Recent Reading: London Fields

Thursday night I participated in a book club for the first time at my local branch library. It is called the Around the World Book Club and the theme this time was London. Everyone chooses their own book on the theme and then each person talked about the book for about ten minutes. I was impressed that everyone was committed to listening to other people talk.

The book I chose was London Fields by the late Martin Amis (died in May 2023). Martin was the son of the comic novelist Kingsley Amis who was best known for his satirical comic novels like Lucky Jim. By contrast, Martin was something of an enfant terrible and a writer who focused very much on the dark side of human experience. The recent movie Zone of Interest was based on Martin’s novel.

The plot of London Fields is a murder mystery, but, at least in my opinion, one does not read Martin’s novels for plot. Certainly there is a plot, and the theme of nuclear annihilation is prominent in the book with an imaginary friend named Enola Gay who in turn has a son named Little Boy based on the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb, code named Little Boy on Hiroshima.

In their 1989 review, the NYTimes said that “the language is demonically alive.” I provided one example here.

Martin also pays explicit tribute to two of his biggest literary mentors in London Fields: Vladimir Nabokov and Saul Bellow. At least in my opinion, Nabokov and Bellow were two of the greatest literary stylists in post World War II English novels.

If you are easily offended or if you want to read something cozy London Fields, and Martin Amis, more broadly, is not for you. However, if you appreciate a book that displays a maximalist literary style and probes deeply into the dark side, then I highly.