December 2008
History: Published in 1975.
Plot: A book about a group of people living together in the 70’s and they get really drunk and high, and have crazy sex and talk about eachother. And the misfit of the group doesn’t end very well. I didn’t really like it, it had no story line and the characters were not that funny.
Review: What a shame that the first Martin Amis book I chose to read should have been such a festering armpit of occasionally derivative, frequently dull and mildly disgusting characterization, plot and narrative.
The plot, such that it is, centers around a group of self-obsessed bores in various states of physical and mental degeneration drinking, taking drugs and having sex, or failing to, in the countryside. I've always been a fan of the oddballs of literature but sadly this lot fall short of the mark. The bunch of no-hopers include the impotent, aggressive Andy, the apparently physically grotesque (certainly mentally) Keith and the only mildly yawn-deterring characters, a trio of Americans who are best described as vari-sexuals. Their antics get more and more bizarre, yet somehow less and less shocking as one is almost killed by chemical ingestion, and comedy aspect of the novel revolves around trying to revive him through more chemical ingestion.
Opening Line: “There were five bedrooms.”
Closing Line: “As he watched Keith move up the drive, his green eyes flashed into the dawn like wild, dying suns.”
Quotes: ”Alcohol inebriation had well passed the stage in which it might responsibly be explained away as extreme drunkedness.”
Rating: Terrible.
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