Martin Amis hates nuclear weapons. With a passion. He doesn't know what to do with them and would rather they did not exist in the first place. And who can blame him? Einstein's Monsters, a collection of five stories dealing with people living under constant threat of a nuclear war and survivors of nuclear apocalypse was published in 1987.when the Doomsday Clock stood at just three minutes to midnight - its closest position since 1953, when the clock stood at two minutes when both the Soviet Union and the United States detonated nuclear bombs within months of one another. Exactly ten years after that the world held its breath for thirteen days during the Cuban Missile Crisis; thirty years later it's deep Cold War, and the two superpowers are at race with one another to strengthen their nuclear capabilities even further. And the clock is ticking, ticking...Amis prefaces his stories with an essay titled Thinkability, a heated introduction, seeing the world enter a state of perpetual paranoia as a result from the invention of nuclear weaponry and man's struggle for more of it. Nuclear war is seven minutes away, and might be over in an afternoon - Amis's essay full of anxiety at the face of what he considers to be an unsolvable situation: What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defense against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. How do we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? By threatening to use nuclear weapons. And we can't get rid of nuclear weapons, because of nuclear weapons.Thinkability is a show of frustration, as Amis sees the world with nuclear warheads as being engaged in a perpetual Mexican standoff, since we opened the Pandora's box and can't possibly hope to close it again. Amis fears not death itself, but that it could come as as a conclusion to the horrifying reality of a nuclear war, which in his eyes nothing else could match in its monstrosity: Events that we call "acts of God"-floods, earthquakes, eruptions-are flesh wounds compared to the human act of nuclear war: a million Hiroshimas. Like God, nuclear weapons are free creations of the human mind. Unlike God, nuclear weapons are real. And they are here.Unfortunately, none of the stories contained in Einstein's Monsters match the intensity of Thinkability, and all lack its directness and urgency. It's clear that Amis, although an acclaimed novelist, is not a writer of science fiction and quite possibly not a short story writer either; in these stories he seems to struggle with finding a way to best use his ideas and themes, but fails to do what other have achieved both before him and since - create a narrative which would not just be a background for his ideas but would be a world of itself, filled with people who live and breathe on their own and are not just playing their part. Amis's stories here are far too allegorical and seem almost like pastiches, full of half-finished ideas and scenarios.Two of the stories are set in a world tottering on the brink of a nuclear apocalypse, and three in one in post-apocalyptic reality. The first story, titled Bujak and the Strong Force, or God's Dice attracted my attention immediately, since one of my university friends' nickname was Bujak and I wondered where did Amis come up with such name? Bujak of the story was also a Polish man - here I begun to feel uncanny - who tracks down Nazi colaborators after World War 2, and whose personal hero is Einstein. Bujak lives in South London and has the gift of the "strong force", meaning literally being strong as an ox. Interestingly enough Bujak is opposted to using it, and his opposition to use of said force comes from him attributing all the evils of the world to Einsteinian strong force - knowledge of nuclear energy. The allegory is heavily handed throughout, and the ending doesn't help it.The rest of the stories are interesting but suffer from the same symptoms: they don't quite seem to fit the subject they're describing. Insight at Flame Lake features Dan, a schizophrenic boy who stays with Ned, his uncle, after his father - who worked with delivering nuclear weapons - has committed suicide. The story consists of Dan's and Ned's respective diary entries, but the link to apocalypse and nuclear dangers is almost non-existant. The Time Disease is reminiscent of Amis's famous novel Time's Arrow, where the protagonists experiences time backwards - a play on Benjamin Button. In this story the narrator's wife has come down with the time disease - a disease which reverses the aging process and restores vitality, which is unwanted as all humans want to do is grow older, ill and die in a bizarre post-apocalyptic world. An interesting idea, but I fear that it's all there is to it - especially when a very similar concept has been done before by the same man.The Little Puppy That Could obviously takes its title from The Little Enginge That Could an is a parody on a children's fable, where a society is preyed on by a giant mutated dog which eats one human a week. Personally, I thought that Harlan Ellison had a more interesting idea with his famous short A Boy and his Dog, where a boy and a dog work together as a team in a post-apocalyptic world. Ellison's protagonists, both human and canine, are memorable - Amis's story vanishes from memory rather quickly.The last story, The Immortals, is probably most interesting of the lot - narrated in the first person by an entity which claims to be immortal and which narrates the end of time, as the last of humanity came to New Zealand to die from radiation poisoning after nuclear warfare. This being has existed for millions of years and observed the development of earth and evolution of life, observing humanity from the outside and offering scathing commentary: Just as I was thinking that no century could possibly be dumber than the nineteenth, along comes the twentieth. I swear, the entire planet seemed to be staging some kind of stupidity contest. I could tell then how the human story would end. Anybody could. Just the one outcome. The story is conceptually interesting and unlike other stories - with the exclusion of Little Puppy - is not narrated nor deals with any concrete characters; the unnamed immortal entity, an outside observer of humanity and its follies is a perfect way for Amis to employ his own famous ironic and biting voice without having to bother with writing it on cue cards of his characters or employ any sci-fi tropes. It reminded me of my favorite Ellison story, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream which is never a bad thing. The narrator of the last story can be Amis himself, as indeed unlike him his words are immortal, and what he has written in these pages can never die.Ultimately, Einstein's Monsters contains a quite good introductory essay and two good stories, with The Immortals being the best of the bunch - curiously also being the Most Amis-like piece. It is however quite dated, as ironically in 1988 both the Soviet Union and the U.S. would sign treaties eliminating immediate-range nuclear forces and their relations would improve, and in 1991 the Soviet Union would dissolve altogether. However, in 1987 a year of fear of living in the shadow of a mushroom cloud could feel like a lifetime, and nuclear weapons are indeed here to stay,and we can't ever uninvent them. More remarkable fiction about the dangers and consequences of nuclear warfare has been written - such as Nevil Shute's sad and affecting novel On the Beach - and a reader interested in the topic would be better advised to skim Einstein's Monsters for its introduction and one or two stories, and read the grand classics instead.
