London Fields
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Writer, Samson Young, is staring death in the face, and not only his own.
Void of ideas and on the verge of terminal decline, Samson’s dash to a decaying, degenerate London has brought him through the doors of the Black Cross pub and into a murder story just waiting to be narrated.
At its centre is the mesmeric, doomed Nicola Six, destined to be murdered on her 35th birthday. Around her: the disreputable men who might yet turn out to be her killer. All Samson has to do is to write Nicola’s story as it happens, and savour in this one last gift that life has granted him.
'A true story, a murder story, a love story and a thriller bursting with humour, sex and often dazzling language' Independent
Customer Reviews
London Fields
Densely brilliant. Better than Lionel Asbo.
Shame the style, the social milieu and the dreck will limit the audience
The joke is on.....
You may be forgiven for certain preconceptions about high profile novels such as London Fields, by drawing from reviews such as this, or academic ponderings/evaluations of the subject matter. However, as with most fiction, resist if you can the blurb and studied critique until you have read the novel, then get stuck in to the critique with your own conceptions.
Martin Amis hides in conspicuous plain sight in this book; present as 'in narrative' writer/narrator Samson. This element (combined perhaps with the point that Sam maybe a bad writer) allows Amis to slip between character perspective, and vernacular with what appears at times as irreverance. The voices in the book sometimes feel as one, and lack, particularly in the working class characters, a level of appropriate authenticy (again Samson and metafictional device could/can be blamed).
The somewhat bleak space of the story feels as spacious as the overly (and absurdly) described council flat of Keith - one of the books villains. These characters exist in version of London, within their individual bubbles, and in that the book has a level of authenticity, and a narrative with an ability to exist as current years after it was written.
The characters are inconsistently portrayed and tend to be rounded out on a surface and cynical level. The cliches of each character are relied upon to bring them to life in the readers mind. A sense of foreboding in the book belongs moreover to the character's selfish and more trivial desires, rather then the suggestions of larger impending dooms within the narrative.
The book has many amusing elements, which will bring a smile to the face, and perhaps an open laugh on more than a few Occassions.
London Fields is a landmark novel, garnering much praise and critsim in its wake. From this reader's eyes the novel appears to be somewhat of a literary joke, crated with confidence, irreverence, a cynical eye and mischeavious (if not smug) smirk.
Simon Schama described it as 'One of the all time great London novels'.... I would have to say; darts is in the eye of the beholder