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Magistral y divertida novela que creo un personaje antologico, John Self, y recrea como ninguna otra dos ciudades del fin de siglo pasado: Londres y Nueva York. El inefable antihéroe, John Self, es hombre de numerosas adicciones que consume en cantidades industriales, el dinero la principal de ellas, unica forma de cultura que conoce. Este es un magnifico e hilarante retrato de uno de los tipos mas pecualiares que haya producido la humanidad en este fin de siglo: un hombre hecho a si mismo que, pese a triunfar en su vida profesional, y aunque se consiente todos sus caprichos, carece de un sistema que le permita comprender el mundo en que vive y, consciente de que es asi, acaba siendo victima de su dramatica y desolada situacion. ... Read more

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When Mary Lamb wakes up in hospital, having lost her memory, times begins again. The author also wrote "The Rachel Papers", "Success", "Money", "London Fields", "Dead Babies" and "Einstein's Monsters". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Other People
This is not a great read but it's better than anything he's written over the past fifteen years.If you like Matin Amis (I like his earlier funnier books) try it. ... Read more

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Kenneth Trachtenberg, the witty and eccentric narrator of More Die of Heartbreak, has left his native Paris for the Midwest. He has come to be near his beloved uncle, the world-renowned botanist Benn Crader, self-described "plant visionary." While his studies take him around the world, Benn, a restless spirit, has not been able to satisfy his longings after his first marriage and lives from affair to affair and from "bliss to breakdown." Imagining that a settled existence will end his anguish, Benn ties the knot again, opening the door to a flood of new torments. As Kenneth grapples with his own problems involving his unusual lady-friend Treckie, the two men try to figure out why gifted and intelligent people invariably find themselves "knee-deep in the garbage of a personal life." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Saul Bellow meets Woody Allen
A comedy on modern life and love with a plot that allows Bellow to explore his favourite themes on the role of higher culture in a world that worships the base;are we what we see or how we see the world?
It helps to know the plot a little beforehand,I re read after my first reading to fully re enjoy.
Ken is a Woody Allen type;the one when you're never sure if he'sneurotic or the world around him is.He idolises his Uncle Benn,a genius in the world of fauna but a hopeless innocent outside it. Ken sees it as his role to protect his Uncle. Benn was cheated out of millions in a real estate deal by his Uncle Vilitzer, a powerful political figure,something that doesn't interest Benn until he marries in haste (without consulting Ken) into the grasping Layamon family who urge Benn to get his share as Vilitzer is on the way down in the political game.
Bear the above in mind and you'll enjoy this first rate tragi-comedy.
'More die...' is perhaps more for veteran Bellow readers-at times you feel the editor should have pointed out to Bellow that the rest of us are 10 leagues below his intellect and he might be getting a bit esoteric, but one of the things I've always loved about books by Saul Bellow is the way he makes you thirst to know what he knows;read what he's read.First timers may not get the full kick out of this great book or want to re read after taking in the complex and wonderful plot.

A great work, witty and compassionate
`He wanted a statement about the radiation level increasing. Also dioxin and other harmful waste. It's terribly serious, of course, but I think more people die of heartbreak than of radiation.' Such is the premise of Saul Bellow's masterpiece, written at the probable height of his creative power and on a par with Herzog and The Dean's December.

In a refined and richly substantiated extemporisation, Bellow takes a sounding of the place of romance in contemporary life and makes the case that it remains of central if problematic concern. More Die of Heartbreak remains hugely current, and relevant. Modern fears and distractions continue to lay siege to the arguably paramount realms of sentimental and private fulfilment. Our world is even more so one of technicians and specialists, isolated in mutually inaccessible spheres. For this is what Bellow portrays: the difficulty of love when surrounded with the complexities of professional specialisation, money, sex, cultural doubt, moral and social flux. Also just the difficulty of love.

