London Fields
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Review
`I love reading novels about the city but this is my favourite. It manages to incorporate the seedy and the middle class Notting Hill side of the capital, all in one glorious unputdownable novel.' --Daily Express, Phil Daniels
Book Description
'A true story, a murder story, a love story and a thriller bursting with humour, sex and often dazzling language' Independent
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Perfectly postmodern,
By A Customer
This review is from: London Fields (Paperback)
London Fields is not packed with action and events, because its strengths lie in different areas. The characters are brilliantly crafted, simultaneously engaging and complete to the reader, whilst being totally unrealistic and caricatured. In Nicola Six, Amis has created both a male fantasy and a female icon, and Keith Talant is strangly likeable despite his disgraceful behaviour. The constantly shifting narrative voice keeps the reader focused on the several interwoven plots, and generates continual questions as to who is controlling the actions and the reporting of them. London Fields is not an easy book to read, and sometimes Amis' style can get a little pretentious, but the more you read it, the more accessible it becomes.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
London's Burning, Dial 99999,
By
This review is from: London Fields (Paperback)
This seems to be a novel people tend to either love or hate, and it's not hard to see why. First of all, it is awfully long-and for such a long book, not a lot happens, which is bound to upset some people. Essentially, you have the tale of a not-so-romantic triangle comprised of Nicola Six (messed up psychic sexpot), Guy Clinch (posh, married, naive, and weak-willed), and Keith Talent (underclass wide-boy, schemer, on-the-fiddle, racist, sexist, alcoholic, generally scummy pub denizen), told by a dying American writer in London. The tale is set at the end of the millennium, with some vague catastrophe threatening the world, so it's safe to believe that the trio's story has some larger meaning. The west London of this book is a pretty nasty immoral place, where carpe diem means grab what you want and screw everyone else. As the physical world of the book obliquely slides toward disaster, the moral landscape is already destroyed. The protagonists themselves are stereotypes, the two men representing the opposite ends of the social spectrum, and the most recognizable "type" of modern British male: upper-crust wimp, lower-class lout. Nicola Six exists solely to satirize, and thus subvert, their sexual fantasies with her psychosexual games. Amis appears to be painting a larger picture about British enrapturement with... well, it's not clear precisely what Nicola represents. Capitalism? America? Or just the dreams and fantasies that have led the country astray? Overarching metaphors aside, Amis can write the hell out of sentence, and there's plenty of awfully good description and dialogue here-especially when it comes to wide-boy Keith. There are large swathes of the book devoted to darts, and Amis makes it come alive. Some of this is devastatingly funny amidst the overall dark and bleak tone. My own favorite line is about scratches on Guy's face that (and this is not verbatim, but give's the gist): "made him look like a determined, but inept rapist"). Ultimately the book is too long, and the broad main characters and interjecting author get rather tedious. Still, it's a major work of modern British literature and merits a look if you're into that stuff.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb,
By
This review is from: London Fields (Paperback)
Other reviews have given synopses, so I'll skip that...
Firstly, this book is worth reading if you live in London - Amis captures perfectly the bizarre juxtaposition of sleaze against wealth that is everywhere in the city, and the book is wonderfully atmospheric of both of these aspects of London and more. The wider appeal of the book is surely Amis' writing rather than the plot itself; his astounding use and manipulation of the English language makes 'London Fields' a real tour de force. Most of all though, the general obvservations of peoples' behaviours, psychologies (particularly with regard to sex), reactions to one another, and the varying viewpoints on life offered here are captivating and, I would say, remove the need for a gripping, suspenseful story; these observations are also often made in an extremely witty way. However, I also disagree with other reviewers, who claim that "nothing happens" in 'London Fields': this is a highly misleading thing to say about this book - there are several narrative strains which meet excitingly at the end of the novel and I personally found that despite Amis' determination to make the book more about the 'journey to the climax' than the ending itself, there is real tension. I do agree, though, that the plot might not be the main focus of the book. All in all, I would recommend this book to almost anyone who feels that they might want to read something which is something other than (or more than) just a story and experience the writing of someone with a trully masterful command of the English language.
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