| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
As usual Amis is misunderstood,
By
This review is from: Night Train (Hardcover)
Much has been written below about Amis's Night Train, and it's interesting to see so many divergent opinions about a single book. I wish only to broach a couple of subjects, rather than give my overall impression of the book (I've reviewed it elsewhere).First, to address the complaint that NT isn't good detective fiction. One writer complained that Amis has failed at detective fiction and should go back to writing modern fiction. Night Train *is* modern fiction. Amis has adopted the voice of noir fiction to tell another of his typically post-modern stories. The bulk of Amis's work is both satirical and thought-provoking. Night Train doesn't stray from this pre-established territory. If the reader is angered because NT's ending is something other than concrete, because things unraveled instead of being compartmentalized and shunted into pretty, neat, explainable bundles, then he or she has simply chosen the wrong book to read and should probably have picked up Elmore Leonard's latest instead. That doesn't mean Amis was unsuccessful in his endeavor. Second, as to the complaint that the crime remains unsolved: bollocks. I think a close reading (you cannot successfully read this book thinking it to be a simple detective story)reveals that Amis is again satirizing modern society. I don't have the book in front of me, but I remember the essence of parts which discuss the following idea: in an are where motiveless murder is so common as to be mundane, what (area of crime, if you will) does that leave unexplored? Motiveless suicide. I'm oversimplifying what Amis wrote for the sake of brevity, but the seadlings for your own thought are certainly planted within those pages. I'll agree that the ending is somewhat nebulous. Many of Amis's are, I believe because he makes great efforts to avoid hackneyed, cliched writing, and so many endings are typically hackneyed, cliched; try appreciating his ending to his latest short story in the NYer, "The Janitor on Mars," what a bizarre, but similarly provocative little piece of work that is. Having said all this, I can only give the book three stars for the simple reason that if I gave it more, what would I give to London Fields or the Rachel Papers? Cheers!
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Necessary spoiler follows,
By Deacon Ficks (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Night Train (Paperback)
It seems to me that the bad reviews that readers shower upon Martin Amis, on Amazon, are written by people who get so lost in Amis' wordplay that they miss the usually uncomplicated point.
Firstly, Night Train is a beautiful novel in which our hero(?) Mike Hoolihan is forced to examine her self worth. Faced with the suicide of a "perfect" girl, Mike is forced to reconsider whether or not her own existence is worth prolonging. She points out, fairly early in the novel, that suicides are prone to leaving a vast variety of commentary for those they leave behind. These suicide notes vary in style and form. Night Train IS Mike's suicide note. Some two hundred pages of explaination for her loved ones. In the process she manages to prove that her self image is twisted. She has admirers and friends but views herself as ultimately alone. Anyone who didn't appreciate this novel, I'm convinced, missed the point that what they were reading was something personal intended for Mike's loved ones. A farewell that was meant, as suicide notes usually are, to comfort, explain and beg forgiveness for their author's actions.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A profound and worthwhile read,
By
This review is from: Night Train (Hardcover)
This is one of those books that can not be characterized as a single genre. It is a compilation of mystery, psychological suspense, and an exploration of the impact of death and suicide on those close to the victim. Mr. Amis' writing is superb. He uses a concise and hard-hitting style to narrate the examination of an apparent suicide of the daughter of a police officer. I could not put the book down and I asked my husband to read it so that we could discuss it together. As a clinical social worker and psychotherapist, I found it profoundly insightful about the mysteries of death and suicide.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
