The year is 1970, and the youth of Europe are in the chaotic, ecstatic throes of the sexual revolution. Though blindly dedicated to the cause, its ...
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Jun 16, 2010
Jessica
rated it: 
You know how women are always saying that what they want is a guy with a great sense of humor, while men are always saying that women love assholes? I've long thought, based on this, that a lot more women than'd admit it want to bang Martin Amis. Despite his innumerable turnoffs and appalling flaws, there is something bangable -- er, compelling about the guy and his writing. I gave The Pregnant Widow an extra star because (for reasons I can't fully explain) I did enjoy the first three quarters o
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May 12, 2010
Martin. Martin. Martin, I...listen, Martin. Listen. You wrote a book in 1974 called "Dead Babies". You...you seem to have rewritten it. If Amazon.co.uk is any source to...to trust.
Martin Amis, in "The Pregnant Widow", takes as his control experiment a long, hot summer holiday in a castle in Italy, where half a dozen young lives are afloat on the sea change of 1970. The result is a tragicomedy of manners, combining the wit of Money with the historical sense of " More...
Martin Amis, in "The Pregnant Widow", takes as his control experiment a long, hot summer holiday in a castle in Italy, where half a dozen young lives are afloat on the sea change of 1970. The result is a tragicomedy of manners, combining the wit of Money with the historical sense of " More...
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Oct 10, 2010
J.
rated it:
On a remote Italian hilltop, magic and fireflies surround an enchanted castle... Evening descends and the Mediterranean azur deepens, around the sons and daughters of the absent affluent.
A paen to youth, a valentine, in fact, to words like paen and wordplay for its own sake; a bonbon of elegiac yearning and wonder. And in case you were wondering, happy coincidence, the screenplay simply writes itself.
Doesn't it just :
Lucky, larky lads and libertine lolitas drap More...
A paen to youth, a valentine, in fact, to words like paen and wordplay for its own sake; a bonbon of elegiac yearning and wonder. And in case you were wondering, happy coincidence, the screenplay simply writes itself.
Doesn't it just :
Lucky, larky lads and libertine lolitas drap More...
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Jul 06, 2011
Ruby
rated it: 
An arse writing with his dick about tits.
I bet you if I told Amis that I found his book mildly offensive to women, he'd retort, well you've probably got small tits or you've not been laid recently. That's the voice I heard reading this novel. And I found it boring, empty and irritating - the novel was a page turner for the wrong reasons. Amis is no doubt a great writer - the prose is hands down perfect - but what he writes about is a joke: an unfunny, long and forgettable joke. Are More...
I bet you if I told Amis that I found his book mildly offensive to women, he'd retort, well you've probably got small tits or you've not been laid recently. That's the voice I heard reading this novel. And I found it boring, empty and irritating - the novel was a page turner for the wrong reasons. Amis is no doubt a great writer - the prose is hands down perfect - but what he writes about is a joke: an unfunny, long and forgettable joke. Are More...
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Aug 05, 2011
First, I have not read a Martin Amis book before, but understand he has a billionity or so (OK 11) previous novels. He is obviously a very technically capable writer, very well read, and there are times where his sense of wit and humor shine through.
The book is essentially set up as the recollections of a man in his 50s who was shaped by a particular summer he spent in Italy in 1970, at the beginning (or at least his beginning) of the sexual revolution. The women in the book are characterized b More...
The book is essentially set up as the recollections of a man in his 50s who was shaped by a particular summer he spent in Italy in 1970, at the beginning (or at least his beginning) of the sexual revolution. The women in the book are characterized b More...
Jan 22, 2012
Boris
rated it: 
Amis, Martin (2010). The Pregnant Widow. London: Jonathan Cape. 2010.
A me Martin Amis piace tantissimo, fondamentalmente per la sua cattiveria e il suo sarcasmo. Non sempre, però, sa mantenersi all’ottimo livello cui ci hanno abituati romanzi come London Fields (il suo capolavoro, a parer mio) e in questi casi capita di restare un po’ delusi, alla fin fine.
Penso di avere letto tutte, o quasi, le opere che ha pubblicato in volume (ho fatto un rapido controlo su Wikipedia: More...
A me Martin Amis piace tantissimo, fondamentalmente per la sua cattiveria e il suo sarcasmo. Non sempre, però, sa mantenersi all’ottimo livello cui ci hanno abituati romanzi come London Fields (il suo capolavoro, a parer mio) e in questi casi capita di restare un po’ delusi, alla fin fine.
