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Other People

3.35 of 5 stars 3.35 · rating details · 769 ratings · 50 reviews

She wakes in an emergency room in a London hospital, to a voice that tells her: "You're on your own now. Take care. Be good." She has no knowledge of her name, her past, or even her species. It takes her a while to realize that she is human -- and that the beings who threaten, befriend, and violate her are other people. Some of whom seem to know all about her.

In this eerie...more

Paperback, 224 pages

Published February 8th 1994 by Vintage (first published 1981)

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Jan 01, 2008 R. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008

Oh, Martin. Really. This...this is murder. You're killing me, Marty. You're simply killing me.
*
How can Martin Amis do this to me? To me? How can he write such beautiful prose that keeps me home on New Years Eve? You know, this book is really the most honest book I've ever read about those people. You know who. Other people. That's right. That's exactly right.
*
There are two typos of people, here. Us and them. Divvy up into two types of the two types. Us and them, the dailies, the averages. And u...more

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Jun 28, 2009 Eleanor rated it 3 of 5 stars

Other People by Martin Amis is an unsolvable mystery. To fully understand everything that occurs in this novel, and the meaning implied by such events, warrants several readings. Yet, once finished with it there is a strong voice screaming in the reader's mind, "I don't ever want to go back to the world that Martin Amis portrays!" Amis writes a very gritty depiction of people and human nature. The book is split into two parts. The first is the third person novel, following the life and survival...more

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Jul 12, 2009 James rated it 2 of 5 stars

My rating for the book goes down the longer I think about it. I picked this one up at the same time as Daphne Du Maurier's "The Scapegoat" and was really surprised to find the two books, so very different in many ways, extraordinarily similiar in structure and what they offer the reader. Both rely on "finding the hidden/lost story" to create suspense and both offer the reader a set up, stock anti-hero in such a way the reader can identify with his/her glamour and sanctimoniously judge him or her...more My rating for the book goes down the longer I think about it. I picked this one up at the same time as Daphne Du Maurier's "The Scapegoat" and was really surprised to find the two books, so very different in many ways, extraordinarily similiar in structure and what they offer the reader. Both rely on "finding the hidden/lost story" to create suspense and both offer the reader a set up, stock anti-hero in such a way the reader can identify with his/her glamour and sanctimoniously judge him or her at the same time. Both seem like pretty widespread and flabby conventions to me and don't speak well for the health of Western Literature.

First in both books, the narrator creates an elaborate and tremendously artificial present situation in order to selectively and often vaguely disclose a more straight forward narrative that takes place in the past. The kernal reality in Other People resides in the self destructive career of Amy Hide, which seems to have reached its ultimate end (her somehow inciting someone else to kill her) just before the narrative begins. Instead of just telling her story, Amis uses the past event as a suspense device to draw us through a series of more mundane (though still melodramatic, including rape and suicide) events in the narrative's present. In order to do this, he has to create a highly artificial and unlikely frame e.g. that Amy Hide has lost her memory and is wandering about London as an amnesiac who calls herself Mary Lamb (either actually or in some fantastic heaven/hell). I think this structure is a something of a cheap trick. The dramatic weight of Mary Lamb's situation surely rests on her dark and dramatic past, and yet the reader is never clearly informed what happened. We are given one incident clearly--Amy Hide pretends to destroy her boyfriend's play--and lots of dark hints about masochistic sexual behaviour and the general consensus among those that report on her that she was really nasty. So I think if the reader is going to buy the drama of Amy Hide it's largely on the basis of his or her belief in stock misogyny. She's a Super Bitch. We don't really need to know more than that. But the narrative device of Mary learning vaguely about her past through the reportage of others obscures the flatness of that underlying reality. The frame tale, Mary Lamb's amnesiac survival and return to upper crust society, is basically just a very sentimental waif story with lots of brutality (the rape and suicide) more or less thrown in (but somehow acceptable and oddly without consequence because of Mary's dark past e.g. this is the kind of thing that happens to her, (the rape), and the kind of thing that happens to people around her (the suicide). If you take away the sex and violence, she more or less gets by on a smile and finds her Prince in the end. Neither story would hold up by itself but Amis's adept misdirection between them allows the reader to convince him or herself that two very deep and gritty stories are being told.

