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The Rachel Papers

Martin Amis

3.58 · Rating details · 9,483 ratings · 456 reviews

In his uproarious first novel Martin Amis, author of the bestselling London Fields, gave us one of the most noxiously believable -- and curiously touching -- adolescents ever to sniffle and lust his way through the pages of contemporary fiction. On the brink of twenty, Charles High-way preps desultorily for Oxford, cheerfully loathes his father, and meticulously plots the ...more

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Paperback, 240 pages

Published September 29th 1992 by Vintage (first published 1973)

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Nov 06, 2020 Steven Godin rated it really liked it

Shelves: great-britain, fiction

First novel of lock down 2.0 didn't turn out to be as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it surprised me just how much I ended up liking this. Generally, I don't like reading about teenagers now at my age: in this case a nineteen-year-old, let alone their sexual exploits, but I just felt like something different for a change, and always wanted to read more Amis but just never got around to it. One of the reasons It worked so well for me is that Amis at the time wasn't far off the same age as
First novel of lock down 2.0 didn't turn out to be as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it surprised me just how much I ended up liking this. Generally, I don't like reading about teenagers now at my age: in this case a nineteen-year-old, let alone their sexual exploits, but I just felt like something different for a change, and always wanted to read more Amis but just never got around to it. One of the reasons It worked so well for me is that Amis at the time wasn't far off the same age as the protagonist Charles Highway, and the first person narrative worked a treat. This is the portrait from a male perspective of someone young, selfish, someone absorbed by sex and whacking off, and the idea of mastery, and that's how the book reads. That's the whole point. Go into it thinking about romance then don't. When it comes to the self-aware Highway, Amis doesn't hold back on all the little personal details and pungent smells: he is a pimple-squeezer, a sniffer of panties, a dirty handkerchief and used condom inspector, obsessive of bodily functions, someone who generally feels grubby, and who also suffers from asthma. Whilst we're not dealing with a virgin: him having quickies with another girl, Gloria, It's the seduction of the older Rachel: a sort of social experiment, who he describes as 'the pull' that takes centre stage, and with his confidence bolstered by recurrent consultations of a folder titled Conquests and Techniques, it leads up to a bedroom sex scene between the two that plays out so acutely realistic compared to a lot of other sex scenes I've come across elsewhere in literature. Despite Charles' conquest for wanting to bed an older woman, funnily, it turns out, Rachel was barely much older than he was. With Charles now more focused on getting into Oxford, and despite initially falling in love with her, he palms her off back to the incompetent American boyfriend Deforest after she wets the bed and gets the odd spot or two. What's missing here overall is the capacity to bring to life the other characters so that they appear more than just projections of Charles, but as a surveillance of bedroom/bathroom antics it was fun. Got a couple more of his novels to follow. ...more

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May 25, 2014 Anthony Vacca rated it really liked it

Vacca’s Complaint:

I am inconsolably jealous when I consider that Martin Amis published his first book at 24 and had actually done the writing at least a year before, also I am disgusted with how much talent and confidence the bastard already had at my age. Here I am approaching my first quarter of a century and I have no first novel. I have no fame. I’m not deflecting pertinent questions from feminist reviewers by flirting with them. I have accomplished nothing with my life. Nothing!

The Rachel P Vacca’s Complaint:

I am inconsolably jealous when I consider that Martin Amis published his first book at 24 and had actually done the writing at least a year before, also I am disgusted with how much talent and confidence the bastard already had at my age. Here I am approaching my first quarter of a century and I have no first novel. I have no fame. I’m not deflecting pertinent questions from feminist reviewers by flirting with them. I have accomplished nothing with my life. Nothing!

