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Amsterdam

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Amsterdam

By: Ian McEwan
Narrated by: Adrian Scarborough
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About this listen

Winner of the Booker Prize 1998.

Brought to you by Penguin.

On a chilly February day two old friends meet in the throng outside a crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly's lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence, Clive as Britain's most successful modern composer, Vernon as editor of the quality broadsheet The Judge. Gorgeous, feisty Molly had had other lovers too, notably Julian Garmony, Foreign Secretary, a notorious right-winger tipped to be the next prime minister.

In the days that follow Molly's funeral Clive and Vernon will make a pact that will have consequences neither has foreseen. Each will make a disastrous moral decision, their friendship will be tested to its limits and Julian Garmony will be fighting for his political life.

©1998 Ian McEwan (P)2019 Penguin Audio Dark Humour Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Comedy

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All stars
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The narrator was bad. At the start. He. Kept on pausing. In the wrong places. But he got better and better, and I found him excellent by the end. I enjoyed the book through most of it until the end. Disappointing ending.

We never found out who Molly was. The characters are interesting, but they just end up being pointless. It's almost as if the author got halfway through the book and then decided he'd had enough and finished it. Goodness knows why this is a Booker Prize winner!

Disappointing

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Darkly amusing commentary on the social elite, well observed and delivered with requisite and delightful absurdity.

Good Read, Excellent narration

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A great story with wonderful characters. I really enjoyed the book from start to finish.

Beautifully written

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Not my favourite. Maybe be I just didn't like any of the characters - pompous and dull and self centred. Never mind.

Meh

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Narrated incredibly well.
Beautifully written…….obviously as you would expect from this author.
Very clever story line……ditto as above!
However I was glad to finish it.
Just didn’t enjoy it. I found all the characters loathsome.
It made a change though to have no empathy for anyone in a book. This may have been the desired effect by the author.

Always an interesting author

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Continuous playback issues & jumping forward & back ruined my enjoyment of this otherwise enjoyable book, made the end impossible to listen to. Would not delete for me to reload. Please sort this issue Audible

Audible tech issues spoilt listening

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On a chilly February day two old friends meet in the throng outside a crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly's lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence..
What I like about McEwan's novels is the well drawn characters, their journey and the twist turning plots that would not be out of place in a thriller. He is consistently good, and I have yet to read/listen to a bad McEwan. Very highly recommended and packs so much into a very short piece.

A GREAT NOVEL FROM A GREAT WRITER.

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Ian McEwan dislikes comic novels and finds them boring. If you like spending time parlaying with high minded people who are keen to impress each other and who look down on ‘comic’ writers you’ll like this.

It’s a shame because he writes excellently and is a natural storyteller but this would have been more enjoyable as a long short story stripped of the look-at-me internal monologues that won it the Booker prize.

The main characters are unlikely and unlikeable and it opens with the funeral of the only sympathetic character the woman all three have once partnered.

The inner dialogue portraying the mental anguish of the composer in the throes of composition quickly becomes both tedious and pretentious. Thank God for the Audible 30 second skip forward button.

Slight story, padded out with stretches of overblown ‘literary’ writing and a ridiculous ending.

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This seems to be a vitriolic attack on newspaper editors. No real story. No drama. No interesting characters. A washout.

Tedious to the extreme.

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