Books, Arts & Manners: Something Amiss with Martin

London Fields, by Martin Amis (Crown, 480 pp., $19.95)

THE WIDELY reproduced photograph of Martin Amis distributed to publicize London Fields seems to encapsulate his career as a whole. Posing self-consciously against the background of a graffiti-disfigured wall on one of those West London bridges that arc the London Underground tracks where they run overground, the author looks sullen, yet self-assured. In contrast to the squalor of his surroundings as well as to the bleakly grey sky above, Amis himself is rather spruce: his suit casually elegant, his hair fashionably cut and obviously freshly washed. It is as if he were going on to a party once the photo session was over. Nonetheless, it is not there but here where he truly belongs, his scowl seems to suggest. Or, rather, is compelled to belong, since as an artist he has to be wherever whatever is going on goes on. And what goes on is . . . dreadful.

GS

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George Szamuely

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London Fields, by Martin Amis (Crown, 480 pp., $19.95)

THE WIDELY reproduced photograph of Martin Amis distributed to publicize London Fields seems to encapsulate his career as a whole. Posing self-consciously against the background of a graffiti-disfigured wall on one of those West London bridges that arc the London Underground tracks where they run overground, the author looks sullen, yet self-assured. In contrast to the squalor of his surroundings as well as to the bleakly grey sky above, Amis himself is rather spruce: his suit casually elegant, his hair fashionably cut and obviously freshly washed. It is as if he were going on to a party once the photo session was over. Nonetheless, it is not there but here where he truly belongs, his scowl seems to suggest. Or, rather, is compelled to belong, since as an artist he has to be wherever whatever is going on goes on. And what goes on is . . . dreadful.