or (how i dream of liz van den berg) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Fields_(novel) - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4b/LondonFields.jpg -
Nicola Six, a 34 year old local resident, of uncertain nationality, who has entered the pub after attending a funeral, a hobby of hers.Sam sees Nicola dramatically dumping what turn out to be her diaries in a litter bin outside the flat where he is staying (it belongs to Mark Asprey, a wildly successful English writer).The diaries tell Sam that Nicola believes she can somehow see her own future. Nicola is a self-styled "murderee", who manipulates the entire cast of characters to bring about her own murder so that she will not have to face ageing, a natural process that she hates as she fears the loss of her attractiveness and power to manipulate men, as well as the indignities of decay and old age. She describes herself as a failed suicide, who must find her murderer if she is to successfully end her life. She spins a different story to each of the three male characters (Sam, Keith and Guy). Nicola insists that Guy leave his wife and son in order to consummate their relationship, and Guy does so, destroying his family life. To Keith, Nicola styles herself as a rich, knowing woman of the world, a former one-night-stand of the Shah of Iran, who recognises him for what he truly is - a darts prodigy and future darts and TV personality. She gives Keith Guy's money, which he spends on ridiculous clothes and accessories. Keith, a pornography aficionado (and addict) is kept keen by regular "home videos" created by Nicola, starring herself. To Sam, Nicola pretends to tell the whole truth, but in fact manipulates him as well, in a way that is apparent to the reader only when Sam himself realises - at the end of the story. - …left he grunted There she was There was Nicola Six …In this very British tale, femme fatale Nicola Six manipulates racist, sexist scoundrel Keith Talent and well-mannered, naive Guy Clinch as an omniscient narrator/novelist spies on the trio in order to develop his book. "Relentlessly bitter, often brutally funny, hypnotically readable, it may also be quite opaque in places to an American readership," said PW. Author tour. Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc. ... first meeting the image of Nicola Six began to work on Nicola's apartment That's the thing just did it Unlikesolaced Nicola Six Now if she could consider it as lips of Nicola Six Guy had checked into hospital…Amish's disappointing new novel follows the machinations of promiscuous Nicola Six, a psychic who senses that she is to be murdered by one of two men she meets in a London bar. She systematically humiliates both--prole darts champ Keith and posh, ineffectual Guy--only to discover that for once her powers have misled her. Set "at the end of the millennium" against the background of a vaguely defined political/ecological/cosmological crisis, this novel is far longer than its thin content warrants. What can Amis have against these minimally developed characters that he devotes nearly pages to demolishing them? There's disgust aplenty here--but little else. Previewed in Prepubescent Alert …'Will you do me the kindness' said Nicola Six 'of loeyes of Nicola Six What was she doing What was she Nicola had sometimes carelessly slipped the underwea'Sneezes like a cur ' said Nicola to herself It was six 'c ... at it the other way Nicola Six considerably inconvenient the dead end street cocktails with Nicola Six .. …Out on the street they couldn't talk about Nicola Six secerrand Guy spent an hour deciding not to call Nicola Sixand simpered at him in its dew Guy thought of Nicola Six Shebang her head This morning at any rate Nicola Six cocomedown thermoluminescence floor Nicola Six was a Nerf… Nicola and MA Nicola and Mark Asprey I have to know So I i Table of Contents … I The Concordance of Nicola Six's IsI start with the murderee with her with Nicola Six Butlittle since his last conversation with Nicola Six in fa… LONDON FIELDS By Martin Amis. And he may even be the all-time favorite lover of the novel's heroine, Nicola Six. He appears in her diary as the mysterious MA. (MA. Get it?) ''London Fields'' offers Dickensian complications - but don't worry, they all unravel. For the basic plot is straightforward. The ''murderee,'' the aforementioned Nicola Six (read that ''Sex''), has been identified by Sam, an easy chore because Nicola has already dreamed, on several occasions, of her own death, which she knows will occur on her next birthday. The two possible murderers, also identified by Sam, are Keith Talent, a low-life criminal who is also a dart-throwing champion, and Guy Clinch, a wealthy and appallingly honorable gentleman. The question is, who will kill Nicola? Mr Amis's characters bear the burden of a satire that turns them into caricatures. But once this has been said, we can move on to the fact that Mr Amis's language imbues these caricatures with a vitality and an erotic intensity seldom found in current fiction. ''London Fields'' is not a safe book; it is controlled and moved not by plot but by the density of its language. The author freely offends