The other convention, relied on heavily in DuMuarier and Amis, is the sentimentalization of the Anti-Hero. In it's best incarnation, the anti-hero's force comes from the discomfort he or she arouses in the reader. We can't excuse his or her conduct but at the same time we feel compelled to identify with him or her in some way. The anti-hero is a lesson in moral humility and guilt. The convention becomes sentimentalized when the narrator has found a way to take the sting out of it such that the reader can simultaneously judge the anti-hero and enjoy his or her glamour. In Other People, Amis manages this by taking away Amy Hide's memory thus turning her into Mary Lamb, the waif. We can sympathize with the waif and at the same time enjoy the glamour of her good looks and previous vaguely dark history, with the additional pleasure of feeling indignant about the injuries she's inflicted in the past. (Amis is very careful to show us any real harm she has done. Her male victims are clownish and unreal. Her sister does show up and despite all that has been suggested about her dark past seems ready to just pick things up as if nothing had happened.)

How does he get away with this? That's the question. He's a really good writer of sentences for one thing. He's incredibly successful in the opening pages of creating this very vivid alienated perspective of a cityscape. One wonders what kind of book this might have been if he had just stuck to the frame, that situation, consciousness slowly coming to grips with memory. What would our world end up looking like if we could re-imagine it from that compelling perspective? I think that would have been cool. (Especially as throughout, he manages at least probably two or three genuinely startling sentences a page). Also, he tries to shoot over the heads of the readers with his outer quasi reflexive frame. The narrator as hostile/benificent authority, policeman and executioner etc... Is it possible that this is a perfect presentation of the ambiguity of authority? Is that concept cutting perfectly and with jagged symetry through all dimensions of the reality depicted? Would we not then be able to accept Amy Hide/Mary Lamb as Waif/Whore, Victim/Corrupter simultaneously? Not really. The whole "she asked me to do it" "I am the narrator" business feels forced and tagged on. Really, the narrator has no universe to live in. He's not convincing on the page (and is even allowed to leave on business as a character while he continues to narrate her story). Really he's just the conventual invisible modernist narrator who has been inexpertly conflated with a character in the story. It's too bad. I think if the book had been allowed to truly go in that direction , it would have been interesting, but of course then it wouldn't sell as well as Daphne DuMaurier.(less)

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Sep 23, 2011 Bistra Ivanova rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned, fiction

Няма да се хабя много за тази книга. Сюжета го пише на задната корица, ама кой да чете: "Една млада жена се събужда в болнична стая със съвършено празна памет. Но това не е обикновена амнезия - тя е забравила не само миналото си, но от съзнанието й са изтрити всички представи за света и хората. В опознаването им и в търсенето на своята самоличност тя се сблъсква със злото в чист вид - наоколо и в себе си."

Цялото нещо ми напомни на "Жюстин или неволите на добродетелта" на Маркиза дьо Сад, но по...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Evelyn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, read-in-2011

Other People is a novel that goes through various stages. Mary, the central character, awakes in a white hospital type room, not knowing who she is, where she is or what has happened to her. I got an atmosphere of being in a different world and perhaps my strong liking of Sci-Fi/dystopias tried to link the two together but this was something else and quickly evaporated into the next stage. For the most part, we follow Mary as she stumbles around, meeting new people who take advantage of her and...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Alice rated it 3 of 5 stars

As I often find when Martin Amis's fiction.. I'm not sure how I feel about this book. It is at times deeply, DEEPLY disturbing. The actions of many of the characters are really pretty abhorrant.. and I often felt like I needed a wash after putting this down. And yet I couldn't stop reading it! The mystery at the heart of this novel pulled me in and I wanted to know what had happened to this woman.. unfortunately you don't exactly get ALL the answers. It probably does need another read to pick up...more

