A Bitter Booker Disappointment

Amsterdam - Ian McEwan

This was a novel I really wanted to read. I was still buzzing from the brilliance of Atonement when I found Amsterdam in a local charity shop - I couldn't wait to get stuck into something just as good, if not better. Thing is, when I did get stuck into it, I didn't really get stuck.

Amsterdam is the story of two old friends who meet outside a crematorium at the funeral of a mutual friend and lover. Molly Lane's death prompts Vernon Halliday and Clive Linley to rethink their lives and their friendship. In the following days, Vernon makes fatal decisions as editor of a quality broadsheet, The Judge, and Clive, a successful modern composer, searches for the perfect melody for the millennium. The blurb describes the book as "brimming with surprises", but it was about as surprising as the force of gravity.

This book was merely a journey through a troubled few weeks in the lives of a couple of ordinary men. I was expecting brilliant writing and a brilliant storyline, especially as Atonement was only shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2001 and Amsterdam actually won it in 1998. I suppose I ought not to raise my expectations too high, but I'm definitely not as keen on trusting the judges of these prizes.

To be fair to McEwan, his writing is evocative and skilled, but it doesn't have the familiar technique of using particular words, phrases and vocabulary to create an unmistakable atmosphere. There is nothing about the plot that keeps the reader hooked other than a mere curiosity to see if anything is actually ever going to happen. The ending is similar to the "and I woke up to find it was all a dream" ending and the characters were about as interesting as my big toe. To keep it short, Amsterdam was an utter disappointment. Alain de Botton, of the Daily Mail, called it, "A page-turner" - but I'm afraid the only thing that should turn these pages is the wind.

If you do feel compelled to read any of McEwan's novels, make sure it is Atonement. That is one novel that won't let you down.

Please comment if you have anything to add to this review of "Amsterdam".

McEwan Magnificence

Atonement - Ian McEwan

Before writing about Atonement, I looked back over my review of On Chesil Beach, also by McEwan. I'd titled it 'A Moment in Time Can Change a Lifetime', and I've found that Atonement focuses very much on the same idea - one moment, one single action altering the course of many lives.

Atonement has become incredibly well known, since being released as a film, starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, in 2007. The Novel itself, however, was published in 2001, and shortlisted for the booker prize in the same year. Fortunately, I have not seen the film and can praise Atonement purely as a literary masterpiece without my comments being soiled by impressions from the film.

The story begins on one very hot summer's day in 1935, during which thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses her older sister, Cecilia, plunging into the garden fountain in her underwear. Robbie Turner watches as she undresses and sinks into the water and soon Briony allows her creative imagination to explore ideas suspended between childhood and adulthood. Her mind eventually leads to her "crime", causing unforgivable shame and irreparable rifts amongst her family.

I mentioned in reviewing On Chesil Beach that McEwan has a remarkable talent for creating atmosphere with language. Of course every good author should be able to create scenes through subtle descriptions and well chosen vocabulary but McEwan is different - every word, every syllable echoes the story and the events to come. The beginning of the story evokes the erotic - from the "sticky" afternoon heat to the description of a fifteen-year-old girl indulging in chocolate. There is something vulgar about McEwan's language making the intimacy between characters seem gross and perverse - and so it should. Everything about McEwan's language is pitched perfectly to the story.

The second part of the novel takes Robbie through Dunkirk in 1940 and is a satisfying account of the war, carefully avoiding cliche. Here the writing is gripping and painful but Robbie's likable character is enough to keep us reading. Erotica is gone from McEwan's writing as the need to portray the reality of horrific history takes hold. But, enough about the plot.

Back to McEwan, there are two things I want to mention. Firstly, there is a moment of truly brilliant writing in the final fifty pages of the novel. I read about ten pages with my nose getting closer and closer to the paper - soon I to realised the words were losing their focus. I was desperate to be included more as my heart raced along with Briony's narrative. The writer is truly magnificent in his writing, describing everything down to the smallest subconscious gestures of the human being.

The second thing is not so good. There is one sex scene which seems utterly unreal to me. Without giving too much away, two virgins realise within one afternoon that they are in love and start having rampant, violent sex against a book case. Biting each other and making love without words, it seems like a very unlikely type of intimacy between two first time lovers. Especially as their love unfolds as everlasting, based upon this first discovery of their feelings for each other.

Despite this, I can safely say that Atonement is definitely worth reading. It is the best book I have read in some time and, whereas McEwan thoroughly disappointed me with On Chesil Beach, with Atonement he blew me away. I'm even looking out for a copy of Amsterdam, a novel that went on to win the 1998 booker prize, to read more of this talented writer. Ultimately, Atonement is a fantastic exploration of guilt and innocence, betrayal and forgiveness, love and hatred - pick up a copy and let it blow your mind.

