Customer Reviews

London Fields

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Okay, so Martin Amis has this thing about language, and it's undeniably impressive whether you can stand it or not. I personally enjoy reading the work of someone who has such command of the language, especially when it reads so well -- page-turning like Stephen King, but with substance like Henry James. (excuse me for that comparison, I'm sure it's bound to get a lot of sneers) Maybe I just like it because it makes me feel smart. (more sneers)

I like Amis in general, but this is by FAR my favorite. Granted: It's wordy. It stretches believability at times. There are places where author ego creeps through. And the subject matter is reeeeally depressing. BUT... I've read it twice, and both times I have come away in the end feeling inspired, sated, and joyously uplifted. It's sick, hilarious (oh my god), peopled with incredibly vivid characters, and peppered with typical quoteworthy Martin Amisisms.

Not only is it a satisfying read because of the mastery with which the story is told, but because of the story itself. Strange, I don't see anyone mentioning what I see as, finally, the most crucial thematic element of the book. It's supposedly about "the death of love," and this point is driven home ruthlessly from the beginning. And yet, even when the foretold ending comes about, Amis manages to put a gorgeous, beautiful little twist on what has been a pretty cynical, harrowing story. In the midst of all this nasty darkness there is, finally, at least one brilliant beam of pure sunlight. That, to me, is what London Fields is really about. "Love happens at the speed of light."

It takes courage and a little patience, but I recommend London Fields with as many stars as you've got.

This is a book that challenges its readers. When you finish this novel you feel as if you have completed something. It is often times confusing and hard to read, but the language is fantastic. The story allows you to really dig deep inside the minds of the characters.

Martin Amis is probably the world's greatest living prose stylist. A real champ. However, his grasp of plot, structure and overall narrative movement is tenuous at best. He has more motifs, themes, and metaphors running through "LF" than the book's thin structure can accomodate. It sinks itself and it's not pretty to watch all his linguistic acrobatics go up in smoke at the hands of his poorly managed story. The same complaint one could lodge against Nabokov (Amis's hero) is applicable to Amis. If you read one Amis' book you need read no others. His narrative may change slightly; however, his characters are thin veneers of humanity for him to torture and through his acerbic darts at. His style (always brilliant) runs over his novels roughshod until they become exercises in literary masturbation. Also, the constant employment of self-reflexivity lends a greater degree of isolation between the reader and the book! As if having to grasp for a dictionary every six to seven minutes didn't halt the reading enough. Not that I have a problem with big words (I like big words!) And Amis sure knows how to use them. However, like his father, good ol' Kingsley told him: "Sometimes you need to write a boring sentence." It's a horrible thought: but sometimes you can desenitize the reader to the beauty of your prose. Both Amis and Nabokov are chief sinners in this area. Ironically, Amis's best novel may be his first: The Rachel Papers. "LF" is a thoroughly awe-inspiring achievement that runs itself into the ground drowning in its own awe. I wish I could make this comment about more fiction: That it ruins itself with its own ambitions and lofty intentions. Give Amis credit: He stretches himself so far that the limbs of his acrobatic prose snap and the reader is left with a book that runs nearly 300 pages too long!

Truly excellent - clever, dark, weird, annoying, intelligent but mostly hilarious. If you have read this entire book and not laughed out loud once you are in fact dead.

Why did Amis write this book? Has he demons to exorcise? Does he despise the human race? A sickeningly misanthropic book, the literary equivalent of the Holocaust, but against all peoples, not only certain ones. The main characters: a painfully naive married man (whom Amis has sick fun in torturing and making him look a fool). A nymphomaniac who has the power to foretell her own death. A nasty, wife-abusing darts player, constantly drunk, whose utterly sickening attitude toward his wife Amis tries to make amusing (perhaps the most depressing part of the book). A pathetic wife, a shrill wife, a baby that eats everything, and the narrator. Only for confirmed misanthropes, nihilists, woman-haters, child-haters, man-haters, and the like. It makes you want to bring back papal book banning -- except that, unlike this piece of gratuitously ugly tripe, many of the books banned by the Catholic church had merit.

Damon Albern cites this novel as one of the influences for his group's breakthrough album "Parklife." The most explicit references to the book can be heard in the lyrics to the song "London Loves"

Three stars seems like such a low review for such a good writer, especially when Amis's gifts are so much greater than most of the bestselling writers of our day. I consider this book LITERATURE and would thus place it above most of what's out there, but compared to Amis's other work and the average turnout of other accomplished novelists this book falls short.

His incredibly huge vocabulary, his linguistic acrobatics, his street talk and wise cracks, all come into play once again in this rather long and overdone book. I consider it an inferior replay of another of his works, Money, which I thought outrageously hilarious and better constructed. The problem with Amis is that his style is too self-conscious and draws too much attention to itself. You're constantly aware of the play on words, so much so that it becomes a distraction from the story. It's like going to watch a famous play and having the lead actor dressed in a ridiculously ill placed costume.

I once read a review of Nabakov in which the writer was praised for his technical ability, but disparaged for his inability to touch the reader's soul. This holds true for Amis as well, who holds Nabokov as his hero. If you do believe in such a thing as the human soul or spirit and believe that great literature can indeed touch it, then you would have to marvel at Amis's wit, the prodigious span of his diction, and his gift for comedy and puns, and afterwards place him as a great entertainer with an incredible range but a minimal reach. A little less style, a little more substance is what Amis needs.

London Fields is one of those rare things that you never forget. I still find myself using terms I first heard in there. It's dark, rancid humour of the very best kind.

I hear Amis is moving to America. God only knows what he'll come up with when he's there. I hope it's even better than this.

I read LF perhaps eight years ago. I do not read a great deal of contemporary fiction. Given the limits of my time, I generally read only works that have already withstood the test of time. This novel was given to me as a present, and, with no preconceived notions, I read it.

While it takes too many chances, and in many ways goes too far to be considered a masterpiece, it shall, in my estimation, or should, earn a place in the cannon of modern fiction. It is alternatively and simultaneously dark, hilarious, and haunting (though as I write them, these words seem too shallow to express the intensity I wish to convey). The conclusion(s) seized me with emotions as strong as any I have experienced in so-called "real" life. This one succeeds where "The Information" fails.

I read this book when it was first published, and at the end of it my only thought was "My, what an extremely clever man Mr Amis is." This could be highest praise, or pretty damning, depending on your point of view. Now that I'm in my intolerant old age I prefer to read for pleasure; the experience of reading this book was more of being bowled over than of enjoyment. I've no doubt however that Mr Amis himself would be pleased with my impression. Years later, the seedier side of London and Londoners he vividly portrayed is still imprinted upon my consciousness. Whether one takes to this book is, I think, very much a matter of personal taste. Anyone who wants heart-warming stuff should steer clear, and even those who just have a heart should brace themselves. But if you want to admire someone flexing formidable authorial muscles, go for it.