Amsterdam - Ian McEwan

 AMSTERDAM - IAN MCEWAN

I was an Ian McEwan virgin. Never read anything by him before in my life but being tri-curious I thought I'd take the big plunge and give him a go. It was the title of his 1998 Booker Prize winner, Amsterdam, that attracted me as I wanted to know what it might be about and with that I entered blindly. I tell you: It was like entering Pan's labyrinth.

Essentially, Amsterdam turns out to be a morality play centring upon two men. One, a newspaper editor and the second a composer commissioned to write a concerto to mark the approaching millennium. Binding them together is the fact of them both being ex-lovers of a socialite who has suddenly passed away from an unspecified illness. Following her funeral, her husband approaches the newspaper editor with some photographs taken by his late wife of the current British Foreign Secretary dressed in women's clothes.

Knowing that by publishing the photographs the circulation figures of his newspaper will be boosted ten-fold and reverse it's decline, the editor is all for it although the composer objects to their publication on the grounds of it being a betrayal of their ex-lover's private life. Apart from reviving the fortunes of his newspaper, the editor also knows that if published the photos will lead to the immediate ruin of the Foreign Secretary, therefore saving the country from him being the next Prime Minister.

It all makes for a good, liberal argument. Should a person's private life be used to expose hypocrisy? The Foreign Secretary is of the hang 'em and flog 'em brigade; a family values man and scourge of immigrants, asylum seekers and travellers; openly talking about the reintroduction of national service and of taking the country out of Europe. Does it matter that in his private life he likes to dress up as a woman? The composer argues not: "If it's OK to be a transvestite," he says "then it's OK for a racist to be one. What's not OK is to be a racist."

It's a good point well made. Is it right to court and pander to prejudice in a bid to counter prejudice? Is 'by any means necessary' really always as clear cut as that? 

Years ago there were rumours of a set of photographs floating around of Margaret Thatcher's husband, Dennis, backscuttling a call girl. If it's true these photos existed then why were they never published and if they had been published would it have led to the downfall of Thatcher? Being an avowed advocate of Victorian, Christian family values they would surely have damaged Thatcher irrecoverably but what would that have said about British society? That war crimes are okay, that the wholesale destruction of mining communities is fine, that taking a wrecking ball to civil society is acceptable? Let your husband be caught indulging his extramarital peccadillos, however, then you're for the high jump and no question about it.

In more recent times, following accusations of under-age child abuse and publication of the photo showing Prince Andrew with his arm around the accuser, though his reputation has been damaged the prince seems to have got away with it. Following the CCTV footage of Matt Hancock snogging his aide, the Health Secretary was forced to resign though not before being defended by the Prime Minister. Give it a year or so and it can be almost guaranteed that Hancock will be back in politics.

The question of morality, hypocrisy and ethics is what McEwan's book spins on then, and in his well-written dance of words leads to the answer to 'who will survive and what will be left of them?' The title of the book - Amsterdam - comes into it because that's where the editor and the composer end up, at the Concertgebouw for a rehearsal of the millennial symphony and where the moral conundrum is resolved.

According to various literary critics, Amsterdam is 'brilliant' and 'chilling' whilst according to A S Byatt it's 'shocking'. Are these people somehow bribed to laud such plaudits upon these books they review, I wonder? Ian McEwan is a professional writer so you would of course expect Amsterdam to be deftly written and finely executed but I'd say it falls very short of being 'brilliant'. It maintains your attention until the end, it's entertaining, it's slick and not overly complicated but at best I'd call it 'interesting'. It's a modern day black comedy going over some very old ground. How it won the Booker Prize in 1998 is a mystery and the real conundrum.

John Serpico