Please comment if you have anything to add to this review of "Atonement".

A Moment in Time Can Change a Lifetime

On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan

I've read the first of my stocking fillers and I'm not entirely sure what to say about it. Was it well written? Yes. Easy to read? Yes. Did it keep me hooked? Yes. But - and there's always a but - there was something just not quite right about this story.

Obviously it's a modern piece of literature, being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007, and everything about the book is modern - the language, the setting, the issue. The time that the book was set in (1962) is particularly interesting - it seems England is on the verge of social change and the young couple of the novel (Edward and Florence) are caught between the old and the new regime. This is central to McEwan's book as he looks back and forward in the lives of the newlyweds.

His technique is a good one, switching subtly back and forward and changing from Edward's perspective to that of Florence. However, personally I find it distracting. I'm reading on, eager to know what's to come, when all of a sudden it's five years previous and I have to read about a little more background. It does build vivid character profiles and the reader soon understands that the rift between Edward and Florence is the result of their diverse childhoods and their burdens. McEwan suggests that perhaps the little details from our childhood, the decisions and the attitudes of our parents might make the difference between success and failure in one moment of our later lives.

That leads me to another aspect of this novel - although the storyline jumps in time, the main event only takes place in the space of a few hours, a moment. This event seems something small, but it is actually a part of a huge factor in any relationship - the physical side. Personally, I believe it comes hand in hand with the emotional side - if you can connect with someone emotionally, you can connect with them physically. However, the difficulty with McEwan's couple is just that - they cannot connect.

Is there not anything more to it? Of course there is. However, I find the blurb a bit misleading - I was ready for a mind-blowing divide between two young people caused by some devastating event or hideous past. Neither came - it is merely an issue between two people who think they are in love but who together, represent discomfort. Here McEwan is impressive - everything about the descriptions and the lovely language he uses expresses this discomfort. The author's descriptions of the two young people alone on their wedding night are my favourite aspect of the book, McEwan deserves to be highly praised for them.

However, although I can acknowledge that On Chesil Beach is a very well written, well structured novel, it does not satisfy me as a reader. It is a book that tells you 'what not to do' but, as a person who likes a good story, I don't find one in this. It is a modern book conveying an everyday issue but the few hours in which the issue surfaces for Edward and Florence feels very drawn out. It is definitely a matter of personal opinion but I do not feel that this book is very touching or insightful - there is nothing particularly unique about it. But if there's one thing this book does convey, it is that one moment in time can change an entire lifetime.

Please comment if you have anything to add to this review of 'On Chesil Beach'.

My Stocking Fillers

Firstly, Happy Christmas to you all!

I hope you're having a wonderful day, but I thought I'd interrupt it by sharing with you a few of my stocking fillers, in the field of literature.

On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan

It is July 1962. Edward and Florence, young innocents married that morning, arrive at a hotel on the Dorset Coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their private fears of the wedding night to come...

This book, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize this year, was given to me by my lovely Auntie Jacqui and her partner, Mike. It didn't win the prize but nevertheless, the novel has been well praised. It is a short novel so hopefully I will be back soon to give you some feedback on its good and - perhaps - bad points.

The Gathering, Anne Enright

The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan gather in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother Liam. It wasn't the drink that killed him - although that certainly helped - it was what happened to him as a boy in his grandmother's house, in the winter of 1968. His sister Veronica was there then, as she is now: keeping the dead man company, just for another little while.

Now, this one did win the Man Booker Prize, so you've probably heard of it. Enright was also in the papers around the time the prize was awarded for writing an essay that criticised the McCanns. My Grandma and Grandad bought it for me and I'm sure it will live up to its award-winning status.

Engleby, Sebastian Faulks

Mike Engleby says things that others dare not think.

Another present from my grandparents, this is something apparently "unlike anything he has written before", but since reading Birdsong, I've been a bit of a fan of Faulks. I haven't read any reviews, but it has been recommended to me by a teacher - let's hope it doesn't disappoint.

Suite Française, Irène Némirovsky

In 1941, Irène Némirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. Némirovsky's death in Auschwitz in 1942 prevented her from seeing the day, sixty-five years later, that the existing two sections of her planned novel sequence, "Suite Française", would be rediscovered and hailed as a masterpiece.

This, a present from my mum, sounds like an incredible story. My novel is the translation of the original French publication and I can't wait to read it. I'll have to read into the author's own story a bit more too as even that sounds like an amazing, if heart-wrenching story.

So, those are my four Christmas novels. Maybe some of you out there could help me decide what to read first, and, if you've read any of them already, let me know what you think. Hopefully, I'll have a few reviews on the way soon.

Have a happy Christmas and best wishes for the new year.