sensibilities. Indeed, it's difficult to think of anything he spares us when it comes to the concerns of the flesh. But his language is demonically alive. Mr Amis has a virtuoso's ear for street talk, and he gives his characters a rich bazaar of language - from the question Keith uses to end almost every sentence (''innit?'') to the complaints of one of his girlfriends, Trish Shirt: ''He comes round my owce. Eel bring boozer and that. To my owce. And use me like a toilet.'' Keith Talent represents Mr Amis's best creation in the book - a grotesque who is nevertheless both surprisingly vivid and desperate. It is a portrait done in verbal glitter. Yet Keith's dispassionate cruelty is almost deathlike. Born into poverty and emotionally without resources, he seeks escape by becoming a petty thief and professional cheat. He yearns for the best that life offers, at least in his terms -a dart-throwing championship and television-celebrity status. As a criminal, Keith is a failure who is not clever enough to know when he is being cheated. So the taker gets taken. But there are limits to his badness: ''Although he liked nearly everything else about himself, Keith hated his redeeming features. In his view they constituted his only major shortcoming - his one tragic flaw. When the moment arrived, in the office by the loading bay at the plant off the near Bristol, with his great face crammed into the prickling nylon, and the proud woman shaking her trembling head at him, and Chick Purchase and Dean Pleat both screaming Do it. Do it (he still remembered their meshed mouths writhing), Keith had definitely failed to realize his full potential. He had proved incapable of clubbing the Asian woman to her knees, and of going on clubbing until the man in the uniform opened the safe.'' Keith's prodigious sexual appetite is multiracial, and followed by ample bragging. (''When it came to kissing and telling, Keith was a one-man oral tradition.'') He is a man formed by television cliches and tabloid headlines. His natural home is a grim pub called the Black Cross, where misogyny and cruelty rule. His true passion is not women but darts, a game in which, with a mindless flow of energy, he succeeds. Keith is a prodigious consumer of aphrodisiac ''porno'' beverages and burning curries, and Mr Amis gives us, all too often, a graphic account of Keith's bodily functions; repetition dulls the effects of the author's savagery. Keith as timeless hooligan mistreats both his wife, Kath, and their infant daughter, Kim. What will be his downfall? He will meet Nicola Six. Just ask Sam, who from time to time invites Guy, Keith and Nicola to his apartment - or visits them on their own turf. Nicola is a problem, though; she makes us yield to a sneaking suspicion that a misogynist lingers here somewhere. She is not truly satisfying as character or caricature. She seems to be another of Mr Amis's plastic women. Beautiful Nicola is years old and promiscuous by choice. In a world abloom with asthma, lesions and eczema, she is in the pink of health. Furthermore, Nicola is a repository of underwear philosophy and pornographic fiction - a sexual savant. ''They wanted,'' she says of her various patrons and suitors, ''the female form shaped and framed, packaged and gift-wrapped, stylized, cartographic, and looking, for a moment at least, illustriously pure.'' Nicola presents herself to Guy as a professional virgin just waiting for the right experience. To Keith, she is a social step up, an inaccessible woman in need of a man around the house - someone to fix things. As the novel proceeds, the Crisis approaches - and also the murder. Unfortunately, Mr Amis endows the former with some painfully obvious symbolism, a series of painted arrows to guide the simple reader through the allegorical overkill. To Nicola Six falls the unenviable task of carrying the message: Nicola has always had an imaginary friend named Enola Gay, who in turn has a child called Little Boy. In case the reader's memory needs refreshing, Nicola obligingly lends Guy a book, which explains that Enola Gay was the name of the plane that carried the first atomic bomb (Little Boy). Nicola also refuses to wear a bikini (remember Bikini Atoll?): ''Nicola Six disapproved of bikinis. She execrated bikinis.'' As a tale of nuclear warning, ''London Fields'' is unconvincing. It succeeds, however, as a picaresque novel rich in its effects. All the minor characters are full of life: Keith's women, from the classic whore, Trish Shirt, to the ever-pure Debbee Kensit; the patrons of the Black Cross; Lizzyboo, Hope's sister, who is gorging herself in preparation for Armageddon. Even the intrusive Sam knows how to observe the world: ''After its latest storm, after its latest fit or tantrum or mad-act, the sky is blameless and aloof, all sweetness and light, making the macadam dully shine. Sheets and pillows in the wide bed of the sky.'' Oh yes, the murder finally happens. But knowing who does it is somewhat beside the point, innit? "martin amis" "london fields" "Nicola six" NICOLA London Fields "liz van den berg" "scenic design" designer scenic "set dresser" "tinto brass" amis kingsley sa nichopoulouzo london_fields_(novel) wiki 6