Amis and Shakespeare

Acting becomes a motif in Money.  The impetus for Self’s experiences in New York is work-related, and what he does for work involves actors.  Most of his time is spent tracking down and talking to actors – discussing their roles, their compensation, and what they will and will not do on screen.  But his occupation is merely a way of introducing acting as a theme in the novel. 

This theme is explored in several additional ways.  He observes people both in New York and London, describing them as actors or artificers in some capacity.  He warns (rhetorically) several times that one should always watch out not for the professional actors, but for those who act not as an occupation.  Why are they more dangerous?  Is Self calling himself out as just another actor in the novel? 

Martin Amis himself appears as a character in the story.  This suggests that the novel may be metafictional, in that it is aware of itself of an artificial creation.  Furthermore, is Self aware of his own artifice?  It seems as the story progresses that he becomes more aware that the world he is in, although real within the rules of the story, is made up.  Martin Amis, the character, seems to know way too much about Self as a character, yet self does not question this authority.  In fact, he reveres Amis almost unquestionably: what begins as a frustration with Amis becomes a strange admiration. 

This kind of logic coincides with Shakespearean logic: that we are all players/actors upon the world stage.  I don’t think it’s an accident that the bar Self frequents is called the Shakespeare – although in that particular situation I think we are meant to understand it somewhat ironically – or that Shakespeare in constantly referred to.  Amis and Self are calling our attention to that kind of Shakespearean logic.