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Martin Amis

Ok, I just finished Night Train too. I had the exact smae thougt's as Kook and was going to start a seperate Night Train thread, but since you guys are going at it here....

I found it a bit awkward to keep reading about how Mike was "a police". That just sounds strange and awkward to read. In America, at least around these parts I've never heard that phrase used that way.

Interesting that Amis chose the name Mike for a female character. With Mike being the complete opposite of Jennifer I wonder why the name was picked. It's quite easy to see they are diferent in every way without needing a boys name for a girl character.

The way the dialog was written was tough on occasion for me to follow. A lot of "I said he said....." and many conversations without quotation marks. It required some going back and having to concentrate a bit harder to follow who was saying what at times.

I liked the story. I really wanted to reach the end to find out what happened, but I did really have to think after I was done, and I think I came to the same conclusion.

Jennifer killed herself, and Mike was going to do the same. What I was really hoping for, and never got, was some kind of reasonable explianation of how a person can put three bullets into their own head. I realise that had Amis only put one bullet in her head the idea of suicide for Jennifer would be a lot easier to swallow and maybe the story would not have held my attention as well.
 
Motokid said:
Interesting that Amis chose the name Mike for a female character. With Mike being the complete opposite of Jennifer I wonder why the name was picked. It's quite easy to see they are diferent in every way without needing a boys name for a girl character.
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Haven't read the book but Mike is also short for Michaela. Mike, I believe, is also a girl's name in Germany (pronounced mee-ka)
 
motokid said:
I found it a bit awkward to keep reading about how Mike was "a police". That just sounds strange and awkward to read. In America, at least around these parts I've never heard that phrase used that way.
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Yes, John Updike made the same point in his (largely negative) review of Night Train. Amis insists it's a real idiomatic phrase, but I'm not sure where he believes it's used. I suspect he just got hooked on the idea of starting the book with the line "I am a police."

moto said:
Interesting that Amis chose the name Mike for a female character. With Mike being the complete opposite of Jennifer I wonder why the name was picked. It's quite easy to see they are diferent in every way without needing a boys name for a girl character.
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Indeed. I think Amis just likes to do things big-style and hang the subtlety. He once said something like "It's been said that my style of writing is to deliver banalities with tremendous force; and that's OK with me."
 
As to Stewart's last post....

Her full name was Michael Hoolihan wasn't it?
Mike was not short for some off-beat girl name was it?
 
I don't know if it was Michael or just Mike but yes, it was definitely a man's name, probably for the compare-and-contrast purposes detailed earlier.
 
I'll have to go back and double check. I think Mike does a bit of detailed thinking about her past where she remarks on her name.
 
Shade said:
I'm glad you liked it Kook - it's certainly worth a reread. In relation to the questions you raise:

1.
No Jennifer didn't OD on lithium, in fact she wasn't even taking it. She just faked it as a line of enquiry to make people think she was depressed so that provided a 'rational' reason for her suicide.
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Ah, I see. I picked up on this idea of false leads that Jennifer had left, but never understood the rationality behind it. I still didn't think her reasoning for committing suicide really made sense. It more seemed as though she was playing a game. Did she think her life so valueless and such a facade (much was made of her feeling of obligation to "be" cheerful) that there was really only meaning in death? Or is it the complete lack of any rational reasoning that makes this death so disturbing to Mike? I'm struggling to work out whether the book is well written to make me think about these things and be puzzled, or if it is flawed to leave things feeling unsubstantiated.

Shade said:
2.
The reason she is so upset about Jennifer's suicide is because she and Jennifer are paired (a recurring motif in Amis's work): Mike sees Jennifer as everything she isn't - beautiful, feminine, happy, in love - and figures that if Jennifer can't see anything to live for, why should she?
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Like Moto I felt that that the gender stereotyping of the names was overkill in showing this contrast between the two women. Incidently, Moto, there is an explanation of her name insofar as she states that she likes it. While men may change their feminine names in later life, she likes the masculinity of hers (or something to that effect - don't have the book in front of me, sorry).

I'll have to read over the ending again with your points in mind, Shade. This pairing concept did occur to me, but the last sentence in your spoiler there was not immediately apparent to me.
 
Kookamoor said:
I picked up on this idea of false leads that Jennifer had left, but never understood the rationality behind it. I still didn't think her reasoning for committing suicide really made sense. It more seemed as though she was playing a game. Did she think her life so valueless and such a facade (much was made of her feeling of obligation to "be" cheerful) that there was really only meaning in death?
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The point of the false leads was problematic for me too. On the one hand
Jennifer was playing the perfect daughter/female to the end by leading her father to believe, at first it was a homocide, then that she had a psychiatric problem (the lithium) to explain her suicide. On the other hand, knowing her father and Mike's tenacity, wouldn't she also have realized that Mike would figure it all out in the end? But maybe I've answered my own question here. i.e. She knew Mike would figure it out in the end, but keep it to herself and not hurt her father.

Perhaps, what makes the death so disturbing to Mike is Jennifer's rationalization. If she (Jennifer) is right, then what's the meaning of her own life which she views as inferior?

Yech, I hate these ugly spoiler things!
 
Kook, now that you've finished Night Train, you should give Time's Arrow a go. I liked it better than Night Train. In retrospect, I found Night Train a bit forced in terms of the 'hard-boiled detective' style, but maybe as Shade mentioned, that was Amis's intention.
 
Ell said:
Kook, now that you've finished Night Train, you should give Time's Arrow a go. I liked it better than Night Train. In retrospect, I found Night Train a bit forced in terms of the 'hard-boiled detective' style, but maybe as Shade mentioned, that was Amis's intention.
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"Forced" - yes, I would agree. Hence my question about whether this is good writing or not.

I'll definately give him another go in the future! I've popped Time's Arrow down on my TBR and I'll get around to it in time. Unless it's at another library sale :D.
 
Ell said:
Kook, now that you've finished Night Train, you should give Time's Arrow a go. I liked it better than Night Train. In retrospect, I found Night Train a bit forced in terms of the 'hard-boiled detective' style, but maybe as Shade mentioned, that was Amis's intention.
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I'd second that. Time's Arrow would be a good follow-up.

Yes, the 'hard-boiled detective' thing was Amis 'playing with the form.'

Reading this thread makes me want to read these books again!
 
Just thought I'd pop back in here to let y'all know I did read Money.

It was a tough slog for me to get into at first. I found John Self to be such an unlikeable character - though superbly depicted - that I put the book down a couple of times. I just wasn't in the mood to read about "his" type of man - brawling, boozing, self-involved and self-deluded.

However, I'm glad I went back to it when I was in an easier-going state of mind. Parts were laugh-out-loud hilarious in a dark and twisted way and the ending was worth the earlier struggle.

I've recommended it to my son, who has a rather dark and warped sense of humour.

Time's Arrow is still my favourite of the Amis I've read.
 
Ell said:
Just thought I'd pop back in here to let y'all know I did read Money.

It was a tough slog for me to get into at first.


I've recommended it to my son, who has a rather dark and warped sense of humour.
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A dark and warped sense of humor is way better than no sense of humor at all! :D
 
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