The Rachel Papers, Martins Amis’ debut novel, is a snide and rude bildungsroman about an insufferably pretentious and over-articulate git named Charlie Highway, who, in the final hours before making that magical transformation into a twenty year-old, proceeds to ruminate over the past three months and his brief romance—his first experiences with love—with a posh bird named Rachel. The exact and expansive details of the relationship have been obsessively complied in a series of documents (Charlie collects material and produces portfolios for all the women in his life) called, you guessed it, the Rachel Papers. Over the course of this playfully metafictional novel, the reader gets to learn firsthand all of Charlie’s overbearing opinions on sex, literature, classism, youth, aging, zits, self-loathing, farts, art, music and poetry, and all of this is further compounded by his snarky resentment for the entirety of the adult world, by which I mean his carelessly cruel and cavalier father. This book is by no means a great book but there is no denying the deep well of talent Amis is working with as he convincingly gives voice to his wannabe academic of a teenage boy. Yes, Rachel’s portrayal is as thin as the paper on which she is deconstructed in excess by Charlie, who is very much a crude and shallow narrator. The Rachel Papers is a genuinely funny and cynical look at youth and childish notions of love, and how (most) young people don’t really have shit to say about anything meaningful. Apologies Holden and whateveryournamesare in John Green’s novels.
...more

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May 27, 2020 Jen rated it liked it

I first heard of Martin Amis through the fellationary (I refuse to accept the unreality of this word) anecdotes of his late friend and tireless polemicist Christopher Hitchens. Now Hitch, for those who don’t know, is a man of such intensity that the normal rules for using lugubrious in a sentence (which is to say; don’t) do not apply. So hearing all his praise for Amis sank an image into my psyche, into the binary operations of my most atavistic operating systems, a conceptual depth charge desce I first heard of Martin Amis through the fellationary (I refuse to accept the unreality of this word) anecdotes of his late friend and tireless polemicist Christopher Hitchens. Now Hitch, for those who don’t know, is a man of such intensity that the normal rules for using lugubrious in a sentence (which is to say; don’t) do not apply. So hearing all his praise for Amis sank an image into my psyche, into the binary operations of my most atavistic operating systems, a conceptual depth charge descended, bobbing like a giant rotten apple on black streams of lizard consciousness. The picture of a man in a gimp suit, leaning over a bowl of cereal which, instead of confections in the shape of happy iconography, is heaping with words like: tumescent, postprandial, scabrous, emetic, detumescence, termagant, extempore, pubical (okay, that’s not a real word either). Fiendish spoonfuls disappear into the grim aperture of his executioner’s mask. His hunger — never sated.

Needless to say, I’ve been in a state of confused arousal ever since. So, I thought, it’s time to explode this mine using the soft, water logged, organic tissues which comprise my being to muffle the detonation. Thus have I ridden The Rachel Papers like the proverbial Texas Rattlesnake with my thighs gripping all the while with force enough to explode two good sized cantaloupes.

What’s it about? Well, it’s about a self obsessed twat with a frail constitution (and ego) who meticulously chronicles his manipulative hijinks, the bulk of which are directed towards obtaining a rather ordinary girl who has etched herself large in his imagination due to the difficulty in obtaining her. Not to be thwarted by what he views as her simian boyfriend, he draws upon his self aggrandizement to further self aggrandize, using notebooks to codify mannerism, affect, ambient lighting conditions, and speeches which beg, borrow, steal, and sometimes confabulate insights he has gained from being a bed ridden book worm in the past, all in order to loom equally as large in Rachel’s mind.

All of this was humorous and oddly charming from a self insertion perspective. Where I couldn’t help but imagine being Rachel and breaking this conniving little shit from sucking eggs using my own diabolical snares. Which, funnily enough, made me sympathize with him, because maybe we’re cut from the same cloth and he just has the unfortunate tic of scribbling out his machinations like an action item list. After all, I have set up vignettes within my own room to evoke certain impressions in visitors. Leaving an art pad out with Boltzmann’s equations scribbled on it, and stained just so with Rorschachs of Jaegermeister, will, in equal measure, attract and repel prospective mates. So if I can accuse him of anything, really, it’s being unbearably fastidious and going to pieces when the bottom falls out. Roll with the punches you insecure, phlegm ridden weasel! Break ‘em from sucking eggs, I will! But on the other hand. Maybe I would’ve pity shagged. He’s a bit adorable in a horrible person kind of way.

Anyway, the story wasn’t terribly interesting to me, if not for the fact that it was written by Martin Amis.

Allow me to clarify. If the writing style of the book can be imagined as a window, then it can range from opaque to completely transparent. Sometimes Spot jumps over the fence, and sometimes Spot luxuriates in rich prose, doesn’t manage to clear the hurdle at all, and snags his beanie babies in an unceremonious landing. Which is a thinly veiled commentary on the pursuit of happiness. See what I mean? No? Forget it! You’re a terrible dog anyway!

