I bought Amsterdam (1998) by Ian McEwan around the time I read Atonement – so probably around 2003, i.e. half my life ago, more or less. I’ve been up and down with McEwan, but have somehow never read this Booker prizewinner – and now I have, it is right up there with my favourites of his.
I had assumed – you can see why – that the novella took place in Amsterdam. While there are moments there, the full impact of the title isn’t clear for a while, and much of the novel takes place firmly on English soil. It opens with the funeral of Molly Lane, and conversation between two of her former lovers. Clive is a composer, writing a symphony for the millennium; Vernon is the editor of The Judge, a newspaper that has been slowly declining for a long time and may be on its last legs.
Vernon and Clive have more in common than their mutual lover (deceased). They have been friends for a long time, and have still a friendship that is equal parts affection, competition, and disdain. McEwan is very good at the spiky sort of witty unpleasantness of a certain sort of man, and both these men are in that category. He’s also good about creative processes, and I think he writes well about musical composition. I say ‘I think’, because I can’t do it and have no idea what composers would say, but it worked for me.
Creation apart, the writing of a symphony is physically arduous. Every second of playing time involved writing out, note by note, the parts of up to two dozen instruments, playing them back, making adjustments to the score, playing again, rewriting, then sitting in silence, listening to the inner ear synthesize and orchestrate the vertical array of scribbles and deletions; amending again until the bar is right, and playing it once more on the piano. By midnight Clive had extended and written out in full the rising passage, and was starting on the great orchestral hiatus that would precede the sprawling change of key. By four o’clock in the morning he had written out the major parts and knew exactly how the modulation would work, how the mists would evaporate.
I shan’t say too much about the plot, but both men come up against moral quandaries – harming someone, or at least not preventing harm, in the name of their art/profession. McEwan’s spin on this is that neither of them really see the moral dilemma in their own lives, but only in each other’s. And neither is nice enough for this to be a learning experience. Amsterdam is perhaps a dark comedy. Or maybe a light tragedy.
So, I thought it was brilliant – and a page-turner too. The only reservation I have is what a blank space Molly is. Yes, she is dead before the book begins, but McEwan never really gives us any sense of her vitality before she died, or why so many men were attracted to her. Or maybe she is meant to remain an enigma.
Another great Novellas in November read – keep checking out Cathy and Rebecca‘s blogs to see what everyone else is reading!
