Amsterdam question

I could definitely see it as a dark comedy. although I don't know that I would have come up with that until I read this post. I can sometimes see a bit of a dark comic element in McEwan's work in general, but here there's something about the way the main characters are presented and in the way the ending ties things up that would make this one read as a dark comedy. I liked ie on many different levels, actually, McEwan is my favorite contemporary author.

I haven't read this book but want to. I have recently fallen in love with Amsterdam after a recent trip. How does the city fit into the story?

I finished it yesterday - wow! what a page-turner! as a person at a certain stage of life whose friendships are sometimes difficult, I can see it as a cautionary tale, a warning of what can happen if one becomes too self-centered not grateful enough for the people in one's life. it also works as a comedy, a way to laugh at human foibles, which is a good thing since we're so full of them.

Here's a delightful interview with McEwan. The part about Amsterdam is maybe 2/3 or 4/5 of the way down.

http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...

I'll see if goodreads will let me copy the relevant bit here:

INTERVIEWER:

What was the genesis of Amsterdam?

McEWAN:

It grew out of a long-running joke I had with my old friend and hiking companion, Ray Dolan. We speculated lightheartedly on an agreement we might have: if one of us began to go under with something like Alzheimer’s, rather than let his friend succumb to a humiliating decline, the other would take him off to Amsterdam and have him legally put down. So whenever one of us forgot a vital piece of hiking equipment, or turned up at the airport on the wrong day—you know the sort of thing that starts happening in your midforties—the other would say, Well, it’s Amsterdam for you! We were walking in the Lake District—actually along the route that the character Clive Linley takes—and I thought of two characters who might make such an agreement, then fall out and lure each other to Amsterdam simultaneously for mutual murder. A rather improbable comic plot. I was halfway through Enduring Love at the time. I sketched the idea out that night, then put it away for a rainy day. It wasn’t until I started writing it that the characters appeared, and then it seemed to take on a life of its own.

INTERVIEWER:

Amsterdam is very different from your previous novels.

McEwan:

The four novels that preceded it—The Child in Time, The Innocent, Black Dogs, and Enduring Love—all grew out of a wish to explore certain ideas. By comparison, Amsterdam felt irresponsible and free. I had a simple scheme and I went along with it to see where it might lead. Some readers considered the novel a lighthearted diversion, but for me, even at the time, it seemed as much a turning point as The Child in Time had been. I thought I was giving the characters more space. There were certain intellectual ambitions I wanted to wean myself away from. I could not have written Atonement without first writing Amsterdam.

-- end of quote --