Now, with Amis, it’s a bit like a foggy mirror in the loo. You see shapes being traced in real time by someone on the other side. Something beautiful and impossibly detailed, defying the normal restrictions of phalangic art. You’re astounded to see the nervous system of Hyena Matriarch materializing slowly. This also allows you to glimpse something of the responsible party.

“Wait. Is he...”

Next to this beautiful cross section of Crocuta crocuta of the Hyaenidae family. The Queen’s arterial branches coalescing and terminating in a frighteningly large clitoris which she uses to absolutely terrify the males of the pack any time there’s a row that needs sorting. (Look this up if you’re curious). There’s something else taking shape.

“Is that a penis on a... skateboard? Wait! Is that the author over there rubbing one out?!”

And that’s pretty much Martin Amis. What a treasure. ...more

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Aug 22, 2018 Vanessa rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5 Often crude and rude but highly entertaining if not easily offended. The main thing I took from this book is Martin Amis has a unique way with words. I also learnt that teenage boys are extremely gross. He does well to capture the selfishness and insecurities of adolescence, if it wasn’t as funny as it was this book would have been so cringeworthy.

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Jun 22, 2020 Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2020, reviews-3-stars, reviews, amis

Almost Entranced

Charles Highway is a 19 year old student who has two obsessions with entry. One is to pass his Oxford entrance exams and the other is to sleep with Rachel Noyes before he [Charles] turns 20 in three weeks.

This isn't a quest to lose his virginity (that has already happened with Gloria or someone before her) or to have sex with an Older Woman (Rachel is only a month older than Charles).

It's more about an over-sexed, literary white English male arbitrarily setting out to enter the ...more

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Jul 26, 2007 Clare rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: teenagers, post teenagers, people experiencing a mid-life crisis who need to be persuaded out of it

This is a bit of a curate's egg of a reading experience. I began finding Charles Highway's escapades mildly amusing, took a detour into down and out hatred of vacuous Rachel and odious Charles and ended up in a state of turbulent hilarity. This is basically a book about being a teenage boy - obsessed with phlegm, spunk and pulling girls. At times Highway is intensly dislikeable - like wading through a teenage boy's room in fact - but he is undeniably fascinating. However, the prize for most disl ...more

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Dec 09, 2012 Jonfaith rated it it was amazing

If Philip Roth is correct and life is misunderstanding people, then I remain awed by the riddle which is Martin Amis. His first novel The Rachel Papers injects self-awareness into satire, leaking a fecund foam which changes everything about how we regard the way we live now. The insecurity of adolescence is illustrated by our protagonist, one Charles Highway, who diagrams said angst and provides cross-references from the literary canon. One can imagine the reader or protagonsit saying bugger Hol ...more

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Feb 28, 2018 Ailsa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Hell yeah.

.
.
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"I took Rachel to a French film, La Rupture, as an oblique way of indicating to her how good in bed I was going to turn out to be." 109

"University challenge: the contestants seemed to be alarmingly well informed but, on the other hand, reassuringly hideous." 134 ...more

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Sep 27, 2011 Rob Walter rated it it was amazing

I've given up trying to defend Martin Amis books. I tend to agree with every criticism that people offer, but to me they've missed the point. He's so wonderful to read because he has more technical mastery than any writer of the last fifty years that I've read. He can make his prose, and consequently his characters, do absolutely anything he likes.

As this is his first novel the pyrotechnics are somewhat muted, making it probably one of his more accessible novels. He has focused a bit more on cha ...more

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Jan 21, 2014 Eleni rated it did not like it

I haven't read other Martin Amis novels. I have read analyses about Martin Amis, I have read interviews of Martin Amis and I have read raving reviews of OTHER novels of Martin Amis and I believe everybody who praises his talent. Unfortunately I should have also believed the people who praise his talent and who warned me not to choose The Rachel Papers as an introduction to his work, on the grounds that – surprisingly enough - it sucks.