In the wake of having children, Martin Amis realized he suddenly gave a fuck about the fate of the world as an ecologically safe place to live (yet another reason why I never want to have children), and out of this sudden concern for trending current events and pet immanent dooms comes this thematically linked collection of writings about the big bad nuclear wolf at the door - we're talking Einstein's Monsters: the atom bomb, baby. Amis starts off strong with "Thinkability," his essay on fearing and loathing the bomb, which serves as prologue of sorts for the five short stories that follow. However, Amis is known as a novelist and essayist for good reason; the short form of fiction is not where his talents shine. "Bartok and the Strong force" and "The Immortals" are both solid, anthology-worthy yarns - the former uses an aging, mostly benevolent Russian strong man who acts as de facto protector for an English slum as a vehicle for Amis to riff on biblical vengeance, masculinity, and nuclear devastation (metaphorically only, whew!); while the latter is a brief, jazzy rundown of human existence from the POV of a neurotic and millennially weary lifeform that's seen it all from the dinosaurs to the null and void of human extinction (by nukes, natch). The other three tales run a bit thin in content and form. "The Time Disease" plays off like a comedy routine that pushes its joke too far (the joke being that a disease like AIDS is doing people in by making them younger), while "Insight at Flame Lake" uses dueling journal entries about a family's stay at a lakehouse to weave a cautionary tale that, I guess, is trying to warn readers about the psychological deformities that may be lurking behind the seemingly pleasant faces of children (who can still be saved!) and how these folks can grow up to be the kind of yobs who like pressing buttons that kill thousands of people. And then there is "The Little Puppy Who Could," a slightly hokey fairy tale about an adorable puppy looking for love in a post-nuclear survivor colony beset by a fire-breathing, man-eating mutant dog.For the record, I would have Martin Amis's children, but this collection is for fanatics only. Marty's nuclear blues work much better in the longer form of London Fields, where the atomic threat looms as an abstract background doom for the book's noirish plot. But since you, my many readers, are perched on the fence, waiting for me to tell you which way you should lean on the issue of nuclear bombs - no, nukes are not nice, and, yes, we should find other cool toys to play with. Amis's heart is in the right place, but with Einstein's Monsters, like, the center just doesn't hold, man.
What do You think about Einstein's Monsters (2011)?
This was my first read of Martin Amis and i'd heard good things but wasn't sure if it was going to be my kind of thing especially as soon as I realised that these short stories are all centered around an obsession with Nuclear Weapons...gah politics. I was right, the introductory essay bored me and I didn't even get through the first short story. But I was at work, on my break and had nothing else to read so I gave it another go and the four remaining stories were awesome!! The, last, The Immortals even gave me an epihany to a plot point in a story i've been thinking about for a while...amazing!
—Lipsy
Um dos livros mais interessantes que já li nos últimos tempos. O ensaio inicial sobre a era atómica está sublime, despe os argumentos que os governantes usaram anos a fio com uma lógica implacável. Os contos ficaram abaixo das expectativas.1. Bujak and the Strong Force or God's DiceUma enorme metáfora do poder nuclear, mas que podia ter sido muito melhor explorada, por exemplo criando imagens mais fortes e passando-as ao leitor. 3/52. Insight at Flame LakeEste conto é igualmente uma metáfora. Acho que não foi convenientemente explorado e foi superficial em demasia. 3/53. The Time DiseaseFiquei muito desapontado com este conto. O mundo criado está muito deficiente e confuso. A história padece do mesmo defeito. Acho que ele falhou por completo aqui. 1/54. The Little Puppy That CouldAcho que a abordagem foi boa até cerca de metade da história, mas o final deixou muito a desejar. 3/55. The ImmortalsEste conto salvou o livro. É uma daquelas histórias que tem tudo para ficar na memória durante décadas. 5/5A nota final é uma mistura entre a média dos contos e o ensaio.
—Pedro
A series of short stories with a thematic link to nuclear war. Amis' rare foray into short fiction succeeds only with Insight at Flame Lake (nukes as mere metaphor here), The Time Disease, and the stunning concluding piece, The Immortals. The Little Puppy that Could is a strange piece that starts out quite boring, builds to great interest in the middle and then falters at the end. The opening essay to describe his intent and his personal feelings on nuclear weapons is the worst piece of writing Amis has ever produced, and it does lead into the weakest piece, Bujak and the Strong Force (again as metaphor), so you will need to stick with it to enjoy the good stories.
—Ron
