Chien jaune

by Martin Amis

Xan Meo, fils de gangster devenu acteur et romancier raffiné, se fait violemment agresser et subit une étrange métamorphose…
Le roi Henry IX tente d'étouffer un double scandale : sa liaison avec une mystérieuse Chinoise, et une vidéo scabreuse où apparaît l'héritière du trône…
Clint Smoker, journaliste à scandale, a des raisons bien personnelles d'aller en Californie interviewer une reine du porno…
Et pendant ce temps, le vol 101, réservé aux fumeurs, arrivera-t-il à destination ?
En entrecroisant ces histoires, Martin Amis livre une charge féroce contre une Angleterre à peine imaginaire, de Buckingham Palace au Londres de la pègre. Mais sous ce tableau grinçant et apocalyptique couve une interrogation inquiète : dans un monde en perdition, quelle place pour l'innocence ? Et la civilisation suffit-elle à endiguer la sauvagerie ?
Moraliste sans concession, satiriste impitoyable, Amis prouve surtout une fois de plus sa puissance visionnaire et sa capacité à réinventer la langue : de la préciosité aristocratique à l'argot des truands en passant par le langage des SMS, il nous offre un feu d'artifice stylistique qui brasse tous les parlers pour en faire une synthèse unique. Et ce livre monstre, l'un de ses plus aboutis, résume notre temps comme peu d'œuvres savent le faire.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Literary Fiction, Literature, Contemporary, British Literature, 21st Century

494 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Martin Amis was an English novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His works included 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 recognisable in any piece before he reaches his first full stop."

Amis's raw material is what he sees as the absurdity of the postmodern condition with its grotesque caricatures. He has thus sometimes been portrayed as the undisputed master of what the New York Times has called "the new unpleasantness."

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

This darkly comedic yet literary work follows a number of vile men, including a fictional King of the UK, in what appear to be disparate stories; one set on a plane(!), another in the Palace, another in a Californian porn town(!) etc, as well as all over London. Google will tell you that Amis' intention was with this work, as it's probably something more high brow that what I determined was a satirical look at Neanderthal man's place in the 21st century ? I can see why the literary classes, the enfranchised, hated this book, and poured scathing all over it; because it takes risks, is innovative and also features a number of working class characters. I feel the disparity and jumping from story to story and lack of an overall cohesive plot dampened my enjoyment of this book, although I did read the entire second half on a Saturday afternoon. For me this is a 7 out of 12, conformity pushing Three Star read.

2024 read

[Tony Vacation · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yellow Dog gained more than its share of notoriety back in 2003 when its publication was met with a veritable assault from critics, the most renowned being from Tibor Fischer who wrote this thoroughly over-quoted quip about Amis's book: "This shit sucks...read my novel that came out on the same day instead." This is the book that you will hear the casual Amis admirers and deniers alike say must be avoided at all costs.

So it comes as no surprise that I loved the book. (In 2013 alone, I went head to head with critics over the mistreated and under-valued films Only God Forgives and The Counselor.) There is much speculation about why the British press has its head so far up its own ass when it comes to the topic of Martin Amis, but I'll leave that discussion up to other people, such as Martin Amis himself, who gets asked about it every goddamn interview he ever does. And so but yes then the book.

The violent and repulsive nature of human beings is my favorite of all themes, and that is exactly what Yellow Dog is about. This gruesome and grotesque pastiche of contemporary times is told through a panorama of scumbags in various seats of power. The ensemble cast features Henry IX, King of England (fictional, obviously), who can't wait to pull the plug on his comatose wife, and who is also dealing with the bit of a bother of some blackmail over a nudie picture of his daughter; a vile and pernicious porn mogul named Joseph Andrews; a severely emasculated tabloid hack named Clint Smoker, who writes misogynistic editorials, and who also sports one of the worst facial piercings I have ever encountered; Xen Mao, an everyman celebrity who suffers a serious head trauma that sets him on a harrowing battle with his own self as a primal violence begins to take over his psyche, threatening to strip him of the very thing he holds dearest...his family. (Now that's drama in a sentence!)

