Amsterdam by Ian Mcewan – ENDING SPOILER

This is a story about two friends. Or were they friends?

After finishing the novel, I wondered what lesson I was supposed to take from the story.

The basic premise of the story revolves around two “friends.” Both are all too human – deeply flawed in their own ways. Both are too passionate about their own lives, or too self-centered, to reflect upon their flaws. One lives for journalism, and the other a musical genius. As close “friends” and removed from self, they can observe flaws about each other – they DWELL on each other’s flaws. So much so that, eventually, flaws defined each other. Believing that each has lost sanity, both end up killing each other in Amsterdam.

It’s a well-written novel. The author’s gift for writing is reflected in word choices and flow. The writing draws readers into the world of both characters’ thoughts and actions.

I wonder, however, what we should take away from this story. The story examines our darker psyches and our inability to see past beyond the flaws of each other. Our inability to see past each other’s flaws would lead to our own destruction in the end. That leads me to think that there are few alternative lessons to learn from this story.

One, we can reflect more about ourselves and try to “fix” our flaws. The problem with this approach is that what one person would perceive as a “flaw” may not be a “flaw” to someone else. But perhaps some flaws are deeper and reprehensible enough for majority of reasonably minded folks to be identified. So should these flaws be found by polling? If the self cannot see the flaws as being reprehensible, then how could self-reflection pinpoint them?

Second, we can accept each other’s flaws as they are and not judge each other for what we perceive to be “flaws.” Unfortunately, some flaws should justifiably be reproachable. After all, the reader is justifiably horrified by an alleged musical genius’s refusal to help a woman because of his own deadlines. Some moral boundaries dictate that we don’t accept all flaws without judgment.

Third, we can accept some of our flaws in each other and find appropriate punishment for flaws that exceed our moral boundaries. This what the two main characters did – they punished each other because they believed that each other’s flaws exceeded reasonable moral boundaries. They took matters into their own hands to appropriate the harshest punishment possible – death. One wonders, however, who should be the punisher? In this story, the deeds that each other saw as reprehensible did not rise to legally reprehensible deeds. I wonder, too, whether true “friends” shouldn’t have first exhausted all other means to help each other realize why their actions are reprehensible. After all, I would want a true friend to help each other grow and to take steps to rectify deeds that could be deemed reprehensible.

In all, it is a well-written novel that pushes readers to think about our human nature. However, I am still unsure what lesson I should have learned. I suppose I was hoping for an uplifting resolution, with inspiration to learn from or overcome our darker natures.

In my recommendation, it’s a book I would borrow again from the library but not necessarily buy (but then again, I seem to have a very high standard for “buying” a book).