The Rachel Papers was published in 1973 and was adapted to a ‘scandalously witty’ film in 1989, starring Dexter Fletcher and Ione Skye, who starred alongside John Cusack in Say Anything the same year. Martin Amis’ debut was a book I had been looking forward to reading.
I first discovered Amis when I read my father’s copy of Yellow Dog. I looked into it and my father told me he had also read The Rachel Papers. My father usually has some pretty good book choices, so I went along to my local Waterstone’s and purchased a copy of The Rachel Papers.
Charles Highway is a precociously intelligent and highly sexed university student who aims to sleep with an older woman by the time he is twenty. Rachel fits the bill perfectly, and Charles plans his seduction meticulously, thus forming ‘The Rachel Papers’, an array of papers and notepads full of tips and techniques he learns from his friend Geoffrey and the media. But, it doesn’t come off quite as Charles expects.
The story is told through the eyes of Charles, and he is very witty and funny. But, I just couldn’t get into the book. It was well written and had a good plot, but its constant long words sometimes confused me. If I may so myself, I think I am a quite clever person, and I understood most of the words some readers may find a bit confusing. But, I normally sink into a book, and I couldn’t do so with this book. Martin Amis is a brilliant writer and most of his books are funny and highly intelligent, but I just didn’t get into the book.
The plot was well-structured, but at times didn’t flow well. Charles Highway is a brilliantly formulated character, and so is Rachel Noyce. Charles’ sister Jenny and her husband Norman have a strange relationship that was described brilliantly here. Overall, I think this book was good and well-written, but didn’t flow at times
Teenage Wasteland 