Some really unsettling and pertinent considerations about the inheritance of violence and the muddled nature of gender relations and control are explored as the wild and seemingly disparate plot takes the reader from the posh decadence of royal villas in the bowers of the English countryside, to the ins-and-outs of the porn industry in the sleazy, silicon-soaked streets of southern California, to the confines of a transcontinental flight beset by a violent storm and the threat of a passing world-killing comet. In this reader's opinion, Amis pulls all his threads together in a dizzying way, and even manages to (dare I say it) conjure up a touching ending.

Amis is a writer that, when's he's red-hot, can turn every sentence he touches into a linguistic neutron bomb; and even when he staggers, he does so wonderfully, carpet-bombing the page with addicting, jazzed-out prose. This is my fifth novel of Amis's (I also read his precious non-fiction book on the arcade craze of the early 80's, Invasion of the Space Invaders), and I can gladly say that Marty is becoming one of me best mates. And I couldn't give two fucks if you don't fancy it. Toss off, wankers.

[D. Pow · Rating 1 out of 5]

Utter excretion. A pail full of vomit. Abortive, stutter-step sentences, a half-stab towards stylistic subtlety that is lame and listless. Vapid dialogue coming from lifeless characters, cardboard cut outs limping through dormant scene after scene. No over-arching world view or a sense of a moral vision tied to these drab and vacuous proceedings. The shit dabs of a dyslexic, perhaps sociopathic, monkey. He sure looks cool on his book jackets though.

[Manny · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I just don't know what to say. It's like a friend has invited you around for dinner, and they put it down on the table, and somehow they don't seem to be aware that they left it too close to the cat's litter tray. One sniff is enough that you're quite certain you know what happened. What's wrong with them? Do they have a cold, which has temporarily removed their sense of smell? Is it a bizarre joke?

Well, if you thought that analogy was tasteless, it's nothing compared to Amis's book. Not even in the same ballpark. And usually I love his stuff.

By the way, I think the title is a vulgar and obscure pun. Yellow = wan, dog = cur. Geddit?

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

There comes a time in the life of the Martin Amis enthusiast—a tempestuous and maddening experience—to brace oneself for Yellow Dog. The Hallowed Annum of Our Lord of Brexit 2019 was this reader’s moment. And the outcome? I spent around seven hours in tangle of semi-amusing and not-at-all-amusing prose, in a funk of incoherent and incompetent plotlines, in the white heat of a bizarre obsession with violent Cockernees, in a realm of stellar punning and parodic txt-spk. The result is a deranged screwball comedic onslaught with Nabokovian nods to incest and ham-fisted attempts at satire that entertains and irritates and entertains. Calm down. We could all be reading Mil Millington. Now that is pure horrorism.

[Steven Godin · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know those horror films where a group of youngsters are warned not to go poking around a certain isolated house, or wander off into a certain wood, or drive down a certain road, or a host of other things that they know might up being troublesome. But they do it anyway. Well, I was warned about this particular Amis novel, but went on and read it anyway, or at least some of it before realising I hated it. It was troublesome. At least I didn't end up locked away in a cellar full of body parts I suppose. Or maybe I'd prefer that to finishing this mess of a novel.

[Shane · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first Martin Amis, and I think, given his patriarchal theme, I will stick with his dad Kingsley in future.
Amis is bold - no question - dealing with subjects such as incest, gratuitious violence, rage, drug abuse, pornography, impotence, spousal rape. He even invents his own language for the character k8 (Kate) which is witty after you figure it out.He enters the world of porn with terms like Blackeye, Cockout, Redface, Boxback, Yellow tongue, Facial - some explained, others left to our imagination. His descriptions are equally visceral; he describes a planeload of disembarking passengers as " the tube of canned sex emptied in relays of tits, pits and zits "
Four of the five disparate story strands sort of came together in the end, while the fifth one about the crashing airliner, didn't connect at all, and I wondered why it was there - further proof of male superiority, even from the grave?
My issue with this book was that everyone in it (except for baby Sophia) is a bad, twisted person and I am not sure if anyone was redeemed in the end - so why bother?
And the writer demonstrated arrogance in starting his scenes anywhere he damned well cared, letting the reader hang on for dear life and try and fit all the pieces together. I dislike all this "work" when reading to be entertained, educated and enlightened.
I guess, in writing this book, Amis displayed his virtuosity with words but severely limited our view on his empathy towards human character.

