London Fields (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: darts tape, darting finger, dead clouds, Black Cross, Keith Talent, Mark Asprey (more...)

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: 480 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (April 3, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679730346
• ISBN-13: 978-0679730347
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (84 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #173,846 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 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 (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

12 of 13 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

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.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amis delivers a lovely stroll through the urban apocalypse., November 24, 1999

By	Robert Stribley (NY, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Please ignore the comments by "A Reader" which occurred on August 15th of 1999, I believe. This person has some sort of puerile vendetta going on against Mr. Amis. "A Reader" may not have even read these books: the same critique is posted to every one of Amis's books on Amazon, without an actual comment on any particular book.

London Fields is a wonderful read. I read it several years ago and elements of the book still rumble around in the back of my admittedly impressionable mind--especially Keith Talent, vulgar sportsman that he is. Words and phrases from LF even worked their way into my vocabulary, and as a college student with a passable IQ and access to a dictionary I had no problem eventually digesting any of the multisyllabic constructs Amis threw my way.

Reading a book with a dictionary on hand really isn't a bad thing, innit?