Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

Such a small novel with so many questions raised, Amsterdam is a metaphor of the incompatibility between the visible and the hidden, expressed through the wishful thinking of reasonability as a main feature of the Dutch capital. That is why the title becomes so meaningful after one has finished the book. However, as one of the characters wisely remarks at the end, ‘when it comes to being reasonable, they go over the top’ (177). Therefore, crossing the line between being reasonable and being absurd is the main theme in the novel, in my view. McEwan is a true knower of human subconsciousness, so he aptly lifts the curtain to show his characters’ public masks and private fears of their darkest secrets being exposed, their greed, unscrupulousness, narcissism and jealousy. This winner of The Man Booker Prize for 1998 is yet another proof of its author’s talent to delve deeply into the most unpleasant, repulsive (and thus avoided by some novelists) mechanisms of the human mind. The novel starts with one funeral and finishes with two. What happens between these main events is the unwinding of the hidden connection they have. At first it seems that love is the main force which drives all the male characters insane. The four of them have shared a common passion for the same woman for years. So, Molly Lane is probably the main character in the novel even though she is dead from the beginning. Her presence can be sensed in everyone’s thoughts, but she has also been some kind of an obsession for them. This mysterious woman prone to promiscuity becomes the bone of contention for her ex lovers after her dead. Such a simple statement, however, might be misleading. The four main characters claim to have loved Molly unconditionally, which is proven by their actions to be untrue. When we look at them closely we discover four self-absorbed people with a hidden desire to be the greatest. Garmony runs for Prime Minister, Vernon wants to be the best chief editor even if it means being immoral, Clive is entirely obsessed by his dream of eternal glory as the most meaningful composer of his time. But what about George? His madness is not exposed until the end but that doesn’t make it any lesser. He wants to be the only grieving husband of the dead Molly in order to have a proper memorial service for her. So he is the one to unleash the intrigues leading the other three to self-destruction. So, this is a novel of revenge far more than of love. Just like Amsterdam is the city where people go to have drugs and prostitutes far more than admire its reasonability and culture. Hypocrisy can be seen everywhere and no one is going to escape it. Double standards and two-faced morality are far worse than adultery. Unfortunately, our modern society cannot escape neither.