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Mar 28, 2013 Norton Stone rated it 3 of 5 stars

The start may put people off as it floats around without any sort of anchor. Reading the book from back to front would help considerably. Amis is always a double dividend sort of writer in that the story can easily be sidelined as you admire his language and sentence construction. Occasionally I have found him to be a bit of a smart Alec, (House of Meetings was so full of big word hurdles it disrupted the read) however in this Amis strikes a good balance and if you can put aside your eagerness t...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Akinoiro/Lamora rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-crime, review

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I picked out this book out when I was plundering the shelves of my university’s library for something new to read and because the cover, with its fractured great blue eye, reminded me of something out of a cyberpunk novel. Nothing of the kind, though it would be quite hard to label this novel. It starts out somewhat comical, moves into a thriller as we read on trying to know more of the protagonist’s past, and then it’s just plain horrifying and uneasy.
The protagonist is ‘Mary Lamb’, or so she c...more I picked out this book out when I was plundering the shelves of my university’s library for something new to read and because the cover, with its fractured great blue eye, reminded me of something out of a cyberpunk novel. Nothing of the kind, though it would be quite hard to label this novel. It starts out somewhat comical, moves into a thriller as we read on trying to know more of the protagonist’s past, and then it’s just plain horrifying and uneasy.
The protagonist is ‘Mary Lamb’, or so she calls herself after reviving from death in a hospital. She has no memory of her past and no grasp of bodily functions - from her amnesiac perspective, everything she knows is on a literal level. She reinvents herself at every moment trying to create some sense, a consequence of rediscovering the world from an alien perspective - and it’s a hauntingly bizarre world Amis shows us through Mary’s eyes. At some point, she discovers she has a mouth while she takes a drink; it’s fascinating.
Once she breaks free from the hospital, she stumbles on a motley crew of fringe people, tramps and squatters, and she is adopted by a prostitute and goes to live in a quiet slum apartment packed with alcoholics. This is seeming more and more like the Wretched and Unlikely Adventures of Mary Lamb, a humorous and miserable story.
It’s only when Mr. Prince enters Mary’s life that I get chills up my spine. He is the narrator and partially responsible for the journey of Mary Lamb from naïveté to awareness. He leads her to question the mystery of her past. He reveals to Mary her resemblance to a teenager, Amy Hide, who was murdered, and insists on taking her to visit Amy's childhood home. Ultimately, Mary does indeed realize she is Amy Hide – and that Amy was not a very nice person. (A short stopping point here: it might have been because I had recently finished the Stevenson’s novel, and a very simplistic interpretation of my part, but I couldn’t stop myself from reading Amy Hide as a Mr. Hyde-like facet of Mary.)
I found the last few pages of the book truly gruesome. Mr. Prince became not only her mentor and lover, but had been her murderer – Amy’s murderer, in fact. Mary accepts that she must die at Mr. Prince’s hand, only to awake in her home, hearing her mother’s voice calling her Amy. This last bit of the book mimics the prologue.
I haven’t touched this book in over four years, so I’m a bit hazy on what my interpretation of both prologue and ending (epilogue?) was at the time, but here goes. Both are narrated by Mr. Prince, the prologue in the past tense and the epilogue in the present tense; I also recalled some mirroring in the speech (a few moments later scavenging the internet for quotes):
Part of the prologue:
"This is a confession, but a brief one. I didn't want to have to do it to her. I would have infinitely preferred some other solution. Still, there we are. It makes sense, really, given the rules of life on earth; and she asked for it. I just wish there was another way, something more self-contained, economical, and shapely. But there isn't. That's life, as I say, and my most sacred duty is to make it lifelike. Oh, hell. Let's get it over with."
Part of the epilogue:
"This is a promise. I won't do anything to her if she doesn't want me to. I won't do anything to her unless she asks for it. And that's not very likely, is it, at her age ? That's not very realistic? Still, at least she's legal - just about, I'm pretty sure...I feel as though I've done these things before, and I am glazedly compelled to do them again. But perhaps all things like this feel like that. I'm - I'm tired. I'm not in control any more, not this time. Oh hell. Let's get it over with."
"This is a promise" and "This is a confession", you couldn’t ask for a better parallel between both excerpts. I didn’t read the last part of the novel as a flashback, but as a suggestion of an unending cycle, with Amy’s story and murder taking place off-stage this time. The narrative sequence hints at a lack of control that is stifling and shared by the reader, who witnessing a cycle expects it to keep repeating itself, and Mr. Prince, who seems fated to murder and narrate indefinitely (not quite sure if this knowledge makes me feel any better about him). Only Amy seems to have a small chance of breaking that cycle since, as Mr. Prince keeps repeating, “[He] won't do anything to her unless she asks for it”.
The ending will not be appreciated by everyone, I am sure, but I am a chump for cyclical narratives and I just loved it.

