x dismiss this message
Did you know you can edit this page?
-
Sign Into Shelfari
-
Choose something to edit
-
Save your contributions
see page history
Description edit
The story of John Self and his insatiable appetite for money, alcohol, drugs, porn and more. Ceaselessly inventive and thrillingly savage, it is a tale of life lived without restraint; of money and the disasters it can precipitate.
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Selina: Sexy, gold-digging, long-time on-and-off girlfriend of John Self. Lives in London.
- John Self: Narrator and central character. Rich advertising executive with an absurd addiction to all forms of drugs, alcohol, sex, junk food and other vices.
- Martina Twain: Add a description of this character.
- Lorne Guyland
- Butch Beausoleil
- Doris Arthur
- Paul
- Ossie
- Felix
- Alec Llewellyn
- Mr Goodney
- Caduta Massi
- Martin Amis
- Slick
- Spunk Davis
- Ashbery
- Barry
- Terry Linex
- Vron
- Gary
- Vince
- Debby
- Garfield
- Christopher Meadowbrook
- Moby
- Doug
- Roger
- Herrick Shnexnayder
- Ella
- Juanita Del Pablo
- Helle
- Andrew
- Mandy
Quotes edit
-
“This is a suicide note. By the time you lay it aside (and you should always read these things slowly, on the lookout for clues or give-aways), John Self will no longer exist.”
M. A. -
“Bullies, I'm told, are all cowards deep down. Fear is a bully, but something tells me that fear is no funker. Fear, I suspect, is really incredibly brave.”
John Self -
“My head is a city, and various pains have now taken up residence in various parts of my face. A gum-and-bone ache has launched a cooperative on my upper west side. Across the park, neuralgia has rented a duplex in my fashionable east seventies. Downtown, my chin throbs with lofts of jaw-loss. As for my brain, my hundreds, it's Harlem up there, expanding in the summer fires. It boils and swells. One day soon it is going to burst.”
John Self -
“None of this is mine. The voile walls are not mine. I hire everything. I hire water, heat, light. I hire tea by the teabag. I’ve lived here for ten years now and nothing is mine. My flat is small and also costs me a lot of money.”
John Self -
“Selina Street has no money, no money at all. Imagine. Many times in her life she has lacked the price of a busfare, a teabag. She has stolen. She has pawned clothes. She has fucked for money. No money hurts, it stings.”
John Self -
“The big thing about reading and all that is - you have to be in a fit state for it. Calm. Not picked on. You have to be able to hear your own thoughts, without interference.”
John Self -
“The French, they say, live to eat. The English, on the other hand, eat to die.”
John Self -
“Addictions do come in handy sometimes: at least you have to get out of bed for them.”
John Self -
“And with a chick on the premises you just cannot live the old life. You just cannot live it. I know: I checked. The hungover handjob athwart the unmade bed - you can't do it. Blowing your nose into a coffee-filter - there isn't the opportunity. Peeing in the basin - they just won't stand for it. No woman worth the name would let it happen. Women have pretty ways. Without women, life is a pub, a reptile bar at a quarter to three...”
John Self -
“Oh Christ, the exhaustion of not knowing anything. It's so tiring and hard on the nerves. It really takes it out of you, not knowing anything. You're given comedy and miss out on all the jokes. Every hour, you get weaker. Sometimes, as I sit alone in my flat in London and stare at the window, I think how dismal it it, how hard, how heavy, to watch the rain and not know why it falls.”
John Self -
“Reading takes a long time, though, don't you find? It takes such a long time to get from, say, page twenty-one to page thirty. I mean you've got page twenty-three, then page twenty-five, then page twenty-seven then page twenty-nine, not to mention the even numbers. Then page thirty...”
John Self -
“I was out of my mind with sobriety, teetotalled - I felt lightheaded, I felt downright drunk, eating dinner up here with this sicko who saw nothing in me but myself. Jesus, what kind of pervert am I dealing with now?”
John Self -
“Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read more and thought less about money. But I had no time for reading the next day. I was too busy READING.”
John Self -
“'Listen. It says "Light's Out At Nine". L-i-g-h-t-apostrophe-s. APOSTROPHE-s! It says "One Cup of Tea or 'Coffee'" - in inverted commas. Why? Why? In the library, the library, it says"You can NOT Spit" - cannot two words and the not in capitals. It's a mistake, a mistake.'”
Alec Llewellyn -
“London is full of short stories walking round hand in hand. In the shuffle of the street you see countless odd pairings, all colours, all ages, all sexes, queens and knaves, jacks and tens, in clubs and diamonds, swords and coins, walking round hand in hand.”
John Self -
“London is full of short stories, long stories, epics, farces, sit-coms, sagas, soaps and squibs, walking round hand in hand.”
John Self -
“I have a theory. They decide, don't they. Girls just decide. It's all decided, it's all taken care of. Those nights you show up with the orchid, and lay on the show and the top dollar dinner, and they're giving you the gimmick with the eyes and the mouth. Won't do you any good at all unless they've decided. They decide, early on. They have their deep reasons. It's nothing much to do with you. And then, on some night or other, as you sit there burping ans scratching your armpit and thinking about money - you get the lot.”
John Self -
“I think - yeah, women, they're very different from us, about as different as the French are, say (women, they lean from side to side when they drive and laugh mainly our of friendliness, they hold hot drinks with both hands and hug themselves to keep the warmth, they disapprove of games and sports and say my far more than we do, they have what men call self-belief and blame you for you misprisions in their dreams, they are conspiracy theorists, benevolent dictators), but they ARE Earthling, and very like ourselves. Women are more civilized. Chicks, they're the gentler sex. They may give you a bad time in the home but they don't give you a bad time in the street.”
John Self -
“There was an aspirin dispenser, there in the can. But I had no money. I didn't have any. If I could have killed myself that night, I would have done. But suicide, like aspirin, like everything, costs money and I didn't have any. Unless you're really brave, suicide is always going to set you back a couple of bob.”
John Self
First Sentence edit
As my cab pulled off FDR Drive, somewhere in the early Hundreds, a low-slung Tomahawk full of black guys came sharking out of the lane and sloped in fast right across our bows.
Themes & Symbolism edit
Series & Lists edit
This is book 1 of 3 in London Trilogy. (standard series)
Followed by London Fields.
This is book 260 of 1271 in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. (authoritative list)
Preceded by Flaubert's Parrot, and followed by Shame.
This book is in Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. (authoritative list)
This book is in Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition Book Covers. (community list)
This book is in TIME Magazine Top 100 English-Language Novels. (community list)
Authors & Contributors edit
- Martin Amis (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Add the publisher.
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: 1984
ISBN: 0143116959
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Add the publisher.
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: 1984
ISBN: 0143116959
Page Count: 368
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 828'.914
Subjects edit
Popular Tags
See all 50 tags
We’re hiding the errata, movie connections, books that influenced this book, books influenced by this book, books that cite this book and books cited by this book sections. If you would like to add content to them, you must first make them visible.