Penso di avere letto tutte, o quasi, le opere che ha pubblicato in volume (ho fatto un rapido controlo su Wikipedia: More...
Jul 28, 2011
Derek
rated it: 
Superficially The Pregant Window has some thematic similarities to Martin Amis's first novel The Rachel Papers... except that this is really very good, and The Rachel Papers emphatically was not. The title is offputting and inelegant, and may have been a mistake; although the reason for it is flagged up in one of three quotations at the beginning of the novel. I guess the subtitle, Inside History, would be a little pretentious. But I've always though Amis was far better when he was being a littl
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May 06, 2011
Christian
rated it:
I read two novels during my recent Sicilian sojourn, Amis’s The Pregnant Widow (diverting enough as a Sharpe-ish comic novel, woefully facile as ‘literature’) and Jacobson’s The Finkler Question (the work of a master craftsman, though perhaps the craft overwhelmed the feeling).
Read back to back, I was struck by the similarities. Not just in the tone of voice - though it does seem that these middle-aged male prose stylists tend towards the same accent, all of them still in debt to the G More...
Read back to back, I was struck by the similarities. Not just in the tone of voice - though it does seem that these middle-aged male prose stylists tend towards the same accent, all of them still in debt to the G More...
Nov 23, 2010
Nicole
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Nov 14, 2010
Jennifer
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There are times when reading Martin Amis that I feel as though I just don't get "it." And that is when I realize that the it I will never get is the thought process of the other sex. Seriously. Reading this book I identified with Lily and her frustration with Keith the main character and narrator. (Naming a hero Keith takes gumption). But then, I realize, that is the point. That is precisely why I love reading Amis, because it gives me a glimpse into a world so familiar and yet so comp
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Aug 01, 2010
Seth
rated it:
As one inclined to love just about anything Martin Amis writes, fiction and nonfiction alike, I was disappointed in his latest novel, "The Pregnant Widow."
It may just be that I am the wrong reader for this book. What Amis does here is updates a Jane Austen-like comedy of manners (is that what they're called) for the 1960s "sexual revolution." A group of friends and acquaintances gather in a country mansion and the book is for the most part a series of will they/won' More...
It may just be that I am the wrong reader for this book. What Amis does here is updates a Jane Austen-like comedy of manners (is that what they're called) for the 1960s "sexual revolution." A group of friends and acquaintances gather in a country mansion and the book is for the most part a series of will they/won' More...
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Jul 02, 2010
Mary
rated it: 
Mary Verdick
Not My Cup of Tea
Granted that Martin Amis is a gifted writer and some of the descriptive passages in this novel are truly beautiful and artful, on the whole it left me cold. Why? Because I could not empathize with any of the people involved and actually disliked them, as well as found them boring.
Keith, a 20-year-old English college student, is spending the summer in a castle in Italy with a group of friends. It's 1970 and the sexual revolution is More...
Not My Cup of Tea
Granted that Martin Amis is a gifted writer and some of the descriptive passages in this novel are truly beautiful and artful, on the whole it left me cold. Why? Because I could not empathize with any of the people involved and actually disliked them, as well as found them boring.
Keith, a 20-year-old English college student, is spending the summer in a castle in Italy with a group of friends. It's 1970 and the sexual revolution is More...
Jun 08, 2010
Acorn Public Library
rated it:
Martin Amis’s new novel takes us to an Italian castle in 1970, where a bunch of collegiates convene to test out the tenets of the Sexual Revolution. The group consists of clever, feckless narrator Keith, his levelheaded girlfriend Lily, the mob-inducingly gorgeous Scheherazade, relentlessly amoral Gloria Beautyman, and Adriano—the showboating aristocrat who just happens to stand 4’10’’.
This is Martin Amis, so the magisterial turns of phrase and devastatingly acute observations keep More...
This is Martin Amis, so the magisterial turns of phrase and devastatingly acute observations keep More...
Jun 05, 2010
Tony
rated it:
Amis, Martin. THE PREGNANT WIDOW. (2010). ***. Amis writes a coming of age novel set during the sexual revolution of the 1970s. The priincipal focus is Keith Nearing. He is twenty years old and on vacation from college at a castle in Italy. He is there with several of his friends, one, his girlfriend Lily, 34-25-34. He has become sexually bored with Lily and is ogling her girlfriend Scheherazade, 37-23-33. They are all from University of London, are Keith, Lily, and Scheherazade (Englis
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May 10, 2010
christa
rated it:
This is one of those novels where a handful of young horn dogs go live in a castle in Italy for the summer. Martin Amis' novel "The Pregnant Widow" is set in 1970 and the writerly Keith Nearing is 20. He's hanging out with his plain Jane girlfriend Lily, and reading Jane Austin novels next to the pool. Meanwhile Lily's best friend Scheherazade has transformed from a mousy Meals-on-Wheels driver to the buxomest thing to ever prance around in a monokini.
