I've been avoiding London Fields by Martin Amis for many years. Why? A silly reason: Amis came to an event at a bookstore I was working at in the 90's and was a bit of a wanker; I had read one Martin Amis novel before and hadn't really liked it so I didn't feel the urge to read any others. It's a classic mistake though to let your feelings for an author influence your reading of his or her novel and I think I'm finally over my Amis animus....
I liked London Fields although I wasn't overwhelmed by it and it seems to me that the novel has dated poorly. It's a murder mystery set in an ever so slightly distopic modern London with an East End gangster who dreams of becoming World Darts Champion, a doomed girl who can see into the future and a failing American novelist on the make. There are some good lines, the characters are kind of interesting and they bounce off one another like darts off a dartboard when I've been throwing. I think Martin Amis must have based his gangster Keith on the real darts player Keith Deller whom he profiled in the book Interviewing Mrs Nabokov and I guess this is the flaw in the novel. Keith isn't very convincing in his dialogue or manner. Like a lot of English upper middle class novelists Martin Amis has a poor ear for working class dialogue and doesn't really get that segment of British life. The world of working class people is terra incognita to most private school educated people - the types who still run British society through parliament, the BBC and the national newspapers and, alas, the types who still write most British novels. English society is still dominated by class divisions which are almost impossible to transcend if you start near the top. If you want to write the Great British Novel I think going off to private school is a serious handicap. This is one of my hobby horses so I'll get off it now....London Fields was OK but I don't think I'll be reading a lot more Amis in the future. He's not as funny as his dad or as caustic as his best friend Christopher Hitchens.
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Incidentally I think this is why commentators in the British papers were so surprised by the riots engulfing North London over the last few nights. If you went to Eton or Hogwarts you're not going to understand the concerns of the segment of society who don't trust the police, don't have anything to do in the summer and certainly don't spend August in Tuscany stiffing waitresses and reading the latest Martin Amis or Julian Barnes.
31 comments:
I wonder if it helps to watch Eastenders. Although they don't do much rioting there, either.
It's not a question of not trusting the police. It's most people in a certain area coming to believe that "rules are for white people".
Seana
I havent seen Eastenders in forever. I'll bet its all youngsters these days.
Anon
While this may have started as a racial clash in Tottenham most of the rioters are now white people. This is about class not race.
Yep--you get a whole new young cast sprinkled in every few years. But we're about five years behind in the U.S. and I haven't seen it in awhile myself.
One thing about Eastenders, though. They do know how to keep a series going.
Last night I tried to watch "The Fighter" and it hit me - it's a minstrel show with working-class people. I thought of the line we've heard from African-Americans only being accepted if, "we're singing and dancing and entertaining," and I realized that working-class people are almost always portrayed as criminals or some kind of desperate, dysfunctional, drunk... well, you know.
On Eastenders, they're quite a bit more rounded than that. In fact, I bet there are quite a few non-working class people who wouldn't mind living there. It's actually quite a romantic view of working class life when I stop to think about it.
They aren't too good at holding their marriages together, though. After all, it is a soap.
Anyone got recommendations of some novels that are good on working class life? British or otherwise.
I'm watching the Ed Show right now, and the working class is right there on my screen as they prepare to boot the anti-union forces out of office. I hope they do.
John
I thought the portrayal of the female characters was really pretty shocking. I guess working class Irish women in Lowell and Lawrence are all either harridans or hoors.
Its funny though because I've spent a bit of time in Lowell and thats not my experience.
Seana
Yeah I think TV writing is generally more accurate and representative. I dont say all fiction has to be mimetic; but it is dreary how often the working class in British fiction are portrayed as scum.
Did you ever read Dorothy L Sayers? Its almost funny.
John, Seana
I was just sitting at home here before leaving to go up and get the girls home from school. I watched the last hour of My Life Without Me and I really liked it. Its got a gentle, sympathetic portrayal of working class people just trying to get on with their lives that you hardly ever see in the movies. The film takes a pasting on Rotten Tomatoes but the haters are all wrong...
Yes, I saw that when it came out and liked it very much. Sarah Polley and Mark Ruffalo--how could you go wrong, really?
Having worked in detention centres and open custody for some ten years now, that is the unfortunate common denominator among the YOs. Yes most of the YOs I have worked with have made terrible choices in their lives, but their choices weren't so hot to begin with. Once they grow up, they start to see how the deck is stacked against them.
One of the many terrific things about Friday Night Lights - working-class folks worried about the draft, house payments, medical bills. Showing grace under pressure. But while it was a critical hit it never caught on with TV audiences who are more interested in the stories of the banal children of millionaires, it seems.
Matt, I think it caught on with more people than you might think. Ratings don't tell the whole story.
Maybe you can fill me in, though. I watched the finale just a few weeks ago when it finally came on NBC or whatever it was. I wasn't really sure it was the ending, and the Slate notes got me even more confused. Does it really stop before they play the big game with a lot of things left undecided, or was there more of a wrap up somewhere? It's not that I mind it ending like that, it's just that I'm not sure I saw the whole thing. Someone mentioned an epilogue, but I don't know if that was for real or in jest.
I do have a good Kyle Chandler story, though. One of my sister's friends ran into him in their local Starbucks on the west side of L.A. He was a fan, so he got to talking with him. Chandler said he was in LA 'looking for work'. It was a friendly thing but at the end my sister's friend said would you mind posing for a picture with me? Chandler said, sure, but when the photo was taken and they looked in the view screen, my sister's friend said, "I look terrible--let's take another." Kyle patiently posed for about six more till the guy deemed one all right. Then he said, "I think this is the first time I've waited for the fan to look right." But it was all in good humor and it confirms my sense of the guy.