[Dennis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Looking at ratings in Good Reads can be deceptive but I find that when a book has less than a 3, there's usually a reason, and this was no exception. This was a train wreck disguised as a book, but not precisely for the reasons that some reviewers gave. The most obvious reason to dislike the book was for the quantity of incest, particularly father-daughter, but other forms of older man/underage girl attractions. Martin Amis is greatly influenced by Nabokov and follows the advice that actions must match the character in order to be true to the character; however, "Lolita" is a classic of a man led to his own downfall by this attraction while this takes a slightly different angle which I found to be less serious and in a way, more dangerous. I don't want to get into it but I didn't like it at all. If the books admirers want to justify it in a "you just don't get it" sort of way, I'm fine with not "getting it." This wasn't even the worst of it for me.

There are four basic storylines here, all with their share of black humor but only one even remotely interesting. There's the ex-gangster, from a long line of gangsters, whose behavior changes after being hit on the head; there's the underendowed writer for a scandal rag; there's the mostly asexual King of England whose 15-year-old daughter is secretly photographed in the nude, plus the King's attendant, Brendan Urquhart-Gordon, called Bugger for his initials, who's infatuated with the Princess; and there's a doomed flight with a coffin bouncing around in the baggage hold and causing all sorts of damage. Of these, the first is mildly interesting and the rest I could have done without. Much of the dialogue was like overheard conversations where you're not in on the shorthand references in the conversation. Finally, there are the attempts at humor that sound like extremely bad Monty Python: a Chinese masseuse named He - she is named He, so we have lines like "He touched He, He touched him, He was hard, He was soft" - and another character, Andrew New, who's referred to as And, just so you can have lines like, "...and And and..." (ho, ho, excuse me while I split my sides with hilarity). My only recommendation: it was such wonderful bedtime reading that I didn't even have to finish the page to fall asleep. Zzzzzzz....

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

disjointed, flimsy, obtuse, obscure, and otherwise not worth the time... pass....

[Ginny_1807 · Rating 1 out of 5]

È ufficiale: Martin Amis non fa per me.
Mi affatica e mi annoia profondamente.

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with the previous three novels I read by Martin Amis, this was ultimately disappointing. For all the clever, interesting, oft witty verbal alchemy, for all the credit due for tackling such varied and challenging subjects... ultimately this was a novel short of followable plot, short of characters who were anything but unlikeable, short of restraint in the behalf of the author - restraint which exercised by a ‘lesser’ author would have produced a more enjoyable and fulfilling read. Amis is essentially a step below Will Self, Chuck Palahniuk, Douglas Coupland etc. and I’ll probably stick with authors I enjoy more in future for my urban contemporary literary fiction in future.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't thought about this book in a long time. But now and then, some images & dialogues in it haunt me. This happened this weekend, so I thought it worth a short note/review. Much of the writing is brilliant -- so perhaps it deserves a higher rating for style & language. But I didn't like this book at all, and yet felt compelled to read the whole damn thing. And now it continues to appear in my waking life, and who knows, maybe my dream life too. Vivid & grotesque, troubling, off-putting. So, all that said, I'd give it a 3.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really love a lot of Martin Amis' work. But sometimes, even your favorite authors will fall asleep with their head on the keyboard. Some editor will then turn all of that gibberish into real words. Not neccesarily words that belong together or anything, but there will be words. This book has words. I think. And an airplane.

[The Super Moop · Rating 2 out of 5]

How does it come to be that a book which starts off being as gripping as they come can wind up fizzling out in an self-satisfied ramble that leaves you demanding the last two days of your life back?

I'd studiously avoided M.Amis through uni and beyond, on the strength of a not unjustifiable prejudice sparked and fuelled by a pompous Eng Lit type who used to carry on about Time's Arrow and how clever it was because it ran backwards, which had struck me at the time as being exactly the sort of technical dick-waving that sucks all the fun out of books.

This made it all the worse when I finally caved in years later and bought this book - my first Martin Amis, and likely my last - for two extremely unsound reasons, namely that I liked father Kingsley's work a lot so perhaps the son was to be trusted after all, and that the blurb at the back claimed that this particular novel was all sorts of good things.