Benn Crader, a botanist, and his nephew Kenneth, another academic, struggle to reconcile intellectual achievement with unsatisfactory love and marital lives. The uncle marries the glamorous social climber Matilda Layamon in a second wedding, to find himself forced into a financial suit that will destroy his ties to his own family. Kenneth strives to fill the gap left by a painful break-up. Nothing much more happens in this ironic, rambling portrayal of floundering individuals who philosophise as they go. And to be fair, this is not for fans of action or quick-paced plots. But if you like reading Kundera or Philip Roth (who is a later writer and seems to me to owe much to Bellow), you will enjoy this novel. Bellow is impressively erudite but never pedantic and always entertaining and matter-of-fact. He tends to divagate, here from the dangers of bad skin to the morals of Hitchcock movies and to court politics, but he is extremely well informed and invariably interesting. There is also a point to his constant asides, namely to put the question of the adequacy of culture to real life.

And it is all told with an effective, deadpan humour. (`Benn was a botanist of a "high level of distinction"... They're relatively inexpensive too. It costs more to keep two convicts in Statesville than one botanist in his chair. But convicts offer more in the way of excitement - riot and arson in the prisons, garrotting a guard, driving a stake through the warden's head.' Or `Mother joined a group of medical volunteers stationed near Djibouti, where the famine victims died by the thousands, daily. She wore chino skirts, cheap cotton twill, as close to sackcloth as she could get.') Perhaps a little sarcastic, but who wants polite, deferential blandness?

Another Bellow Surprise: Turning the Tables Men vs Women
Just when you think that you understand Bellow, this book comes along. This is a new version with an interesting 17 page introduction by Martin Amis. It is based on a talk that he gave at a Bellow conference in Haifa, Israel.

I am a Bellow fan, read all of his novels, and wrote an Amazon guide: "A Guide to Reading Bellow." The present book is excellent. If I had to recommend just one, it would be "Herzog." but saying that, the present book is a surprise, like a breath of fresh air. Some of his novels have a warmth and charm, and have a certain tongue in cheek approach in describing the trials and tribulations of the narrator. The humour is mixed in with the meaning of our short lives, and the future of our souls. Bellow thought that the development of realism was the major event of modern literature. That includes how we view subjects such as sex, life and death, etc. Having said that, we see two changes here. One is that in most Bellow novels the men dominate the women, or they are equal. Yes, the women often divorce our hero in other works, but here the men are like putty in the hands of the women. The story is about their attempts to get married, each to quite a different type of woman. Also, instead of one narrator, the present narrator, Kenneth, is so close to his uncle Benn that it seems like the story about two people not one. There lives are interconnected by close communication.

In case you are new to Bellow, his novels reflect his life, his writings, and his five marriages during his five active decades of writing. He hit his peak as a writer around the time of "Augie March" in 1953 and continued through to the Pulitzer novel "Humbolt's Gift" in 1973. He wrote from the early 1940s through to 2000. His novels are written in a narrative form, and the main character is a Jewish male - usually a writer but not always - and he is living in either in New York or Chicago. Bellow wrote approximately 13 novels and a number of other works.

Bellow's style progressed over the five decades. The early novels "Dangling Man" and "The Victim" were written in the 1940s, 20 years before his peak. Some compare his style in "Dangling Man" with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground." Having read both I would say that "Notes" is brilliant while "Dangling Man" is at best average and sometimes a bit slow, but the prose is excellent. Changes could be seen in his second book "The Victim" in 1947. The first half is slow, but then the pace intensifies in the second half. This increase in tempo and lightness carries on in his next book "The Adventures of Augie March" - his breakthrough book in 1953 that won a National Book Prize. He changes his style in "Henderson the Rain LKing" in 1959, and then returns to the New York-Chicago theme after "Henderson." Bellow hits a new high with "Herzog" in 1964, and that book sets the tone for a number of novels that follow. The present books follows later and came out in 1987.

In interviews, and from reading the early works, Bellow said that it was difficult to make the transition to becoming "uninhibited" in his writings. That transition ended in 1953 with "Augie March" and it was refined with "Herzog." After that, there is a certain sameness to the novels. We see a bit of a break in the present novel. I will not give away the plot, but it is about two professors in the mid-west, uncle and nephew, probably in Indianapolis, not Chicago this time. There is a bit of laziness evident: he seems to use a number of quotations. But the plot is interesting, and he seems to take delight in exploring and reversing the role of man versus women. They women either ignore or try to manipulate the men, and at least one woman, Matilda, far out-classes our heroes (or as in Bellow novels, anti-heroes).

