years after its publication, the book's language and style remain vivid and distinctive, but its satirical power has greatly diminished. The materialism and shallowness of the '80s, especially in certain segments of American and British society, has been so widely skewered to have become cliché, and it's very difficult to read the book now without mentally referencing other major works such as The Bonfire of the Vanities, and especially American Psycho. The story (what there is of it) is narrated by John Self, a 30ish British director of commercials set to embark on his first Hollywood deal. A figure of Falstaffian excess, he drinks, smokes ("unless otherwise states, I am _always_ lighting another cigarette"), whores, handjobs, and bumbles his way through the book, which switches between New York and London as he works with California golden boy Fielding Goodman to set up his movie. Self is a parody of an insecure, self-destructive, racist, misogynist, money-grubbing alcoholic and Amis beats the reader over the head with this caricature. Are we supposed to be sympathetic toward this loser who has been socially conditioned to value only money and sex, or are his antics supposed to amuse, or both? Various reviewers have suggested one or the other reaction, however, boredom is the more likely response. It's hard to imagine being simpatico with the self-anihilating protagonist-unless one has similar problems in their own lives. Meanwhile, the much vaunted humor of the book is very hit or miss, and grows steadily absent as the repetitiveness of Self's antics wear thin. It's too bad, because Amis's goal of highlighting the emptiness of packaged objects of desire and the behavior their pursuit encourages, is a very worthy endeavor. And buried in all of it somewhere is some interesting stuff about the relationship between sex and money. Ultimately, though, it's hard to sit through Self's lengthy slide to the gutter without wondering why it's taking so long to get to. At 250 pages, the book might have fully engaged me, but at 350, it feels bloated and a little self-indulgent. Still, it's hard not to appreciate the many fine twists and turns of language Amis employs in the service of his labored satire.
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