The book is presented in two halves. The first is magnificently clever - so much so that any kneejerk annoyance that a certain smug brand of craftsmanship normally provokes in me was well overshadowed by the astuteness of the observations, the quickness of the humour, the exponential build-up of suspense and the endless flow of wicked puns. The fact that there appear to be four or five parallel plots only serves to heighten the tension, leading one to expect a final, climactic, nimbly handled tie-up along the lines of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, with Martin Amis pulling a literary rabbit out of his top hat with a swish, a cloud of fairy dust, and an "Et voila!"

The second half is the worst thing I've ever read.

Not only do the plots not tie up after all - which leads you to wonder why anyone bothers - but it's astounding in its arrogance, the sheer hubris of single-mindedly dwelling for hundreds of pages on the kind of character and life that only M.Amis himself could possibly care about.

Which is something Amis Sr. is periodically guilty of himself, except that he remains funny and light in his touch, so it might be forgiven in the scheme of things.

Now, I will always stand by the notion that we must meet our best authors halfway, and that reading mustn't be reduced to passively waiting to be entertained, but Amis's ponderous and stately ascent up his own arse offers no rewards to his audience one way or another. It isn't funny and it isn't smart, and the symbolism - assuming that that's what he was aiming for - is worthless because it is two-dimensional, reducing real life to a caricature at the expense of all clarity and depth.

It is the worst sort of pretension because it exists only for its own benefit.

There are only two things worth doing with Yellow Dog.

You may

1. Read the first half and try to make up your own ending, which might keep you amused for a bit, or,

2. Leave it to rot in the discount bin, where it belongs.



--

What is it about the symbolic use of characters and details that impresses so many educated people? It's not very hard to do: almost any detail or person or event in our lives can be pressed into symbolic service, but to what end? I take my dogs for a walk in New York City in January and see examples of ``alienation.'' An old Negro woman is crooning, ``The world out here is lonely and cold.'' A shuffling old man mutters, ``Never did and never will, never again and never will.'' And there's a crazy lady who glowers at my dogs and shouts, ``They're not fit to shine my canary's shoes!'' Do they tell us anything about a ``decaying society''? No, but if you had some banal polemical, social or moral point to make, you could turn them into cardboard figures marked with arrows. In so doing I think you would diminish their individuality and their range of meaning, but you would probably increase your chances of being acclaimed as a deep thinker.



- Pauline Kael, ``Tourist in the City of Youth'', Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Atlantic Monthly Book Press, 1968, First Edition, page 36-37

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

After Ian McEwan spent a year shadowing a brain surgeon while writing his rather Amis-like Saturday, Martin must have felt the bar was raised a bit and confesses in the afterword to doing "some light research" for this one (presumably something beyond the customary darts at the public house).
The research was on recovering from head injuries and what actually happens in the cockpit when a plane is in danger of crashing - both also quite congruent with Saturday. The medical angle allows Amis a little more focus and plot complexity around his usual fascination with street violence and the plane is one of three plot lines that are advanced in alternating segments; one with our kicked-in-the-head hero, another with an alternate universe instance of the royal family and one with the plane that takes place on an entirely different time scale and seems perhaps just an elaborate metaphor. Overall more tightly structured than the London trilogy and fanciful in new and fascinating, albeit slightly disturbing, ways.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yellow Dog is linguistically brilliant and great artistry. It's full of the famous Martin Amis wit, comedy and wordplay. There are different styles, perfect parody of popular magazine writing and even inventive email texting like 'I vener8te yellow dog, I lite c&ndles to yellow dog'. 'Only when u & I are 1 will I feel truly @ peace. 10derly, K8.'

It's populated by people like Sir Dork Bogarde en Charisma Trixxx. It switches back and forth between the worlds of royalty and sleaziness, gangsterland and sensation magazines.
It did take me a long time to read it because it's sometimes difficult to follow, especially if your English is an acquired second language.

The novel, and Amis himself, have been harshly criticised, but a lot of that is due to envy and offendedness at a 'wrong' sense of humor.

[William2 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not stay with this one. I found the comedy much too broad for my taste, and the idiom too cryptically British. And I am one of Amis's most devoted readers, too. I love Money and London Fields. I wish I could say why the britishisms in those novels did not prove as off-putting as the ones here. Oh well, I will give it another shake someday. Let me also cast a vote here for House of Meetings. Quite wonderful.

[Taylor Bright · Rating 1 out of 5]

In reviewing his friend's book, Yellow Dog, Tibor Fischer said, “The way British publishing works is you go from not being published no matter how good you are, to being published no matter how bad you are."