I didn't and it was a big mistake. I chose The Rachel ...more

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Dec 04, 2019 Matthew rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lit-british, 20th-century, read-2019

Amis' first novel. And, as many have said before, it's hard not to compare it to his father's first novel 'Lucky Jim'. In some ways, they are the same, and in many ways not. On a side note, I felt as if, having read Martin Amis' memoir earlier this year, the father figure in this novel resembled Kingsley in several ways. I wonder if they ever discussed that together. Even without that, it's a very autobiographical book. I think Amis has even admitted that it is. Charles Highway (the protagonist, ...more

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Apr 05, 2017 Faye rated it did not like it

Shelves: twentieth-century-classics, reviewed

Read: April 2017

I decided to read The Rachel Papers after reading the amazing Time's Arrow last year and I cannot believe these two books were written by the same author. I wrote a review of Time's Arrow at the time which showed how much I loved it and I guess I expected this book to be of a similar calibre but it was nowhere near as good.

The protagonist here is Charles, who is trying too hard to be a 'lovable rogue' sort of character, but really he comes across as pretentious and arrogant. For ...more

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Apr 12, 2016 Tim rated it really liked it

Shelves: london

This is Amis’ first novel, written when he was in his early twenties. I greatly enjoyed his middle period but gave up on him after reading a couple of his more recent novels – Yellow Dog and House of Meetings. Then I came across this in the garden shed and realised I’d never read it…

Martin Amis has a talent for creating obnoxious characters and the narrator of The Rachel Papers, Charles Highway, certainly fits this bill. Except, unlike in his middle period when he somehow managed, almost like a ...more

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Jul 11, 2007 Callie rated it it was ok

So I had a really difficult time finishing this book. Several times I wanted to quit reading it, but I honestly hate stopping a book when I'm half way through. I think my big mistake with this one was seeing the terribly made 80's film adaptation prior to reading the book. Man, was that one terrible film.
Second mistake, was that I couldn't stand the main character, Charles Highway, rather I LOATHED him. What a horribly self-centered, obnoxious, womanizing, vile protagonist.
And, yeah, I get that ...more

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May 20, 2014 Jeremy rated it really liked it

It was about time, I decided, that I paid some attention to the work of Martin Amis. After all he’s a significant figure in literature; named one the fifty greatest British writers since 1945, son of the late Kingsley Amis, friend of the late Christopher Hitchens and writer of lauded novels and non-fiction. Just as well I’d bought The Rachel Papers a few years ago when I was spending money on novels in an irresponsible fashion. In any case, it’s always good to be prepared, and fortunately Amis d It was about time, I decided, that I paid some attention to the work of Martin Amis. After all he’s a significant figure in literature; named one the fifty greatest British writers since 1945, son of the late Kingsley Amis, friend of the late Christopher Hitchens and writer of lauded novels and non-fiction. Just as well I’d bought The Rachel Papers a few years ago when I was spending money on novels in an irresponsible fashion. In any case, it’s always good to be prepared, and fortunately Amis did not let me down.

The Rachel Papers happens to be Martin Amis’s first novel and features the first person musings of nineteen year old protagonist Charles Highway. Charles is a perfect summation of what it is like to to nineteen: gross, arrogant and horny, very horny. Charles is on the verge of possibly entering Oxford to study literature. He’s also the writer of copious narcissistic tracts about his life, which includes the Rachel papers. This never ending document details just how Charles will win Rachel over and therefore have his way with an older woman (although Rachel is barely older than Charles) before he turns twenty and leaves behind his teenage years forever. Charles is an easy character to warm to due to his witty and engaging observations of, amongst other subjects, the British class system. Also The Rachel Papers has a narrative style that’s akin to Aldous Huxley letting his hair down over the course of a drunken long weekend, which is very entertaining indeed.

The Rachel Papers reveals a late teenage mind that is obsessed with not only girls, but also gross bodily functions. There is a great deal of detail about various bodily fluids, including descriptions of of what he hacks out of his bronchial lungs and his battles with massive pimples. Although there is plenty of juvenile humour to be had throughout the novel, The Rachel Papers is much more than it initially seems. The novel presents three significant relationship stages: the youthful and lustful first flush of love in the the form of Charles and Rachel, the problematic middle stages in the form of Highway’s sister - Jennifer and her husband - the proudly lower class Norman, and finally there is the passionless endgame of Highway’s parents. The nature of these relationships provides a clever subtext beneath the grotesque that results in a life lesson for Charles Highway which, in the end, cuts through his adolescent anger at his father and his own indulgent narcissistic tendencies.

