Regarding the slang "dead babies" phrase, in addition to what has already been mentioned here, the blurb on the back of the edition I read says that it means "dreary spasms of reality." And I believe Marvell is the first person in the book to use the phrase, although Andy also uses it repeatedly.

I haven't read any other Amis yet but I did read this as a (dated or 70s-locked) science fiction story. I found phrases like "street sadness," "false memory," "canceled sex," and "night fatigue" to be clues in this reading to the psychological problems of those living in this alternate circa-1996. (We are told that Andy was born in 1972 and that he is 24.) And I pictured Giles' bedroom cocktail lab as a sort of Rube Goldberg machine, preparing the morning Bloody Mary as he sleeps.

Once it's revealed that Quentin is Johnny, I felt like it had been a clue, or something like a clue, that Quentin and Andy were so close. The fact that Quentin could torment the Turkles and that he could be friends and live with Andy was unsettling all along and then made sense once I found out that Quentin was a sociopath, serial killer, what-have-you. Oh, and the fact that he's allowing these horrible Americans to stay with them. The fact that he has formerly established a relationship with this crew is another clue to the fact that he is not what he seems, the loving husband, etc.

I didn't see Giles' obsession with his teeth as anything much more than his personal neurosis. I found it funny with regard to the British teeth stereotype.

I think my favorite part of the book was Diana's history, when the book talks about sex being rather than a "fleshy concern" for her, a "compliment to her hairdresser," etc. I think Amis has really put his finger on in some ways the damage that such casual attitudes towards sex, drugs, and violence can do.

And a typical squirming moment in the book for me is when Andy is going to turn the hose on Keith again. They go too far every time, no one comes in to save the day, and I'm always waiting for them to get it right, but they don't. I'm programmed to want to see this kind of change in a book's characters. I think a lot of us are. I think that's a big source of the humor here but it can be simply incredibly frustrating.

Sorry not to have been able to have joined in in June!

Jed you said: The exaggerated excesses, cruelty, and callous blasé attitude -- along with the privileged pointlessness of their lives -- make the characters all "dead babies."



Exactly! the privileged pointlessness of their lives ... makes me think of some celebrities, the ones without talent of course ... risen to fame by wealth or association. They seem like babies to me regardless of their ages, because they have never been fully accountable or had the responsibilities that ordinary people have when dealing with life's everyday challenges. They are dying either physically from overindulgence, or emotionally with the boredom that follows the same scene over and over.

yes yes and yes - great comments Jed. You know, we read A Clockwork Orange a while back and the similarirties when it comes to post sixties youth decadence, as you say, are obvious but it's kind of interesting that in this book the mutilation, is self-inflicted. I spent awhile pondering why people would want to do such things to themselves. Why would people want to put themselves through such emotional and physical contortions? Obviously, as with the crimes in Clockwork, it's the need for a thrill through excess, pushing limits. But, still, for me the whole thing bespeaks a latent kind of self-hatred that comes from the oppressive boredom and alienation they must feel from their own selves, which are really, just tabula rasas for whatever chemicals they take in to write on.

In this book, Martin Amis is a wonderful satirist of a (mostly imagined?) kind of post-sixties upper class British youth decadence. I wanted to put this book down repeatedly in disgust, but kept going till the end to gather up the little Amis gestures. The exaggerated excesses, cruelty, and callous blasé attitude -- along with the privileged pointlessness of their lives -- make the characters all "dead babies."

Mara, now you mention it - in some ways he does remind me of the judge. But the judge were more self-aware and punished himself as well whereas I think Quentin just moves on and finds another group of victims... The book has some resemblances to And then there were none with one 'victim' after another being targeted...

I'm glad someone brought the Conceptualist thing up. I figured it first it was a red herring trying to make us think Andy was the prankster.

I agree, Christina, finding out the Quentin is the one doing all this in the end makes me want to go back looking for clues. He had an odd roll in the group, kind of a father figure, which I thought was creepy - imagining him in that pipe and smoking jacket kind of role advising and pontificating. But it fits - actually - his being Johnny - because each act was like a lesson with special meaning just for the victim. If you've ever read And Then There Were None, doesn't he remind you of the judge?