I'll leave it at that.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yellow Dog is a strange and deeply unpleasant novel where father-daughter incest is the central theme but also features tabloid journalism, pornography and the Royal Family.

The main character is Xan Meo, an actor turned author, and father of two young girls, who on a night out in London to celebrate the anniversary of his first marriage's decree nisi is clubbed over the head by two assailants. Before the assault he has a normal, healthy relationship with his wife daughters but after the attack his personality changes, he attempts to rape his wife and has incestuous thoughts about his eldest daughter, four-year-old Billie.

Clint Smoker, a tabloid journalist, writes for a sex-obsessed paper which appears to be based on the UK's Daily Sport called the Morning Lark and whose journalists routinely refers to its readers as "wankers". Smoker is the author of a column called "Yellow Dog", in which he states that raping 14-year-olds is fine if you've had a few drinks or they look 16, and that they're wearing school uniform counts as "provocation". When Smoker takes a trip to the US to visit the centre of the country's Californian sex industry the reader is given a long description of the evolution of various genres of sex films.

Henri IX is on the throne in Britain and despite being lazy is generally popular with his subjects. One day he receives a still of his 15 year-old daughter naked in a bath taken without her knowledge, as images and a DVD are released we learn that the princess was joined in the bath by the king's Chinese concubine. The images of the naked princess are widely circulated in the Morning Lark and the king along with his closest ally, nicknamed Bugger, (the Queen being on a life support machine in a Scottish hospital after a horse riding accident) try to find the source of the footage and to protect the young princess from the fallout.

There are several other smaller sub-plots, including a gangster narrative and a doomed flight, but they add little to the whole.

There is some humour within this book I found if it often more cringe-worthy than funny. However what is most dislikeable is that there seems to be a suggestion that father-daughter incest is quite normal and it is what leads many women to become involved in pornography industry both of which any right-minded person would find repugnant. Whilst the Royal Family are often a favourite target for satirists this felt over-egged as is Amis's representation of the class divide. Put simply other authors have done a far better job of it.

This is my third Amis novel, after Money and London Fields, and the one I disliked most. Whilst this may idea may have been OK the execution was poor.

[Hannes Kamula · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is more funny than anything else. It does also go deep. The story is good. The language used may come as a surprise to some. Would recommend this book overall to anyone in for a good story.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Yellow Dog" is a bold, complex, and unapologetically provocative exploration of masculinity, power, and the human capacity for corruption. Tackling an array of themes with his characteristic wit, sharp social commentary, and stylistic bravado, this novel unquestionably deserves a five-star rating.

The narrative is a whirlwind, revolving around Xan Meo, a reformed tough guy turned sensitive husband and father, whose life takes a dark turn after a brutal attack. Alongside this, we also follow the lives of various other characters, from a tabloid journalist to a disoriented king. As these disparate threads gradually intersect, a brilliant and unnerving portrait of modern society comes into focus.

Amis's prose is as razor-sharp as ever, packed with his distinctive wordplay and biting humor. "Yellow Dog" is a linguistic tour de force, demonstrating Amis's extraordinary ability to manipulate and play with language. His stylistic flourishes might not be to everyone's taste, but they undeniably attest to his mastery as a writer.

The novel's themes are as challenging as they are compelling. Amis delves into the darkest corners of human nature, exploring the complex interplay between masculinity, power, and sexual aggression. He does not shy away from controversial topics, resulting in a narrative that is as thought-provoking as it is disturbing.

Perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of "Yellow Dog" is its character development. Amis's characters are multifaceted and deeply flawed, yet they are also strikingly human. Xan Meo, in particular, is a fascinating protagonist, his transformation serving as a powerful exploration of the fragility of identity and the terrifying ease with which one can descend into violence and depravity.

In conclusion, "Yellow Dog" is a daring and powerful novel that delves into the darkest aspects of human nature. With its intricate narrative, complex characters, and biting social commentary, it stands as a testament to Amis's remarkable talent as a writer. Its themes might be unsettling, but they are also undeniably relevant, making "Yellow Dog" a novel that is not just compelling but also profoundly important. For its boldness, complexity, and stylistic brilliance, it fully deserves a five-star rating.