There are also some literary themes at play, with Highway constantly referencing literary greats such as William Blake and innumerable British poets. It is no coincidence that Highway is attempting to gain entry into Oxford, as it provides Amis with an opportunity to satirize the British education system. Highway is also endlessly taking notes and working on his epically bitter ‘Letter to my Father’ which ironically, it seems to me, is a letter to his future self. It’s tempting to see Amis and his father within this strained relationship. Amis has admitted that Charles is partly based on his youthful self. There’s certainly a cutting self awareness to the narrative, as well as being absolutely hilarious and unashamedly male. Amis also manages to pull off the best sex scene I’ve ever read, which is unflinching in its realism without being cringe-worthy. The novel ends with some of the coldest closing lines I’ve ever read, the kind that only a very brave writer could produce.

Upon finishing The Rachel Papers I began to miss it like an old friend who I knew I wouldn’t see for a long time. As a result I’m now a total fan of Martin Amis and I intend to read the rest of his bibliography in order of publication. Amis has been a controversial writer over the years, one who’s raised the ire of many conservative commentators in Great Britain. Over the years his friend Christopher Hitchens staunchly defended Amis, something I’m willing to take on now that Hitchens is dead. I say this with tongue firmly in cheek of course, however it is apparent that The Rachel Papers is an easy target for accusations of misogyny. In its defense I have to say that the novel is not necessarily misogynistic in nature; it is much more accurate to view it in anthropological terms. Amis shows that there is a certain confidence in a young man’s stride, but unfortunately there is also an unresolvable duality at the heart of the male psyche that perhaps few woman (and men) will ever come to terms with.

From my blog: http://excelsiorforever.blogspot.com.au/

...more

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Dec 06, 2009 christa rated it liked it

Charles Highway is a Rick Ocasek-looking, luggie horking, father-hating-for-unspecified-reasons, asthmatic on the cusp of his 20th birthday, which he is taking, like most things, very seriously. He spends the hour leading up to midnight of the big day, which he refers to as the end of his youth, revisiting his relationship with Rachel. This is easy, as Charles Highway has kept detailed notes on their time together, all while simultaneously creating a personal guidebook called "Conquests and Tech Charles Highway is a Rick Ocasek-looking, luggie horking, father-hating-for-unspecified-reasons, asthmatic on the cusp of his 20th birthday, which he is taking, like most things, very seriously. He spends the hour leading up to midnight of the big day, which he refers to as the end of his youth, revisiting his relationship with Rachel. This is easy, as Charles Highway has kept detailed notes on their time together, all while simultaneously creating a personal guidebook called "Conquests and Techniques: A Synthesis."

Martin Amis does this so well, creating a character so unlikable that if you met Charles Highway in real life you'd induce a brain spasm from over-using your eye rolling muscles. Amis takes that loathsome protagonist in his first novel, "The Rachel Papers," and turns it all into a very witty story.

Charles is staying with his sister and her abusive husband while he prepares to apply for admission to Oxford. He's got a girl Gloria who stops by for all sorts of floor routine antics, which are given play-by-play treatment. "What did I feel for her?" He wonders one morning. "Ambiguous lust, genial condescension, and gratitude. It didn't seem enough."

He meets Rachel by offending her at a party, taking her on a date, not calling her, then giving it another go a week or so later. She's a tough sell, with an American boyfriend always orbiting her. Charles plots ways to make headway: He visits a museum they play to go to, plots profound statements he can say while standing near a window that delivers a specific light. He does the same with movies. He manufactures all sorts of tortured emotions, and soon enough he's got her in his bed.

Things with Rachel don't last long.

Not much happens in this short novel covering an equally short amount of time. It's a lot of listening to the pretentious ramblings of a teenager who is trying to mold his life to look and sound certain ways. Certain books left open to certain pages, and the album on the front of the pile is deliberate. But every minute in Charles Highway's head is funny and ridiculous, although treated so seriously. Like a caricature who believes he is an illustration.

