AMSTERDAM | IAN McEWAN | 1998

After enjoying The Children Act, I thought I would try another of Ian McEwan’s novellas. Big mistake. Even though it won The Booker Prize it hasn’t stood the test of time.

Three successful 50ish men in London in 1996 had all been Molly’s lovers. She has now died. Two of them, Clive a celebrated composer and Vernon a prominent newspaper editor have been friends forever. The other, the despised Julian is the right-wing Foreign Secretary probably on his way to the Prime Ministership. Molly’s husband George gets a fleeting but pivotal appearance.

The unlikeable Clive and Vernon are heartless, self-centred characters. Deep down they are bereft of any common decency and both, on Molly’s horrendous decline and death, are now thinking of their own mortality. They contrive that if they suffer a debilitating illness the other will bring about his death.

So the stage is set for Clive and Vernon to move around like chess pieces in their differences on politics, sexuality, the media and conscience. But ultimately each fails in their endeavours. Of course, we know how it will end and it hurtles towards it at quite a pace once they reach Amsterdam.

I’m sure if McEwan had included more of Molly and Julian’s wife’s story this would have been more enjoyable. They both seemed decent, brave and clever people. It appears to be a construct of, here’s an interesting idea and not thought through enough to make a complete story.

One reviewer said that none of the characters gets through it unscathed. Neither does the reader. Of course, the writing is excellent.