Keith masks his feeli More...
Keith masks his feeli More...
Jan 21, 2011
Palmyrah
rated it:
Somewhat implausibly, Martin Amis has remained my favourite contemporary novelist since I first read The Rachel Papers back in 1978 or whenever it was. This doesn't mean I've liked everything he's done – far from it – but I've always loved the way he writes. His auctorial voice resonates with some inner voice of my own.
Lately, my favourite contemporary novelist has taken me to some strange places. Although I enjoyed the tour, it's something of a relief to see him on more familiar gro More...
Lately, my favourite contemporary novelist has taken me to some strange places. Although I enjoyed the tour, it's something of a relief to see him on more familiar gro More...
Jun 16, 2010
Bookmarks Magazine
rated it:
Other than the Boston Globe, critics were unimpressed with Amis's coming-of-age story set during the carefree 1970s. Despite his celebrated wit and sparkling prose, Amis takes too many detours, and his persistent lectures on the frustrations of growing old and the sexual revolution's long-term effects thwart the book's narrative momentum. Critics also complained that, in lieu of character development, Amis dully differentiates his creations by their peculiar traits and (for females) chest-waist-
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Jun 15, 2010
Timothy
rated it:
For about ninety percent of its length, "The Pregnant Widow", by Martin Amis, has the sixty-year-old Keith Nearing recalling the summer of1970, which he spent in Italy at the age of twenty. The narrator seems to spend every waking moment thinking about sex – how he has it with his girlfriend on a nightly basis, how the Classic English novels he’s reading can be reinterpreted as being based on sex, and – most importantly – how he will seduce his girlfriend’s best friend, who sports the
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Jan 09, 2011
Dan
rated it:
Hilarious, often heart-wrenching, and always clever, "The Pregnant Widow" ultimately fails because it can't hold together. Part of the problem is the simple organizational mistake of having the Italy section be a complete novel in itself, which the coda is not enough to counterbalance because it's structure is in years instead of days. But, really, it doesn't hold because Mr. Amis can't hold together his contradictions. I don't believe I'm saying this because he comes part way to my po
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Jun 14, 2010
Gatsby
rated it:
Pop Fiction book club explains how Martin Amis has reinvented the summer read with his meditation on death and breasts, The Pregnant Widow.
http://www.eyeweekly.com/arts/pop%20fict...
"As an Amis’ fan, I found The Pregnant Widow to be one of his most powerfully discursive books yet, free of the concept-heavy device of Time’s Arrow, with less brute morality than Money. One thing I could have used less of was the reliance on poetical quotes and mythical allusions to gra More...
http://www.eyeweekly.com/arts/pop%20fict...
"As an Amis’ fan, I found The Pregnant Widow to be one of his most powerfully discursive books yet, free of the concept-heavy device of Time’s Arrow, with less brute morality than Money. One thing I could have used less of was the reliance on poetical quotes and mythical allusions to gra More...
Apr 06, 2010
Andrew
rated it:
Life consists of waiting to fuck, fucking, and then remembering when you fucked. When you die, you think about how the fucks went. When you grow old and stare vacantly into the mirror, your 'bald patch receding into infinity', you say to yourself, 'Fuck, I rememember when I used to fuck, what happened to all those fucks.'
This is the impression of life I get from The Pregnant Widow, Martin Amis' latest novel. The book was originally planned to be an autobiographical account of Amis' s More...
This is the impression of life I get from The Pregnant Widow, Martin Amis' latest novel. The book was originally planned to be an autobiographical account of Amis' s More...
Apr 25, 2011
Jules
rated it:
I found this book an easy to read book at the start and the story started to shape up nicely. I thought this book would be about the pangs of adolescence from a young teenage boy’s perspective – (several pages into the text and the vital statistics of the female characters were being quoted – that kind of thing!) but after reading halfway through it seemed as if the book had little narrative thread and plot.
It’s particularly a long time since I have read anything by Amis and after this boo More...
It’s particularly a long time since I have read anything by Amis and after this boo More...
Sep 16, 2010
Sex in the 1970s. Sigh.
I wanted to try harder to read it, since the introduction, with the protagonist's view by from 21st century, appealed to me -- being MY age!