This is an interesting and unusual novel, and for myself, yes, Bellow is perhaps less brilliant, but this is still good stuff.

Not his best, but still remarkable
This isn't the one to choose if you've never read Bellow. Seize the Day (think brevity) is the place to start. From there, Henderson the Rain King, Humboldt's Gift, or Herzog make the best long reads. Augie March is the most renowned, but a good 200 pages too long if you ask me. After that, Mr. Sammler's Planet rounds out the best of Bellow. Dangling Man and The Victim are quite different from the rest, and are most interesting (I think) as points of reference to watch the evolution of a great mind.

More Die of Heartbreak ranks with The Dean's December and Ravelston as books to read only if you've already fallen for Bellow. Or, I suppose, if you're interested in reading what a Nobel Laureate thinks about sex.(For there is no book in which he tackles the topic more directly than this).There are times when the author seems to lose even himself in the mad confusion that spills from Ken Trachtenberg's head. This, I believe, would be enough to drive impatient readers away from Bellow.

But More Die of Heartbreak, like all of Bellow's work, lifts the reader above the mundane. Its force doesn't come from plot, but observation. His gift is to take the ordinary, the accepted, and acceptable and expose it for something extraordianry, corrupt, or even contemptible. His success, I think, comes from a steadfast and good-natured optimism in the face of Western decline.
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Charles Highway, a highly-sexed, precocious 19-year-old, is determined to sleep with an older woman before he turns 20, and dark-haired Rachel fits the bill perfectly. He plots strategies, plans the seduction meticulously, sets the scene, - but it doesn't come out quite as he expects. ... Read more

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This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Books by Martin Amis, Novels by Martin Amis, Screenplays by Martin Amis, London Fields, Yellow Dog, the Pregnant Widow, Saturn 3, Time's Arrow, Money, the Information, House of Meetings, the Moronic Inferno: and Other Visits to America, Night Train, the Rachel Papers, Heavy Water and Other Stories, the Second Plane, Other People, the War Against Cliché, Experience, Visiting Mrs Nabokov: and Other Excursions. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: London Fields is a black comic novel, a murder mystery, by British writer Martin Amis, published in 1989. Regarded by Amis's readership as possibly his strongest novel, the tone gradually shifts from high comedy, interspersed with deep personal introspections, to a dark sense of foreboding and eventually panic at the approach of the deadline, or "horrorday," the climactic scene alluded to on the very first page. The story is narrated by Samson Young, an American writer living in London who has had writer's block for 20 years and is now terminally ill. The other main characters are Guy Clinch, the foil; Keith Talent, the cheat; and Nicola Six, the murderee, who knows she will be murdered a few minutes after midnight on 9 November 1999her 35th birthdayand who goes off in search of her killer. London Fields is set in London in 1999 against a backdrop of environmental, social and moral degradation and the looming threat of world instability and nuclear war (referred to as "The Crisis"). The novel opens with Samson explaining how grateful he is to have found this story, already formed, already happening, waiting to be written down. This is the story of a murder. It hasn't happened yet. But it will. (It had better.) I know the murderer, I know the murderee. I know the time, I know the ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1905676 ... Read more

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Kirkus Reviews called Splatterpunks "an authoritative and intelligent collection for horror fans willing to go all the way." Now, this second volume of taboo-shattering horror stories and essays goes beyond the limits of convention--into the darkest corners of the human soul. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

One of the BEST horror compilations EVER!
This book is the second of the best horror compilations I've ever read. I've had copies of them since 2000, and wear them out every time. I recommend this and Splatterpunks I to any fan of extreme horror short stories!Queer Fear 2: Gay Horror FictionBorderlands 1 (Borderlands No 1) (v. 1)Borderlands 3 (Borderlands Series , No 3) (v. 3)Borderlands 2 (Borderlands Series , No 2) (v. 2)

Sammon puts together another fun one.
Paul M. Sammon (ed.), Splatterpunks II: Over the Edge (Tor, 1995)

The first Splatterpunks anthology was, for me, one of those life-changing books that points a person in an entirely new direction; given that, I have no idea why it took me twelve years to pick up the second in the series. But I did, finally, and once again Paul Sammon has collected a bunch of truly nasty pieces of work. Not quite as nasty now, in the age of Charlee Jacob and her ilk, as they likely were in 1995, but they still pack quite a punch.

