Review: "Time's Arrow" by Martin Amis

This is the fourth book I have read by Martin Amis, and it has sadly been a mixed bag, with some books being good but not great (I still feel Money is the best book he has written) and very mediocre (I found Dead Babies to be plain, as well as London Fields, which saddens me because I had heard so much about that book). I find his writing style to be very convoluted, which paints a rather unpleasant portrait of Amis himself. Judging from his books, he has a definite ego problem, and seems to graphically describe sex and racism simply to get attention and piss people off. He is like a relaxed version of French writer Michel Houellebecq, who has a similar distaste for modern culture, but who can laugh in the face of the end of the world. Which is good way to describe Time’s Arrow, a short novel that not only moves backwards seamlessly, but also actually pokes fun at the Holocaust. We are introduced to Dr. Tod Friendly, by something that might be his conscious, as he ruins relationships before they start, ends up with more money after buying things, and harms patients before he makes them better. It is pretty weird, but after looking up the synopsis on Wikipedia, it was fun to read this first part. Tod switches identities, and it appears he is going backwards in time, to the point in history when the Holocaust occurred, so he might be able to save some lives. Luckily, this book is only 165 pages long, so just as this gimmick gets old, it ends with a rather goofy image of a reverse birth. Again, Amis has never really impressed me all that much, but this trick he pulls is quite something, and it only lasts as long as it can, and only overstays it’s welcome slightly. But some people like entering Amis’s bawdy, amoral, and confusing landscape, and this book will surely please them.

Rating: 4/5