Life and times of a London thug

[1]

By Martin Amis [2]

pp. 276, £13.99

In a street thick with smoke, looters smash their way into a local shop, steal whisky and beer. One man grabs a packet of cereal, another runs off laughing with four bottles of whisky. Out on the street many are pushing shopping carts full of stolen goods down the street.

London was woken out of bed with reports of such scenes on the night of August 7, 2011. The cops called it copy-cat criminal activity.
Local leaders dissociated their communities from the “hooligans and greedy criminals”.
As the dust began to settle, one thing became clear, these were unrestrained youth, as young as 10, with complete disregard for authority and fearlessness of the outcome.
Lionel Asbo, the central character of Martin Amis’ eponymous novel, is also the product of London’s underclass that became conspicuous in the aftermath of the August riots. Lionel gets his first restraining orders at the age of three and takes up ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) as his proud title, in place of the family name Pepperdine.
Shaven-headed Asbo is a 21-year-old violent criminal with a penchant for pitbulls and a complete contempt for the law; someone who takes pride in being stupid on purpose. He serves time off and on offences mostly related to extortion and stolen property.
Asbo’s prime concern is the “morals” of his mother Grace Pepperdine. Grace, who had a “mischievous” youth, was a mother of seven by the age of 19. Of all her children no two had the same father except Asbo and Cilla, who were therefore called twins. A grandmother at 39, Grace is having an affair and Asbo gets the wind of it. He wants to dig out who it is and “deal” with him. “Noises”, “groans” and “giggles” are reported from Grace’s apartment. One of the most frequent visitor’s to her house is her grandson, Cilla’s son and Asbo’s protégé Desmond and Asbo asks him to keep on a lookout.
Terrified Desmond is guilty of incestuous relationship with his grandmother. Asbo corners Rory Nightingale, a younger schoolmate of Desmond for having a fling with Grace. Rory goes missing and nothing is heard of him again. Desmond lives the rest of the story in fear of the day Asbo finds out about him and Gran, particularly when she slips into dementia and starts babbling about her various relationships.
Lionel Asbo: Sate of England is Amis’ 13th novel.
Set up in a fictional London borough called Diston where no one lives beyond 60, the novel is as much a satire on London’s underbelly as on the celebrity-obsessed society. Amis is best known for his 1984 novel Money: A Suicide Note which is about the debut film venture of John Self, a slob and constantly drunk director. Among other things, Self is a consumer of pornography and prostitutes much like Asbo who uses his Mac only for watching porn and tries to inculcate these “values” in his nephew: “With the Mac you can have three new bunk-ups every day — by using your imagination”. Sexual revolution, spiritual vacuity, physical and moral decay are some constant notes of Amis’ works. His last novel, The Pregnant Widow, received much acclaim after a success-deprived decade. In The Pregnant Widow Amis went back to Keith Nearing, who had appeared in his first and much loved novel Rachel Papers.
The story of Lionel Asbo gets a twist when Asbo, who is serving time in prison, comes to know that he has won a lottery of £140 million. With a fortune behind, this time he secures an early exit from the jail and checks into a high-profile hotel in Soho. While the lottery becomes his short-cut to class jump he becomes the mandatory front-page tabloid puller for his irreverent antics.
Gradually, as he gets wrapped in publicity concerns, he and his glamour-model girlfriend plan abortion as an exit-strategy to sell their break-up. His nephew, Desmond, however charts a different life altogether. From a boy who was thrashed for watching Crimewatch (as it asked people to tell on criminals) and encouraged to smash some windows instead of writing poetry, Desmond grows to become a crime reporter, gets married to his childhood sweetheart and becomes a father, much to the dismay of his uncle.
Martin Amis’ father, the famous writer Kingsley Amis had found his son’s writing “onanistic” and liked it “sporadically”.
Martin, who has not won the Booker yet, has often cited the “taint of heredity”. Following harsh reception of Yellow Dog (2003), Amis had moved to Uruguay for two years. He is currently located in New York for family reasons.
While Amis’ current novel draws an interesting array of characters, including Asbo’s girlfriend Thernody and Grandmother Grace, the story itself is severely emaciated. The use of language, styling of humour and satire are Martin’s strong points but he falters for the want of consistency as he expands his narration.
In an age when Asbo can easily watch porn on his laptop, the lottery notice is delivered at his home in a letter and milk is still delivered in bottles at the door step. Desmond’s journey to becoming a father is stretched like the Indian soaps programmes that pause and zoom in on expression with the sole purpose of delaying the climax. Though, Asbo himself is a master character, you only wish that Amis had not digressed.
However, what has particularly not gone down well with Amis’ London readers is the sub-title of the novel State of Nation.
Asbo is an anti-intellectual thug who breaks up weddings, beats up old men at pubs and traumatises the syntax of his native language. His family is severely dysfunctional and his life is without meaning or redemption. Clearly, calling that the “State of Nation” is not kindly looked upon, notwithstanding the fact that similar simplistic and touristy descriptions of India are usually hailed as insightful and often bestowed an award or two.