The Rachel Papers (novel)
First UK edition
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| Author | Martin Amis |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Keith Davis |
| Country | England |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher |
Knopf (US) Jonathan Cape (UK) |
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Publication date
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1973 |
| ISBN | |
| Followed by | Dead Babies |
The Rachel Papers is Martin Amis' first novel, published in 1973 by Jonathan Cape.
The Rachel Papers tells the story of Charles Highway, a bright, egotistical teenager (a portrait Amis acknowledges as autobiographical) and his relationship with his girlfriend in the year before going to university. Narrated by Charles on the eve of his twentieth birthday, the novel recounts Charles' last year of adolescence and his first love, Rachel Noyes, whom he meets in London while studying for his entrance exams into Oxford. Charles meets Rachel at a party and vows to win her over with his wit and wisdom. Unfortunately, she is seeing an American visiting student named DeForest, and Charles must employ a variety of meticulously calculated schemes to steal her away.
The title is an allusion to one subset of notes that Charles works on diligently throughout the novel – detailed instructions on everything from how to convince his Oxford don of his brilliance, to how to pick up and seduce girls. Instead of studying for his exams, Charles pours most of his time into these narcissistic chronicles, and after he meets Rachel, "The Rachel Papers" become the primary outlet for his neurotic brilliance. Gradually, however, these notes evolve beyond a set of conniving machinations geared toward getting Rachel into bed with him, and into a sincere story of their brief but passionate romance.
As the title indicates, writing is one of the main themes of the novel, but Amis's protagonist is a parody of the novelist writing about the writing process itself. Charles Highway is obsessed with literature and literariness, as evidenced by the fact that he continually peppers his narrative with references to great poets and novelists, most notably William Blake. He is equally obsessed with adding a literary flair to his life, not just by hyperbolically comparing himself to figures like Blake and Keats, but by working the people and events of his life into his elaborate system of notes, essays, and diaries, among which "The Rachel Papers" become central. He is so thoroughly engrossed in and delighted by this artificially constructed world that he is incapable of having genuine human relationships – besides Rachel, the only other person he is close to, his one friend Geoffrey, is constantly high on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol.
While his intense self-awareness at times allows Charles to be cannily poignant and honest about sensitive subjects (his troubled relationship with his philandering father, his sister's dysfunctional marriage, the awkwardness of adolescent romance), his precociousness and narcissism also blinds him to a great deal of his own faults and shortcomings.
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