I thought it was very revealing that when they watched the movie where the girl didn't sleep with the guy, they were blown away (except for the Americans). It really showed that the life they were living, was not what they really wanted deep down - but they were not able to see that they wanted the same life as everyone else.

Do you think Johnny gets Keith in the end or has he suffered enough? I think Johnny gets him - in a bad bad way. Maybe something with his feet...

Do you think it was all a conceptualist gesture? See this quote about Andy: "Andy's spirited championship of the Conceptualists was not entirely disinterested. He had known several, one or two intimately, and had long been impressed by their calm and ruthlessness, their eerie anonymity, the almost erotic yearning with which they talked of their Gestures, and above all by their icy efficiency." (103-104) In some ways, I think it's a good description of Quentin - guess Andy knew one more than he was aware off...

I saw Giles obsession with teeth as comic-relief. But hey, I tried my best not to read too much into anything with this book.
I loved the first half of it, and found the bizzare, random, grossness rather funny. The second half kind of dragged on for me, but all in all I enjoyed it.

I think it's awesome that everyone came up with a different interpretation for the teeth. Maybe Amis was being purposely ambiguous?

Perhaps this overexposure to grotesque extremes of sex, drugs and violence is intended to numb us and reveal their banality.

Well put Neil. I definitely see that. I think in broad terms the book is probably a commentary on a subculture.

Giles teeth obsession, I thought, had something to do with his Mom. I thought it was suggested that she was a little psychotic and maybe abused him. Remember when she got in the shower with him? etc. Anyway her horrible teeth stood out to him from those memories. Maybe that had something to do with his complex, I don't know.

well i think the crap in celia and quentin's bed would be enough of an attack on quentin himself. i mean, he shares the bed.

Neil wrote: "I’m kind of with Mara in being repelled but fascinated. I certainly wouldn’t consider myself prudish but a lot of this made a pretty uncomfortable read. (Maybe I’m growing squeamish as I get olde..."

Great analysis, I was especially interested by the part about Amis' teeth.

Question about Johnny; once we found out it was Quentin, I was shocked, but then realized it made sense since pretty much everyone but him was accused.

However, I think it was Diana who said that everyone but Andy had been somehow 'attacked' by Johnny. Did Quentin attack himself somehow to deflect any possible blame, or did Diana just overlook Quentin?

I’m kind of with Mara in being repelled but fascinated. I certainly wouldn’t consider myself prudish but a lot of this made a pretty uncomfortable read. (Maybe I’m growing squeamish as I get older but I reached a point where I didn’t want to know any more about the state of Keith’s feet!) Perhaps this overexposure to grotesque extremes of sex, drugs and violence is intended to numb us and reveal their banality. Certainly the characters seem bored with it to the point where they find their desires dulled and cannot be bothered to indulge them. I thought this sentence put it well:

“It was a feeling of vast but theoretical weariness combined with acute and local foreboding, petty irritation arm in arm with comic disgust, vexed fussiness married to apocalyptic fear.”

There seems to be a sense that a number of the characters are really yearning for a more conventional kind of pleasure despite their apparent dismissal of the conformist (which is all “dead babies”) and desire to break taboos.

On the question of what “dead babies” actually refers to: clearly it is used, predominantly by Andy, as a term of opprobrium but if anyone has a copy of the 1001 Books volume there’s an interesting suggestion there that a theme of the novel is the question of whether the characters are condemned from birth. This provides an interesting second meaning and it is notable that the origins of each character's neuroses are shown to lie in their childhoods.

Regarding the thing about Giles’ teeth, apparently Martin Amis himself used to have an obsession with the bad state of his and so this partly provided the inspiration for Giles’ insecurities.

Kristin wrote: "Mike wrote: I feel stupid for asking this question, and I definitely need to reread the book, but what was the deal with Giles and teeth? I like to think it was a metaphor for something, but then a..."


That's a really good analysis, and it makes sense based on what I remember. Giles and everyone else were pretty self-obsessed. The only character I was able to get kind of attached to was Quentin, and we all know what happened to him...

Dang it. I haven't gotten a copy yet. Read the first few comments and feel inspired. I'll have to order it if I can't find it.