FNL did get a core audience by the end of its run, God bless them. But in the many discussions I've read or listened to since the final episode aired, the recurring question is 'why wasn't the show more popular'? Dan Patrick just asked it couple of days ago. I have a few theories - but the silver lining is, people are still discovering the show. Plenty of room to grow.
As for the ending - I've heard NBC may have trimmed a bit from the final episode, unfortunately. Anyhow, here it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxTgebdi8lo
But did you hear...
http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/08/03/friday-night-lights-movie/
And Chandler, yeah, he was on Letterman for Super 8 and he got Dave to stand up and take a picture with him for his daughter, which Letterman never does. Both he and Taylor Kitsch moved to Austin, Texas (a great city by all accounts), to escape the showbiz morass in LA. Sounds like a good guy.
My Iranian neighbours made me laugh this morning. Saying Libya should send their army over here to sort us out.
I hate the school holidays. Theres always more trouble. Its all about hoodies, trainers and sony flatscreens.
Years of liberals who live in leafy country lanes telling parents, schools, police and courts they can't discipline young people because its against their human rights have come home to roost. When the police stood and watched looting and arson it was obvious it would spread like wildfire. A totally weak response from useless politicians with the police terrified of using force because they are more likely to end up being prosecuted than the looters. The really disenfranchised in our society are not youths with cars, blackberries, and designer hoodies but the people who have had their businesses and homes trashed or burnt to the ground.
21st Century Guide to Parenting. Hogwarts or Hackney ?
Matt
I finally watched a good chunk of season 1, great stuff. I dont care about college football and even less high school football but that didnt seem to matter. This was a story about characters not football.
Frankie
I saw one Lib Dem MP on the BBC saying that they were sending specialist coppers in from Northern Ireland. Lucky we've had all that practice I suppose.
Uriah
I agree with some of what you say. I hate the fact that you can't defend your property without worrying about going to jail. In the US homeowners who shoot burglars are never successfully prosecuted and I know that in the UK its a different story. (At least if the Daily Mail is to be believed).
However, I can imagine years of resentment against the cops exploding in paroxysms of rage. I lived in London for a year and a half and I was hassled a couple of times a week by the Old Bill because I was Irish. One time two cops roughed me up and threw me down a flight of stairs because they said I was drunk and disorderly. I imagine if your black or Asian this kind of thing happens all the time.
The businesses will be insured. The flats if mortgaged will also be insured. If rented they'll have to take out renters insurance.
And we really can't blame the cops who really don't have the training for this kind of thing...
Frankie
I was going to do a blog post along the lines:
"Arab Spring Comes To England" and get all sarky about how the oiks should be grateful for the Olympics, a proper Toff as Prime Minister and not one but two royal weddings...but I just can't be bothered - another sad sign of the times I suppose.
Uriah, Frankie,
Its all pretty terrible but I have to say this made me laugh:
1245 BBC Monitoring: Russian TV channel Rossiya 24 says parts of London resembled a "battlefield". Citing Twitter, the Rossiya 24 correspondent claims animals have been released from London Zoo and lions and tigers could now be heard roaring on the streets. This is wearily contradicted by the Zoo's press officer. "It's been very quiet," she tells us.
I think Matt and Uriah's posts are linked - the promise of civil rights and the reality.
When I was growing up a few of my friends wwnt through the system and ended up in "juvie" (in Quebec it was Weredale and Shawbridge). I was shocked to discover when I was older that if you had an expensive lawyer it was very rare to ever see the inside of these places.
I'm not letting everyone off the hook, criminals come from all walks of life, but as usual what's going on is more complicated.
Have we made any progress with the "socializing" of women we've been talking about for forty years? Maybe we could talk a little about the socializing of the working class, how, every movie and TV show (okay, maybe not FNL) depicts (and glorifies) violence and crime in the working class and celebrates anyone who made it "out."
John
It is baffling though. During the Royal Wedding the BBC kept saying how much the whole country was coming together...
What was great about My Life Without Me was the fact that at its heart there's a love story between two working class people. You NEVER see that in Hollywood. He's always an ad executive or a sports writer, she's always doing something at a gallery. When, say, plumbers appear in a Hollywood or BBC financed movie they are always the comic foil.
America send a taskforce, there's oil in Tottenham Hale!
Frankie
there's always a silver lining:
BBC monitoring: Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver tweets: Sadly my restaurant in Birmingham got smashed up windows all gone whole area closed, cant open, staff and customers all safe!!
Over priced Spag bol will always get that treatment. However, Birmingham rioters wouldnt do that to the Fried Chicken Shack. That really would be biting the hand that feeds em.
Frankie
Dont knock Birmingham.
Brum is a great town. Many happy times there.
Thanks Matt--I look forward to watching those when I get a chance later.
It scared the shit out of me when I went there. Rough. I dont mean to joke about whats going on, its just no surprise for me. In a way im glad the world is seeing what scum live in England. Been saying for ages that id like to walk home without getting verbal abuse from hoodies. Not be kept awake all night by gangs of 20-30 feral youth...and of course all i want in life is a safe environment to bring up my cat.
I am disenfranchised, not them.
Frankie
They're not scum. They're just people. Bored, unchallenged, poorly educated, unmotivated people. I'll bet if they'd gone to Eton like the Prime Minister and half the cabinet they'd be asset stripping merchant bankers holidaying in Kos instead of roaming the streets of the Bull Ring looking for a rumble.
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