London Fields [Paperback]

Martin Amis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 1991

London Fields is Amis's murder story for the end of the millennium. The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts. Or is the killer the rich, honorable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this very British tale, femme fatale Nicola Six manipulates racist, sexist scoundrel Keith Talent and well-mannered, naive Guy Clinch as an omniscient narrator/novelist spies on the trio in order to develop his book. "Relentlessly bitter, often brutally funny, hypnotically readable, it may also be quite opaque in places to an American readership," said PW. Author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Amis's disappointing new novel follows the machinations of promiscuous Nicola Six, a psychic who senses that she is to be murdered by one of two men she meets in a London bar. She systematically humiliates both--prole darts champ Keith and posh, ineffectual Guy--only to discover that for once her powers have misled her. Set "at the end of the millennium" against the background of a vaguely defined political/ecological/cosmological crisis, this novel is far longer than its thin content warrants. What can Amis have against these minimally developed characters that he devotes nearly 500 pages to demolishing them? There's disgust aplenty here--but little else. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/89.
- Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 470 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; First Vintage International Edition edition (April 3, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679730346
• ISBN-13: 978-0679730347
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #229,726 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars London Calling, May 20, 2003

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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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. Nicola has foreseen her murder at the hand of one of these characters, and thus she directs her own demise by luring them into her tangled web of self-destruction. It's entirely predictable (yes, even the "twist" at the end), but one reads Amis for the journey, not the destination.

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? And clearly there's some sort of point being made by having Guy's baby be a monster, and Keith's be an angel, right?

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.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amis the murderee, October 29, 2000

By 

gareth johnson (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: London Fields (Paperback)

London Fields does require effort. It also rewards it like no other book I am aware of in contemporary fiction. I too aborted reading the book within 100 pages but given the extraordinary effects of Money, Dead Babies and Other People, I felt I ought to give Mart another go. I gave it another go.

There is a depth and richness in this book that I see replicated practically nowhere else in modern writing. Amis himself calls it "The Long Novel". The book reeks talent in its characterisation and language. London Fields is a consummate piece of reality and fiction. It puts certain others of his work - Time's Arrow, The Information to shame and it places the entire works of the pretenders (hey! Will Self! Hi!) just.... subterranean.

Buy this book. Give it the effort it needs to get beyond 100 - 150 pages. Reviews based on non-completion are obviously idiotic. When one gets through to reach this book's extraordinary conclusion, I for one would say it's a full dime shake up the spine; the knowledge that one has read a rare piece of imaginative fiction.

London Fields does character, setting and language in a manner unmatched by Martin Amis' contemporaries or indeed by himself since. Off the top of the wave, it will give you a ride like no other. Buy.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Too clever by half? Martin Amis? What a woolly thought!, October 10, 2000

By 

SEAN T ONEIL (Missoula, Montana United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: London Fields (Paperback)

well if it's pretty prose you want you'll find it here, not exactly James Joyce or Cormac McCarthy but surely there is beauty in Mr Amis's choices of words and phrases. the plot is rip-roaring, the troika of Guy Clinch, Nicola Six and Keith Talent are well-drawn, and I've never been more amused (and frightened) by a character than I was by Keith Talent. the ending surprised me, the hard-core darts information was fun and enlightening, and of course the perspective was uniquely, inimitably Martin Amis -- in other words witty, clever, brash, sneaky, scary, tough, tender, cold, hateful, vengeful, admiring, loathing, and self-evaluative.

Mr Amis's books are so different from one another that it's not surprising that some folks will say this one isn't as good as Money, or Time's Arrow, or Dead Babies, or The Rachel Papers. it's just a lot different from those books. London Fields *IS* vastly better than The Information, though.

this was the first Martin Amis book I read, and while my favorite is Money, this one is a very close second.