London Fields

De: Martin Amis

Narrado por: Steven Pacey

The murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing who is intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts; or the rich, honorable, and dimly romantic Guy Clinch. As Nicola leads her suitors towards the precipice, London--and, indeed, the whole world--seems to shamble after them in a corrosively funny novel of complexity and morality.

©1989 Martin Amis (P)2010 AudioGo

Distrubing comedy

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Of course I would recommend it, however you should listen alone or at least not in mixed company.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Not what I excepted, and not very comfortable.

Which character – as performed by Steven Pacey – was your favorite?

Niccola, was great, and so was Keith, and Guy, but the writer Sam was my favorite.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Many laugh out loud for many seconds, parts, and a few stop the recording and pull over to laugh moments, really too many list.

Any additional comments?

I don't usually go for novels from the English 80s but this one does nicely with the time period, and language. However it is dark and uncomfortable, I don't mind telling someone I know will not and has not read this or anything like this, but I don't know that I would want to admit to someone who was familiar with the work how much I enjoyed it, guilty indulgence or symptom of a diseased mind.

RIP Martin Amis. classic blistering satire.

the rilliant performance reading, sizzles with energy, humor and a quite nasty social critique. very entertaining, and has aged surprisingly well. Even if you come away hating yourself for finding it as good as it is.

Brilliant, Funny, Dark

My favorite Amis novel. I was skeptical about the audio book as there is a meta narrative component but I was surprised how smoothly it flows. The narrator's performance is top notch and the character's accents are spot on. Thoroughly enjoyable if you are not easily offended, and can distinguish between what a fictional character says/ does vs. what the author says/does.

Brilliant

Have you listened to any of Steven Pacey’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

The book is not only very clever (I'm sure lots when clear over my head), but the narrator is absolutely fabulous. He made the experience of listening to this masterpiece like true theater, never stepping out of character, no matter which character he was playing at the time

Stunning

There will never be anyone like Martin Amis. These characters are so awful, and yet the novel is hysterically funny and intensely heartbreaking. Well done, Martin. Well done.

Masterfully dome

the voice portrayals, especially of the lout Keith,make me feel sorry for anyone who reads this in print. it feels a bit long. lots of stories to tie up. but so vivid and entertaining. feminists cannot possibly believe that Amis shares his Characters' attitudes about women. see this main female character, for instance.

This needs to be listened to by more people

This was a fantastic book. I have been a fan of both Martin Amis and Steven Pacey in the past. They are both excellent at what they do, and to have them come together for this title made this one excellent work to listen to. This book kept me enthralled for its entirety. I don't know if it is marked as a thriller, but I was still wondering what was going to happen until the last 10 minutes.

Martin Amis' characters are all terrible people. Accept and enjoy that and you will love this book. Other than that, they are funny, and flawed, and excellent characters. Sure, they may ride the lines of being stereotypes, but they're portrayed in an interesting way.

Then there is Steven Pacey. I am not afraid to acknowledge that Pacey is the best narrator I've listened to and I have over 100 audiobooks completed and he is in fine form here. His characters all sound great and easily distinguishable. He really added a lot and almost tips the scale to make listening to this book the superior choice.

Loved it

Incredible book and incredible performance. Long but we’ll worth your time. I especially loved the ending.

Hilarious, messy, maddening, unforgettable

This is peak Amis- or it frequently is, anyway. I’ve just reread London Fields for the first time in probably 25 years, and I’m again impressed, but my admiration is not quite as unalloyed as it was in my youth.

At the sentence level and as a stylist, Amis is sui generis. This work is ambitious, panoramic, hilarious, sexy, and did I mention hilarious. It made me laugh out loud pretty frequently, as Amis usually does. It gripped me. It even managed, in the end, to move me.

But there are times now when I find the prose needlessly peacocking, when certain stylistic tics and gambits simply don’t land, when the thumb of authorial fancy is so fat and smudgy on the scale that it yanks me right out of the book.

And Nicola. She’s the novel’s purported dark center of gravity. And… she doesn’t work. I don’t mind her being a stylized male fetish object. But her motivations are simply never made coherent. What. Does. She. Want? At the end of the book, when the plot she sets in motion has been fulfilled, I still really have no idea. Or no compelling idea.

I’m very glad I reread this book - or listened, really - and I do recommend it, though only if you already suspect you’ll like this sort of thing. But my admiration was a bit more measured this time around.

Big chewy novel, excellent narration

This was my first exposure to Martin Amis--I'd seen a couple of references by literary types who'd cited this as one of the top 50 or 100--or whatever--novels of the late 20th century.

For the close listener, this is definitely a very satisfying, dense work of fiction by a very talented and original writer. And for all its literary merits, it's a surprisingly entertaining and engaging listen.

Written in 1989 and set in 1999, parts of the book admittedly have a somewhat dated feel. The digressions on pornography and masturbation, for instance--which at the time of publication were still viewed as quite modern and "raw"--seem almost quaint by today's standards.
Yet other things, like Keith Talent's obsession with TV and video (and even his being featured in an early version of reality TV) are oddly prescient considering their pre-internet context.

But be prepared to rewind; Amis doesn't spell anything out, and there are enough soliloquies and extended rants (after all, this is 21+ hour download) for you to drift off and miss an essential character detail or plot point.

Fortunately for such a long book, the audio narration is unbelievably good. Pacey's American accent as the New York-born narrator Samson Young is almost flawless (think a smarter/sarcastic Regis Philbin) although he does give himself away with certain pronunciations (i.e., he pronounces urinal as "yurINEnal" instead of "YURinal", or calf as "koff" instead of "kaff"). But I have yet to hear an English narrator master a totally perfect American accent, so that's a pretty small quibble...
And it's worth having an English actor reading the novel because where he really shines is in his portrayal of East-ender Keith Talent. As such, this performance alone is worth the audio download, innit?

I just learned that a 2014 movie version of this is scheduled for release this fall. I have my doubts that a film adaptation could successfully capture the scope and appeal of the novel, but who knows?