Mike wrote: I feel stupid for asking this question, and I definitely need to reread the book, but what was the deal with Giles and teeth? I like to think it was a metaphor for something, but then again the book was so disjointed I could be wrong.

What I gathered about the teeth scenario is he was so worried about something that in the big picture was the least of his concerns. Another words, he had larger issues in his life and if he gave those as much attention to the rest as much as he did his teeth then he wouldn't have been in the predicament he faced at the end.

In terms of humor, this seems pretty hit or miss; I thought it was funny.

@Mara: Yeah, there weren't any dead babies, or babies at all, just an expression. I agree, if you're unsure if you'd like this from our descriptions, you probably won't.

@Mike: The teeth thing was a bit confusing, but like everything else in the book, it wrapped up very quickly in the end. He was always obsessing about his teeth, but we never actually heard about how his teeth were.

Then at the end of the book he asked Roxeanne (or was it Lucy?) if she'd marry someone with bad teeth, then after he flashed a toothy smile at her, she got disgusted, and he decided to kill himself. I guess his dream was just replaying a bad childhood experience where his teeth got all messed up.

I also agree with Christina, Martin Amis is in a league with Bret Easton Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk for sure. Fortunately for me I like all three.

This is the one of the first books I remember consciously picking from the 1,001 list and I definitely enjoyed it. Going back over it though, I can't really articulate which specific parts I liked. Maybe it was just the ridiculous over-the-top grotesqueness that did me in. That subtle dark humor struck a chord with me.

I feel stupid for asking this question, and I definitely need to reread the book, but what was the deal with Giles and teeth? I like to think it was a metaphor for something, but then again the book was so disjointed I could be wrong.

@ Katharine - I find that humor is really subjective. You just haven't found an author that strikes you as funny. I've recommended books I find hysterical and I get a so-so reaction from the person I've given it to and vice versa. I think this book is one of those.

@Mara - thanks for the feedback. This may be on the list but I don't think it’s one I'd appreciate. I'll skip this one and move onto the next. Looking forward to Catch-22.

I have a problem with funny books, i just don't seem to find them funny. I think I must read things too literally and I completely miss the joke. Don't get me wrong, I love comedy and own so many comedy DVDs but I find that reading it just doesn't seem to work for me. Strange!
I haven't been able to get a copy of this book from the library so I am out of this months discussion, but I will be interested to see how others rate it, and whether it does turn out to be particularly funny!

I agree with Christina. It wasn't funny to me either. It ranged, for me, from gross to disturbing. Yet it was somehow fanscinating. It felt somehow like I was watching a movie in which a human being gets dropped in a meat grinder and you perversely want to see how things will "turn out."

Heh, Will I was also looking for "dead babies" - where are the dead babies? Who has a dead baby? I don't see any babies.

Libby, and others who aren't sure they want to read something "a bit distubring," put the book down. Now slowly back away. Now run!

I finished it a couple of days ago and while I'm not put off by the many drugs and sex references, I still did not enjoy it. The characters are unsympathetic and I didn't get to care all that much about them. I did not see the big plot twist coming - that was a surprise. But again, not enough to save the book for me.
I'm wondering if this type of books is just not for me. It seems as if Amis and Easton Ellis have things in common - and I'm not that fond of Ellis either...

I think 'dead babies' is a way of referring to the things that are normally perceived as having value - ie. love, marriage, having a job, monogamy, that sort of things.

Oh - a lot of reviews here on GR state that the book is so funny. I did not see that - can anybody explain what the funny parts are? Except for the over-the-top action surrounding Keith towards the end - I guess some would find that funny...

Loved it. You can relate easily to one or more character in the book to an individual in your personal life! The author's light, comical style is welcomed as he tackles some tough issues that can be tough to deal with.

I just started it and it's not for the prudish or faint of heart.

I haven't picked this one up yet because it looks a bit disturbing. Just not one I was anxious to run out and buy. I'd like feedback from those who have read it. It is worth it?

Wow, I have never read a book that changed gears so suddenly, and ended so abruptly. I enjoyed it throughout.

So dead babies is just an expression it seems; that's dead babies just means that's shit, along those lines?

Well THAT was interesting. I am curious to find out who survived (among us I mean).

Your thoughts?