As with most anthologies, there's some variance in quality, but not as much as one might expect from a book this thick. The best of the bunch, by my count, is Wayne Allen Sallee's novella "For You, the Living," an account of a Chicago whose population has, in the majority, been turned into sex-crazed zombies. (Shades of David Cronenberg are always a welcome addition to the bookshelves of Goat Central) Other highlights can be found from the names you recognize already: Clive Barker's "Scape-goats" is wonderfully, unmistakably Barker; Kathe Koja's "Impermanent Mercies" is typical of the brilliant stuff she turns out; Steve Rasnic Tem's "Boxer" is, in Sammon's words, "just so weird". It should also be noted that this volume contains the first published work of Christa Faust (Hoodtown), and a fine little piece it is. The book is also shot through with nonfiction pieces, which I found kind of surprising; Jim and Debbie Goad's interview with the late Anton LaVey is the best of the bunch, just as interesting as any of the fiction to be found here. Good stuff, all this, with a slip now and again, but that shouldn't stop you from checking this one out. *** ½

Ho Hum
Stories in this collection were of generally good quality and enjoyable to read.However, this collection definitely lost the over the top, right on the brink, edgy feel of the first Splatterpunks collection.Sure it has its share of necrophilia, gratuitous gore, usw.; but, it just didn't do it for me.It's worth the read if you can pick it up cheap, but don't expect it to live up to the first collection.

Very entertaining, stomach turning and thought provoking.
This book outshines the original.It is as full of viscera and violenceas the first, but contains even more thoughtful stories, perhaps there issomething to be said for the female point of view.Not every story willresonate with the reader, but for a short story collection most storieswill have been well worth your time and will stick with you.

damn fine book
Jim Goad interviews Anton LaVey, story by Debbie Goad, am I dreaming -- buy it, not necessarily from Amazon ... Read more

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The story of a life lived backwards in time. Its narrator, trapped and hurtling towards a terrible secret, moves "out of the blackest sleep" to find himself surrounded by doctors and on the deathbed of a man in whose body he is imprisoned. The novel was shortlisted for the 1991 Booker Prize. ... Read more

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Bizarre But Powerful
Martin Amis apparently endured much criticism for this work -- it was, at the time of its publication, considered to be a bit of a "flip" take on the Holocaust.These reactions, as the novel's reputation grows and solidifies, have proven to be overreactions.In fact, the novel's climactic, inverted ending (or beginning, if you prefer) is a powerful testament to the brutality of the Nazi regime, and also a prayer for hope.

The technique of the thing itself is very, very concept-y.A bit precious, perhaps, and not perfectly wrought -- for instance, why shouldn't everything be in reverse?Why shouldn't, for instance, entire sentences be written backwards, with punctuation and capitalization, even reversed?

Looking beyond these surface objections, the sensations of reversal are nicely carried throughout.The premise is made as believable as possible, although the identity and purpose of the homunculus within Todd is never made clear.Suffice it to say that it is another of Amis's interfering narrators, like Sam in "London Fields," or "Martin Amis" in "Money."Such characters are Martin Amis himself.

By the by, for all of its structural contrivances and tromps l'oeil, this is perhaps the most perfectly-plotted of Amis's works (with the possible exception of "Success").

A very interesting perception
The way I personally rate books is dependent on how much of an impression they have made on me.This one made a big one--why?Because it is written backwards.As in, there is a foreign mind in a certain man's head who travels with him in the reverse of his life.It sounds a little complex, but it's really not.The way this other man without a body (who is only a visitor in this man's brain) views the world is entirely in reverse.People walk backwards.Doctors make people sick (because they are all stitched up when they leave, and bloody when they come in, and this is shown in reverse).
The book is about a mostly overdone topic--the Holocaust.However, this "backwards" approach freshens it up a bit and makes it all the more real somehow.The mass murders and hidious mutilations of the body in the concentration camps are viewed by the narrator as a sort of creation, because in the reverse view the Nazi's take hold of the dead bodies, or the ashes, and make them into live humans again.
While I was reading the book it was a little difficult to keep remembering that things were happening in the reverse.When I took breaks from reading my sense of time was a little distorted, as I kept thinking in reverse(even when not reading the book).This book is certainly worth it if you want something to change your perceptions on the world a little.