[David Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beware: This is a comedic satire set in a slightly Swiftian alternative world. Maybe I hadn't done enough due diligence before I started it, but I was expecting Yellow Dog to have the hard realism of some of Amis' other works. Thus I found the first 20 pages very annoying and was considering giving up until I realised the stylistic strangeness was intentional. As a comedic satire, it mostly works - and as with all good comedic satires set in warped versions of our world, it makes some acute observations of our actual world. Because of its nature it's a hard work to summarise - it involves several narratives, one involving London underworld criminals, another an alternative royal dynasty, another a sleazy journalist who works on a totally over-the-top satirically sleazy tabloid, and the final involving a plane crash and how the crew and passengers prepare for it. Some of the content is confronting, covering gangster violence, the porn industry and father-daughter incest. But overall Amis' narratives individually flowed well and I wanted to keep turning the 340 pages. While there is no great climax there are several surprising twists. This kind of satire is not easy to write; in the hands of a less skilled writer than Amis this book could have been terrible. But while it was an enjoyable comic romp, for my next work of fiction I'll definitely be looking for something firmly grounded in the real, actual world.

[Eamonn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've never read Martin Amis before but I'm aware he is a writer of some stature. This book is a mess. It contains several strands woven together somewhat clumsily. It has some deliciously appalling characters I enjoyed, and some ridiculous scenarious (some a bit forced). It deals with different kinds of violence, from actual criminal/underworld violence (some of this dialogue verges on parody), to the worst kind of tabloid journalism, to head trauma and it's effects on personality, to troubled male-female relationships, and different kinds of pornography. Some of this is sharply observed and/or effectively comical, but the novel as a whole is very messy (the passenger airliner/comet thread is utterly pointless), and the dialogue - the use of vernacular - is unconvincing. Perhaps this was intentional, for comic effect. I ploughed on anyway and stuck it out to the end but the best I can give it is 2-and-a-half stars.

[Paul C. Stalder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book is like an exercise in missing the point. Sure I enjoyed it. Mostly because I appreciate Amis' style, I will admit. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. However, as I reflect on what I read, I cannot help but think there was something deeper, more profound, that I am missing. Was there really something deep relayed about consciousness? Was there a profound revelation about the self? What about lust, or love, or the feelings between? Was the satire more than just for comic relief? I almost feel like I have to read this book again, just to capture the soul of this novel. If there is one, that is. If you are a Martin Amis fan, there is plenty to enjoy here. If this is your first step into his work, maybe come back to it later.

[richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great satire, wonderful use of language. Dark undertoes throughout, growing darker as the novel moves through its paces. In contrast to Snuff, where Palaniuk's glee at using puns to describe porn IS the novel, here all of that sadness is situated with a single character who's plot line and character development is just one strain of the novel, and used to propel other plot lines; Amis preserves authorial detachment throughout, even in some of the most disturbing discussions on the sexuality of the central character. Highly structured, wonderfully realized - can't wait to read his other novels.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminds me of his father's work, not in style or subject matter, but in audacity and brilliance of prose. Three quarters of the way into this book I'd've written that it was the best thing--not written by his father or Evelyn Waugh--that I've read in the last few years. The ending--endings are hard, Elmore Leonard told me that personally-- fell down enough so that I an't honestly say that. But still a very funny, rude, book about the obscenifaction of western culture.

[Bas v/d Bogaard · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book tries to be a black comedy but it fails. If fails because the terrible things that happen to the main characters are only funny if you have no sympathy for them at all.

However, all characters are at least somewhat likeable, even if you're glad you never have to meet them in real life.

What remains is a book that hovers on the brink of slapstick. It is my opinion that you are probably better off reading another book.

[Jack Goodstein · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too many threads that more often than not seem to have no connection, and when the connections are revealed, the reader's reaction is merely, so what. Couple this with a lot of linguistic word play, and the reader is left with a book that has more in common with a crossword puzzle than a novel. It has almost no emotional impact.

[Simon P · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF - 40%

Amis displays his incredible wordplay but also his propensity to write much poorer versions of the excellent "Money". I felt like I was wasting time that could be spent reading a better book with something more interesting to say. It is true that everybody in the world could be broken, prurient, sociopathic, but it doesn't make for especially interesting stories.

[Lara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute bobbins.