London Fields / Martin Amis

London Fields

category: fiction, author:

Martin Amis

published by Penguin, original copyright 1989, read in Jun 2010

Agamedes' opinion: 4 out of 10

(Agamedes' remembered opinion of
The Phoenix Guards: 8 out of 10)

Have you ever read Brust's The Phoenix Guards? It is written with rolling, long-winded sentences, circumlocutions which leave the reader breathless and, quite often, confused. Yet the end result is an entertaining adventure with humour and heroics. The pretentious style and apparently irrelevant diversions (which are, often enough, actually irrelevant) make for a greatly enjoyable book. A book which my wife gave up reading after barely a chapter. A book which I really should reread and formally review...

Anyway...

London Fields is written in a somewhat similar style. The London Fields sentences are shorter but the wandering style is similar. Instead of a single plot thread which rambles to and fro, Amis has several closely linked plots which jump to and fro, leaving the reader to struggle against confusion. Amis' writing style is -- like Brust's -- pretentious. But Amis fails to write a book which can be enjoyed.

To tell the truth, I'm sorry that I have attempted to compare London Fields with The Phoenix Guards. Even though I use Brust as an example of "good" against Amis' example of "bad" -- I believe that Brust could be embarrassed to be in the same sentence as Amis.

London Fields is populated by characters who are smart but cruel, or stupid and senselessly cruel, or innocent and the target of deliberate or unthinking cruelty. The petty crim is gypped when he buys some dodgy stolen goods; he quickly sells the dodgy goods, only to be paid in counterfeit notes, which he quickly shifts of to another petty crim... That's one of the funny paragraphs, amongst the 200 pages that I was able to read. Most of the "humour" is just too cruel to be enjoyed.

A few nights ago, ABC TV had a show about some sort of "financial instrument" called "Timberwolf", being sold by Goldman Sachs Group. According to the report, Goldman Sachs recognised Timberwolf as being "shitty" -- destined to lose all value, presumably. So what did Goldman Sachs do with their "shitty" Timberwolf? They sold as much Timberwolf as possible -- backed by their own then-solid reputation -- to other investment companies and financial advisors... And that is a lot like the amoral and unethical behaviour which underpins London Fields.

Do you want to read a book about stupid or scheming, amoral and unethical characters who emphasise their disregard for others with brutal violence? A book which is written in a pretentious pseudo-literary style... The "days of sun and storm", for example: "They make us feel -- and I'm on the edge of nausea as I write these words -- what it is to live in a universe." Yes, I am indeed on the edge of nausea as I reread that sentence.

Do you want to read an I'm-so-clever yet so unpleasant book? Apparently, plenty of people do: the cover of my copy says, "The no. 1 bestseller".

My rating on the first few chapters would have been 6: read to pass the time. As I read further, I downgraded to 5: readable but only if there's nothing else. Then I took the book away for the weekend, thinking, stuck in a hotel, nothing else to read, I'll get a fair way through this book...

In that hotel room, with nowhere else to go, London Fields my only book, nothing much on TV -- I read my wife's Women's Weekly. And downgraded London Fields to 4: bad but could be read. "Could be read"? Yes, I think so. If I were on a desert island. Without a Women's Weekly.

Read it at your moral peril.

..o0o..

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