A brilliant and chilling book about the horrors of WW II
Time's Arrow describes the life of a Nazi before, during and after World War II. The story is told backwards (hence the title), so the book beginswith the death of the main character (living a country doctor'life in theUS), commences with all the horror stories of the concentration camps inwratime Germany and ends with birth. The remarkable aspect of the story isthat it is indeed told backwards: it's not just a set of chapters put inreverse order, but it is told by a spectator withijn the main character,who experiences everything in reverse order. For everyone interested in thehuman aspects of World War II, and for everyone who can enjoy a highlyoriginal book, this is a book you should not miss. ... Read more

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This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: The Moronic Inferno: and Other Visits to America, the Second Plane, the War Against Cliché, Experience, Visiting Mrs Nabokov: and Other Excursions. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: The Moronic Inferno: And Other Visits to America (1986) is a collection of non-fiction journalism on the subject of America by the novelist Martin Amis. In the book's introduction, Amis reveals that he had been asked to write a book about America on previous occasions, but that The Moronic Inferno had come together "unpremeditated, accidental, and in installments" while he was "upending desk drawer to prepare a collection of occasional journalism". The 'Moronic Inferno' of the title is a phrase that Amis claims to have come from Saul Bellow, who in turn Amis says claims to have taken it from Wyndham Lewis. The twenty six articles collected, many of which are expanded from their original forms and containing postscripts commenting on subsequent developments after publication, are drawn from Amis' numerous contributions to the Observer, the New Statesman, the Sunday Telegraph Magazine, the London Review of Books, Tatler, and Vanity Fair between 1977-1985. The articles consider, among other things, American politics, major literary figures, the evangelical Christianity movement, cinema, sex, and numerous facets of popular culture. - "Saul Bellow and the Moronic Inferno" - "The Killings in Atlanta" - "Truman Capote: Knowing Everybody" - "Philip Roth: No Satisfaction" - "Elvis Presley: He Did It His Way" - "Diana Trilling at Claremont Avenue" - "Normana Mailer: The Avenger and the Bitch" - "Palm Beach: Don't You Love It?" - "Brian DePalma: The Movie Brute" - "Here's Ronnie: On the Road with Reagan" - "Mr. Vidal: Unpatriotic Gore" - "Too Much ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=25665692 ... Read more

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The city, especially London, is undoubtedly one of the favourite themes in British fiction of the last two decades of the twentieth century. Writers such as Ackroyd, Sinclair, Self, Kureishi, Carter and others have expressed their attitude to the metropolis in their novels, short stories, non-fiction and film scripts. The diversity and versatility of the urban milieu are reflected by these writers? multifarious treatments of the theme, and so the city comes to life again and again in both its real as well as fictional forms. Moreover, these two forms become hardly distinguishable and thus mutually interchangeable as the realistic aspects of the city perpetually intertwine with the fictitious. This work attempts to show how the city, as both theme and setting, is used by Martin Amis and Ian McEwan in their selected novels written, with one exception, during the 1980s and 90s. In order to provide theoretical and historical contexts, chapters providing a brief outline of the city as the writer?s object of interest since the late nineteenth century and dealing with Amis?s and McEwan?s characteristic narrative strategies are also included. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on June 22, 2002. The length of the article is 947 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Martin Amis. The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews, 1971-2000.(Book Review)
Author: William Hutchings
Publication: World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 2002
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: 76Page: 77(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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This digital document is an article from Siempre!, published by Editorial Cruzada, S.A. DE C.V. on November 16, 2008. The length of the article is 395 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: El gran Martin Amis.
Author: Juan Josê Reyes
Publication: Siempre! (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 16, 2008
Publisher: Editorial Cruzada, S.A. DE C.V.
Volume: 55Issue: 2892Page: 78(1)

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more