...more

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Jul 25, 2010 Myfanwy rated it it was amazing

Should this be renamed? I'm thinking Portrait of the Artist as a Young Horny Man? Charles Highway is an absolute little shit and yet he is endearing and I enjoyed my time with him (even when it was gross). Everything he does, he does for experience and for an opportunity to write about it. At least this is what he tells himself. I would guess, too, that everything he does, he does in hopes of feeling real emotion, thereby breaks the boundaries of his class and family. ...more

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Jul 03, 2008 Punk rated it did not like it

Recommended to Punk by: Sab

Fiction. Self-indulgent, myopic, teenage fiction. I like Amis, but not his narrator. Charles Highway is a spoiled 19-year-old who considers himself an intellectual and tends towards something he identifies as "self-infatuation" but makes no move to resist. I couldn't handle him and nearly threw this book down twice for every page I read. ...more

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Jan 06, 2019 Tony rated it it was amazing

A good little tale but I couldn’t shake the idea that he was trying to borrow his father’s shoes here.

Worth a read though!

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Feb 22, 2012 Troy Parfitt rated it really liked it

The Rachel Papers was my first Martin Amis novel and I liked it enough that I would read Amis again, most definitely. People say his subsequent efforts, such as Money and London Fields, are brilliant, and based on this book – published (if my math is right) when the author was 24 – I imagine they are. What a talent to write that well at that age. In terms of style and ability, it reads like a novel penned by someone twice as old.

The story (a narrative told on the day before the protagonist’s 20 The Rachel Papers was my first Martin Amis novel and I liked it enough that I would read Amis again, most definitely. People say his subsequent efforts, such as Money and London Fields, are brilliant, and based on this book – published (if my math is right) when the author was 24 – I imagine they are. What a talent to write that well at that age. In terms of style and ability, it reads like a novel penned by someone twice as old.

The story (a narrative told on the day before the protagonist’s 20th birthday, recounting the previous pre-university year) revolves around Charles Highway and his “first love” Rachel, though it’s unclear if Charles really loves Rachel (or anything, or anyone, besides perhaps William Blake). Charles, you see, isn’t a very nice person. He is an exceptionally bright and an exceptionally egomaniacal and shallow 19 year old. He lies, he manipulates; he’s cold. But he knows he’s not a nice fellow (indeed, he tells you precisely why), so this articulate candour makes for humour, and the book is really funny in places. And it’s that can’t-see-it-coming humour, the best kind. I particularly liked the line (after some confessional about some inadequacy or personal issue) ‘My heart really went out to me there.’ It’s an interesting premise for a first-person narrative; Charles is effectively saying, “I’m a worm, and here’s why I’m a worm.”

The only problem I had with the book is that it is a sort of literary teen romance – very literary in places, but very teen romance in others. It made me think back to those zit-concerned, first girlfriend days: sneaking around behind parents’ backs, thinking “oldsters” were quite lame, and all that jazz – but at times it came across as too teen-edition-Harlequin-romance. I didn’t really need a description of fumbling for buttons or a step by step through opening a condom package (well maybe one, but not two or three). You get to an age where reading about that kind of thing loses appeal. But what else could a 24 year old have written about?

The character Kevin, Charles’s bother-in-law, is priceless – endless comedy, certainly based on a real person. Kevin is a kitchen-sitting, booze guzzling, card playing lout who likes to indulge Charles in banal conversation or locker-room talk about his sister (and Charles doesn’t seem to mind because he admits he thinks his sister is hot!). Kevin’s not a very nice person either, so he and Charles (or so Kevin thinks) seem to have a connection.

I wonder what Martin Amis thinks of this book. It was written in 1973, and Amis has since gone on to become a literary giant. Most writers wish their first couple of efforts would disappear.
I thought The Rachel Papers was a good read. I imagine twenty-somethings with good taste in literature (and a sense of humour) would find it a great one.

Troy Parfitt, author of Why China Will Never Rule the World

...more

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Dec 05, 2009 Ruzz rated it liked it

Shelves: 2009

I'm without historical context for why this short novel should sit somewhere in my heart. I hear it was funny at some point. then maybe too cynical at another.

It felt to me, at times, like reading a bright young whipper snapper's weblog. Nothing at all wrong with that, just not compelling in any way.

amis' writing is always sharp and loaded with extra meanings and his bluntness about how men think about some things must have been a bit of a slap in the face to the post hippie world of the early ...more

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Jan 20, 2012 Toby rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lit

For a book about a teenager supposedly coming of age, written nigh on 40 years ago and read by me rapidly approaching my 30th birthday; this was possibly not the best combination to get the most from the controversial debut novel from famed misogynist Martin Amis. The only thing worse could possibly have been if I were female I suppose.