4.5/5(less)

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Sep 22, 2012 Russell George rated it 3 of 5 stars

Amis is a stylish writer who at times drifts into self-indulgence, but this is a compelling book. It’s the story of a girl, Mary Lamb, who has lost her memory, and after apparently coming out of a coma drifts in a dream-like state through the sordid and unhappy streets of London, her dark past apparently locked away. It’s a metaphysical tale, in that the people Mary meets are all various forms of grotesque, grossly self-consumed in contrast to her child-like trust. This means that, as a reader,...more

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Apr 26, 2012 schmiss rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is, in my opinion, Martin Amis's most underrated work. Published long before his more celebrated masterpieces, it is the product of a writer who is experimenting with his power but fully comfortable in his own voice. The protagonist "Mary Lamb" has no idea who she is -- has no idea who or what anything is -- and like almost all of Amis's characters, lives in a world of dualities and counterparts. Except, as we soon learn, her counterpart is the phantom of her past self; and by the time Mary...more

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Dec 02, 2009 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

A woman wakes up with no memory of her past and no idea who she is. Amnesia. But this is not the amnesia of soap operas; the loss of memory represented in this book goes far beyond forgetting one’s name and address. Most of the narrative is from the woman’s point of view, and because she does not know where she wakes up, we do not either. We do know that it is in a building, and her mention of gurneys and people in white coats suggests that it is a hospital of some sort. Somehow she gets out of...more

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Nov 25, 2012 Jonfaith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Other People isn't a tale of Visitation. The just sleep of the Elect isn't to be shattered by ghostly moralizing. The world of our entitlement is instead simply upended, allowing the dark bits to pour to the fore. London is revealed through a Ballardian lens. Colors and smells are enhanced, but thinking is pruned, reduced to Money, Sex Death.

The title refers to Hell. We harbor such within. It is nursed at our breast. Martin Amis is astonishing.

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Oct 14, 2012 Mat Ranson rated it 4 of 5 stars

When any artist is capable of creating a world and immersing you in it, their work is worth engaging with. Other People conjures a distinctly British microcosm very well, populating it with striking characters and a dark, sinister tone. In this novel's world Other People is the relationship between British society, mental health, money and survival.

This was my first book by Amis and I knew a lot about him before I read any of his stories. I feel this was a good start.

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Mar 27, 2011 Amy Plum rated it 3 of 5 stars

The whole "complete amnesia to the point where you barely know how to walk" was fascinating, and I loved the way it was described in the beginning. The following exploration of identity was interesting. And the last couple of chapters reminded me a little of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

Overall, it's one of those books that I know was good for me, mind-stretching and all, but left me a little cold in the end. I love Martin Amis, though, and will keep plowing through his entire rep...more

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Feb 27, 2011 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm not sure what happened, but whatever it was, damn was it good. And I think I have a new author to unearth in Martin Amis.

