Money: A Suicide Note - Martin Amis (1984)

 

Rating: Sublime

Money is acknowledged as the beginning of a run of brilliant Amis novels that represents his imperial period, that continued with London Fields (1989), the booker Prize shortlisted Time's Arrow (1991) and ending with The Information in 1995. Narrated in first person by main protagonist John Self, the novel follows his trashy, decadent life as he moves back and forth between London and New York while attempting to get a film project off the ground based on an idea drawn from his own life. Money was inspired by Amis' involvement with the screenplay for a stinker of a film called Saturn 3 (1980), starring Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett, which I actually managed to watch last year; it's a truly terrible, yet fascinating folly. One of the characters in Money is based on Kirk Douglas, the fantastically named Lorne Guyland, who is a total prima donna, fretting about getting enough sex scenes with the young leading lady and often ending up naked whilst having long rambling narcissistic conversations with Self. Everything around the supposed film, variously called 'Good Money', then 'Bad Money', is satirically brilliant, from the exorbitant excesses undertaken by Self and his partner Fielding Goodney in the name of tax breaks on expenses, to the actors themselves, including Spunk Davis (who is outraged when he finds out what his surname means in England), Caduta Massi and Butch Beausoleil, two leading ladies with their own neurotic impulses. Of course Amis takes things much further by inserting himself into the novel, not just once, but many times, and as a writer for hire no less, a fixer for the screenplay that Self is distinctly unhappy with. There's even some discussion from Amis (the character) about the nature of the relationship between author and protagonist which is just brilliant. It's the best example of author as character I've ever read. Apparently Kingsley Amis threw his copy of the book across the room, never to be read again, when he reached the part that includes Martin, talk about generational envy.

Amis, contemplating the nature of the self

John Self (who is based on John Barry, the director of Saturn 3) is one of the great anti-hero protagonists, a total hedonistic slob who careers throughout the novel consuming vast amounts of alcohol, drugs, fast food and porn, whilst coming onto any and all women in his vicinity. Amis described Money as a voice novel, rather than a plot driven narrative. Fortunately Self is such a vivid and charismatic character that you can't help but get swept up into his world of dubious logic and decadent self-sabotage. Self's narration of his follies and adventures is unrelentingly hilarious and tragic. It is a difficult thing to write a funny novel, but Money is the funniest I've ever read. It is undoubtably a masterpiece of literary comedy. Money is also exceedingly clever, not just for its biting satirical themes around the film industry, wealth and class, but also for the above mentioned post-modern metafictional techniques. The keys to unlock the novel's multi-layered narrative is the game of tennis played between Goodney and Self in the first third of the novel (Self is literally being played) and the game of chess toward the end between Amis and Self, in which Self thinks that he is winning, before he's brutally taken down by Amis. The relationship between author and protagonist is revealed for what it is, sinister manipulation. The epilogue, printed in italics, appears to be Self free from authorial manipulation, his own 'self', down and out, but with a new found freedom. Essentially Money is a must read novel, a work of genius, with mercilessly satirical prose and irrepressible humour. It certainly was a huge step up from the otherwise excellent Other People (1981) which proceeded Money. Martin Amis, despite John Self's poor opinion of his work and lifestyle, was definitely a genius level novelist. 

The Snow Kimono - Mark Henshaw (2014)

Until the publication of The Snow Kimono Mark Henshaw was one of those writers who had produced a brilliant debut novel and then had disappeared, well, almost. In 1988 Out of the Line of Fire received rave reviews, sold well and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Apart from co-writing two crime novels under a pseudonym in 1997 and 2007 Henshaw all but disappeared off the literary map. Now freshly retired from his job as curator at the National Gallery of Victoria, Henshaw has written a novel that continues Out of the Line of Fire’s experiments with meta-fiction and examines the very nature of storytelling itself.

The Snow Kimono begins in Paris with protagonist Auguste Jovert, a retired police inspector whose past is catching up with him via a letter from a lost Algerian daughter. Enter Tadashi Omura, a Japanese neighbor who befriends Jovert and shares stories from his past about his problematic friendship with narcissistic writer Katsuo Ikeda. The narrative consists of stories within stories, exploring themes such as the nature of perception, ‘truth’ and identity. At one point I wondered whether I was in fact reading a transcript from one of Ikeda’s novels and in hindsight I’m still not exactly sure. Metafictional clues are offered when Jovert pores over maps of Algiers, trying to make sense of the complex street-scape of cul-de-sacs, dead ends and blind alleys. There’s also a section in which Omura’s father’s obsession with Japanese jigsaw puzzles is featured, which is essentially both an analogy for The Snow Kimono itself and a means to explore the themes of perception and subjectivity. 

The Snow Kimono is complex but beautifully written, with a spare and poetic style that is very Japanese, despite Henshaw being Australian born. The sections set in Japan are particularly resonant, with descriptions of nature that acts as a metaphor for a character’s state of being. There is often a profound sense of foreboding, that all is not as it seems; which is compounded by events and outcomes that are often only hinted at. Henshaw’s obtuse way with narrative does have its drawbacks however; although initially absorbing, the novel’s fragmented narrative resulted in a degree of alienation from the characters and a nagging frustration from trying to put all the pieces together. Whilst Henshaw adroitly resolves many of the mysteries at the heart of the novel, he also casts doubt on aspects of the narrative that were thought to be already understood. The result is that The Snow Kimono is a novel I admired rather than enjoyed; although I’m beginning to suspect that I’ve read too many self aware fragmented novels and I’m in need of the simple joys of a linear plot.