A quite enjoyable read but not as depraved or as entertaining as I had been previously led to believe. Charles Highway is a quite wonderful character, the type th ...more

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Aug 08, 2007 R. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2007

Painfully realistic at points; so much so, that I envision Martin Amis as Charles Highway.

But not young Martin Amis. The present-day Martin Amis.

Which makes it kind of a Lolita experience; a middle-aged guy trying to seduce a young lady before his __th/__nd/__rd birthday.

The text is kind enough to remind me, without elegant variation, that Charles is 19, and tomorrow he'll be 20. When this happens, the prop handlers slop a mop-top on 55-year-old Martin, but it doesn't stay on long and usually ...more

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Mar 30, 2016 Natalie added it · review of another edition

DNF at page 131. I'm bored out of my mind and Charlie's an arrogant, misogynist dickhead. I gather that's supposed to be the point but I'm not foreseeing any character growth so no, can't read this anymore. ...more

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Sep 27, 2019 Alex Ankarr rated it did not like it

Shelves: no

Depressing, mean-spirited, not even very well-written. Nepotism, it's a wonderful thing! ...more

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Sep 01, 2020 ThereWillBeBooks rated it liked it

Shelves: coming-of-age

This is Amis’ first novel and it is fairly solid. He would go on to write better and funnier things (where he ends up/where he is now is a fun subject for another time) but you can trace the evolution of the typical Amis protagonist back to Charles Highway. Arrogant, egotistical, bookish, and-though he knows it not-pretty terrible, morally. You know, your standard Western teenager.

I would actually recommend this book to anyone in their teens and about to enter the dating scene. Be warned, that d ...more

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Jul 18, 2009 Cailin Deery rated it really liked it

The Rachel Papers is hilarious, while shamelessly trashy and egomaniacal. After I got over my misgivings, it was hugely entertaining. I'd never read anything by Amis and impulsively picked this up to read in Oxford & London (the setting switches back and forth between the two cities) with little other rationalization. The Rachel Papers is Amis' first book, penned at 24, and I like what another reviewer said - it's like Catcher in the Rye if Holden Caulfied got laid. Kind of. Only Charles Highway ...more

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Jun 18, 2011 Justin Evans rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

Is this great literature? No. But I did really like it. It should sit next to Rabbit, Run and Portnoy's Complaint, but with the benefit of being much, much better written than the first, and more interesting than the second. Also, compared to 'Dead Babies,' which was my first M. Amis read, this is much less datedly 'shocking.' Reading DB was a bit like listening to a teenager with green-dyed hair talking about how much she's subverting Them. Kind of cute, but also more than a bit tragic. I didn' ...more

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Dec 30, 2018 David rated it liked it

Shelves: big-white-square

I really enjoyed this at the start. Charles was unsuccessful with girls and didn't seem to be the person anyone would fall in love with ... and I laughed with him (not at him) on the DLR to work. There was even a chance (a small chance, I'm sure) that he wasn't going to get in to Oxford. Or at least that we weren't to be there to witness his success.

But then everyone started falling in love with him and he got in to Oxford ... and I went right off him.

Bits:
"In her gardening clothes she resembl ...more

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Oct 22, 2013 Amy Laurens rated it liked it

I'm both too old and too female to really connect with this book but it's a pretty amazing job for a 24 year old (which is the age Amis was when this published). Such a witty writing style.

I wonder if this was the start of the "debut comic coming-of-age novel by and about bookish, awkward English boys with anti-hero protagonists that are thinly veiled versions of the authors themselves" trend?

Amis on Oxford:

"I dislike the town. Sorry: too many butterfly trendies, upper-class cunts, regional yo ...more

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About Martin Amis

Martin Amis

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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 reco ...more

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Pulitzer Prize–winning literary critic Michiko Kakutani, the former chief book critic of The New York Times, is the author of the newly...

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“Impartially, shrewdly, I considered suicide, though not in my worst moments. The bottle of pills. The note: 'No hard feelings, everyone, but I've thought about it and it's just not on, is it? It's nearly on, but not quite. No? Anyway, all the best, C.” — 36 likes

“You don't have problems, only a capacity for feeling anxious about them, which shifts and jostles but doesn't change.” — 36 likes

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