"This is the way it goes. In your mid-forties you have your first crisis of mortality (death will not ignore me); and ten years later you have your first crisis of age (my body whispers that death is already intrigued by me). But something very interesting happens to you in between.
As the More...
I wanted to try harder to read it, since the introduction, with the protagonist's view by from 21st century, appealed to me -- being MY age!
"This is the way it goes. In your mid-forties you have your first crisis of mortality (death will not ignore me); and ten years later you have your first crisis of age (my body whispers that death is already intrigued by me). But something very interesting happens to you in between.
As the More...
Jun 22, 2011
Mark
rated it:
I'm not sure that I've ever disliked a book more that I have actually finished. The author spends so much time impressing us with his word-slinging technology and introducing countless characters, but it was never really clear to me what exactly was going on. I suspect that he did this on purpose. Here's an example:
"Keith replaced the receiver and thought of the white T-shirt in Holland Park. The meteorological or heavenly connivance. No-see-um raindrops, and her torso moulded b More...
"Keith replaced the receiver and thought of the white T-shirt in Holland Park. The meteorological or heavenly connivance. No-see-um raindrops, and her torso moulded b More...
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Sep 15, 2010
Brent
rated it:
I wanted to make this one last. I did. It was so good, I wanted it to last forever or at least until the end of my life. But once I opened it up, once I got into it, into its every heavenly sentence, I was too far gone and -- well, it was over. Earlier, even, than what the page count said. Prematurely, you might say.
In between paragraphs I tried to think of awful, unliterary things (America's Got Talent, Sarah Palin) in hopes of prolonging the act, the thrill of what his words were d More...
In between paragraphs I tried to think of awful, unliterary things (America's Got Talent, Sarah Palin) in hopes of prolonging the act, the thrill of what his words were d More...
Aug 04, 2011
Hans
rated it:
Martin Amis's latest is at least a lovely read. This man really loves his language and medium. "The Pregnant Widow is packed with beautiful prose and is narrated in an intriguing combination of the first and third person. It reads like a comedy of manners set in the seventies and Like a Jane Austen novel plot is nothing in comparison with what is going on under the surface. While reading, I knew I had to ask myself who is saying what and why does he uses this word instead of another, but me
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May 03, 2011
Tony
rated it:
There is, within, this piece of dialogue:
"You know in Dickens, when the good characters look in the fire, they see the faces of their loved ones. And the bad characters, they just see hell and doom."
"What do you see?"
Ponder that. Amis does, through the life of an alter-ego, and resolves that great existential question on the final pages. Skip ahead if you want.
The first half of this book spawned vapid characters, and too many More...
"You know in Dickens, when the good characters look in the fire, they see the faces of their loved ones. And the bad characters, they just see hell and doom."
"What do you see?"
Ponder that. Amis does, through the life of an alter-ego, and resolves that great existential question on the final pages. Skip ahead if you want.
The first half of this book spawned vapid characters, and too many More...
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Apr 08, 2011
William
rated it:
Another through-the-roof masterpiece from Martin Amis. It's distressing how consistently he turns them out. I have only read THE PREGNANT WIDOW once, and have settled on the following observations for now.
1. Those of us used to the usual Amis verbal fireworks will have to wait. He wants a slower build here. He doesn't want to eject readers along the way with too many polysyllabics. He focuses on character and action for the first third. In time we get to all of the stuff that we enjoy More...
1. Those of us used to the usual Amis verbal fireworks will have to wait. He wants a slower build here. He doesn't want to eject readers along the way with too many polysyllabics. He focuses on character and action for the first third. In time we get to all of the stuff that we enjoy More...
Jan 15, 2011
Katy
rated it:
I want to give The Pregnant Widow credit, but I need to start by saying that this really wasn't my cup of tea. It really wasn't. Yes, I love a crazy contemporary piece with some history thrown in there. Yes, I love reading these semi-conscious, half-crazy, trippy books that everyone else passes by for the latest James Patterson. However, I hated Keith and honestly ended up being very disappointed in this book.
This could have been done SO WELL. That's what kills me. The premise is per More...
This could have been done SO WELL. That's what kills me. The premise is per More...
Sep 23, 2010
Andrew
rated it:
I'd never had any interest in reading a Martin Amis book until The Pregnant Widow. I'd read short stories by Amis which I found tedious and/or annoying, and I'd seen profiles of him that led me to believe I didn't much like the man. Mainly because I couldn't take his arrogance in the ongoing personal "rivalry" with Julian Barnes, who in my opinion is one of the most intelligent, interesting writers of his and Amis's generation (now in their late 50s) of UK authors. But when I heard tha
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