It takes a special writer to take you inside the mind of an amnesiac, drag you along as she discovers a world of clouds and dogs and prostitutes and alcoholics, then slowly reveal layers of a mysterious backstory you don't want to know and really wish weren't true. "When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable"

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Nov 23, 2012 James Metcalf rated it 3 of 5 stars

Although this isn't Amis' best work, I did enjoy it. As usual his poetic and teasing prose leaves everything until the last minute and reveals nothing until he has to, and this plot is something quite different. A good novel.

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May 20, 2012 Jennifer Smith rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I started reading it I found a receipt inside. I had bought it in 1995 at the Anchorage Airport. Glad that I finally dusted it off and read it! Amis has a wonderful way of viewing things and writing sparingly. I have his "London Fields" also on my bookshelf and am more encouraged to pick it up and start reading it!

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Jan 20, 2012 Matt Carl rated it 4 of 5 stars

As usual I appreciated Amis' darkly descriptive style. I think every writer has to do an amnesia story, and Amis brings it off well...though I won't pretend I understood the typically ambiguous ending.

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Sep 16, 2012 MJ Nicholls rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, sassysassenachs, the-art-of-loathing

When Moby released Animal Rights in 1996, people didn’t know where to look. The mild-mannered pioneer of electronica and ambient instrumentals was screaming his lungs out over too many overdubbed guitar solos in a sincere attempt to emulate his mate Billy Corgan. People cringed listening to the record. Imagine how his friends and family reacted. “Do you like my new album?” And a mass shuffling of feet occurred. Martin Amis faces this experience from book to book. This isn’t a recent phenomenon....more

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Mar 19, 2011 grainnemcmahon rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 18, 2012 Marina rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Romanzo ben scritto ma troppo inquietante, almeno per il momento in cui l'ho letto io... Qui un commento: http://sonnenbarke.wordpress.com/2006...

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Sep 14, 2008 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-own-and-don-t-mind-lending, shoot-em-ups-and-whodunits, 2010, 2010-challenge-reads

My first Amis book and my first read of 2010 was a lucky pick. The story is a twisted tale of a woman suffering from amnesia and struggling to survive in the world. The story itself and the narration was very black and darkly humorous. I felt guilty about laughing sometimes, but the misogyny was so overpronounced I couldn't help but laugh at its ridiculousness and I'm sure that was Amis' intent. I have been on a run lately of reading books that take place in London -- I've always had a soft spot...more

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May 31, 2012 Shannon rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebook, library

It started so promising! But then I couldn't wait to be finished with it. Glad it was short; any longer and I would have ditched it.

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Feb 07, 2009 Odeiliablack rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was very confused for most of this book, but in a way that felt like I was discovering something. I still don't know what it was.

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Jun 30, 2011 Kelly marked it as to-read

Shelves: 21st-century, brit-lit, fiction, identity-crisis, wits-and-fools

I haven't read any Amis before (father or son). Perhaps I will start with this one.

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Mar 29, 2009 Sarah marked it as to-read

I don't care what Greg says ; ), I'm intrigued by this book.

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Mar 17, 2013 Miguel Pestana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

http://silenciosquefalam.blogspot.pt/...

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Jun 06, 2012 Tzeck rated it 2 of 5 stars

Сюжет, обещаващ много. История, даваща прекалено малко.

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Mar 30, 2009 Keith Miller rated it 1 of 5 stars

Other People by Martin Amis (1994)

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May 08, 2009 Lianna rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: hard-boiled

Can anyone explain to me what happened?

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About Martin Amis

Martin Amis is an English novelist, essayist and short story writer. His works include the novels Money, London Fields and The Information.

The Guardian writes that "all his critics have noted what Kingsley Amis [his father] complained of as a 'terrible compulsive vividness in his style... that constant demonstrating of his command of English'; and it's true that the Amis-ness of Amis will be recog...more

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Quotes from Другите

“Life is made of fear. Some people eat fear soup three times a day. Some people eat fear soup all the meals there are. I eat it sometimes. When they bring me fear soup to eat, I try not to eat it, I try to send it back. But sometimes I'm too afraid to and have to eat it anyway.” — 88 people liked it

“When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable” — 66 people liked it

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