Amsterdam

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   プレイガールでならしたモリー・レインが、謎の退行性の病気がもとで40代にして亡くなり、集まった多くの友人や恋人たちは自分もやがて死ぬ運命であることを自覚する。高級紙「ジャッジ」の編集長ヴァーノン・ハリデイは、有名にして放埓（ほうらつ）な作曲家クライヴ・リンリーを説得し、安楽死協定を結ぶ。万が一彼ら2人のうちどちらかがモリーのような病にかかったときには、もう1人が死なせてやる約束である。この先、読者は『Amsterdam』（邦題『アムステルダム』）の結末はどうなるか―― 要するに誰が誰を殺すかという問題―― を考えながら読み進むことになる。

   やがてモリーの恋人のなかでも最も有名な男、外務大臣ジュリアン・ガーモニーのスキャンダラスな写真が新聞社の手に渡り、さまざまな憶測のなかでガーモニーには罷免の危機が迫る。しかしこの後がマキューアンらしいところで、どちらかといえば不愉快な印象を与えるキャラクターのガーモニーが勝利を収める展開も不思議ではない。

   イアン・マキューアンは卓越した小説の技巧の持ち主で、この作品は賞を総なめにしてもおかしくない。しかも、登場人物は次から次へとめぐらされる策略のなかで、妙に無機的な雰囲気を漂わせ続ける。

Product Description

On a chilly February day two old friends meet in the throng outside a crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. Both Clive Linleyand Vernon Halliday had been Molly's lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence, Clive as Britain's most successful modern composer, Vernon as editor of the quality broadsheet, The Judge.Gorgeous, feisty Molly had had other lovers too, notably Julian Garmony, Foreign Secretary, a notorious right-winger tipped to be the next prime minister. In the days that follow Molly's funeral Clive and Vernon will make a pact that will have consequences neither has foreseen. Each will make a disastrous moral decision, their friendship will be tested to its limits and Julian Garmony will be fighting for his political life. A contemporary morality tale that is as profound asit is witty, this short novel is perhaps the most purely enjoyable fiction Ian McEwan has ever written. And why Amsterdam? What happens there to Clive and Vernon is the most delicious shock in a novel brimming with surprises.

Amazon.com Review

When good-time, fortysomething Molly Lane dies of an unspecified degenerative illness, her many friends and numerous lovers are led to think about their own mortality. Vernon Halliday, editor of the upmarket newspaper the Judge, persuades his old friend Clive Linley, a self-indulgent composer of some reputation, to enter into a euthanasia pact with him. Should either of them be stricken with such an illness, the other will bring about his death. From this point onward we are in little doubt as to Amsterdam's outcome--it's only a matter of who will kill whom. In the meantime, compromising photographs of Molly's most distinguished lover, foreign secretary Julian Garmony, have found their way into the hands of the press, and as rumors circulate he teeters on the edge of disgrace. However, this is McEwan, so it is no surprise to find that the rather unsavory Garmony comes out on top. Ian McEwan is master of the writer's craft, and while this is the sort of novel that wins prizes, his characters remain curiously soulless amidst the twists and turns of plot. --Lisa Jardine