Book: Yellow Dog by Martin Amis

I didn't care for this novel in the least. I was unacquainted with Amis' rather voluminous work before sitting down with Yellow Dog. Apparently Amis is both a well-known and much-admired novelist. My only response to that is, "Yikes!"

Yellow Dog is about a man who suffers head trauma, a repressed homosexual kingpin, the King of England and his teenage daughter, a writer for one of England's biggest porno-mags, and a host of other minor characters, each less worthwhile than the last (with a few exceptions). There is not one compelling or empathetic character in the lot. The world Amis creates is raunchy, which is fine, but also meaningless and barbaric. So, I suppose we are intended to laugh at the absurd connections and misfortunes he concocts, but if he is trying to pull a "Kurt Vonnegut," that is, make you laugh because otherwise you would have to cry, he misses the mark by at least a mile. In other words, the plot is awful. He even has to resort to a random vehicular manslaughter to bring the novel to a close and you KNOW that is my number one pet peeve.

Now a word about style. Amis seems to believe he is the Quentin Tarantino of the genre. The novel is primarily dialogue with very spartan descriptions (and those primarily of women as sex objects). Perhaps Amis believes he is exploring the potential of the written word by creating minor characters whose first names are pronouns (the drug dealer And and the mistress He), by having a character, K8 (Kate), who speaks chatroom both online and in real life, and by incorporating background noises (a tape recorder being clicked on and off while memoirs are being recorded so we can know what is on and off the record) into monologues. In reality, he is just stroking his own ego and, possibly, impressing a few sycophants who go in for vapid parlor tricks.

Don't read it!