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John Self is an utterly despicable character. His only redeeming quality is his impatience for actors' egos -- though, he really only dislikes the way their egos interfere with his ability to make money. It is a testament to Martin Amis's writing, then, that reading Money is not merely an exercise in detesting John Self. Self is, as his name implies, a personification of man's basest urges. He drifts through life in endless pursuit of money, sex, drugs and food, treating them as little more than commodities to be procured, much like a character in a Bret Easton Ellis novel. Yet as he travels through the world of moneyed privilege, he comes across as something of a hapless interloper, trying to get a foothold in the world of money but never quite making it, and in this way he more resembles a Bukowski character. Amis's prose crackles, often sitting just this side of a hard-boiled crime novel, and is packed with vivid imagery. The plot is inconsequential; it serves primarily as a vehicle to deliver Self into situations where he can make horrible, selfish, hedonistic decisions and then complain about all the ways the world denies him pleasure. Attempts to unearth some sort of humanity from the wreckage of John Self seem a bit forced, as if only to satisfy the assumed desire of the audience, and they are probably the only faults in the novel. Self never earnestly desires to be anything but a sponge for pleasure. He's not a lovable scoundrel. He's just a scoundrel. But he's a scoundrel expertly captured in Martin Amis's prose.

2022-11-14 17:09