Lionel Asbo

Apr 02, 2013 Kemper rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-mystery, bad-guys-rule, modern-lit, over-there, humor, 2013, s-e-x, we-are-family

This book made me such a nervous wreck that I developed a facial tic and had to take antacids while I was reading it.

Desmond Pepperdine is a 15 year old lad living in a very rough part of England where life expectancies are short and violence is common. Des is a bright and gentle boy with a big secret. His 39 year old grandmother Grace has seduced him, and Des is worried that his uncle Lionel will find out.

Lionel took Des in after his mother died a few years earlier. Des loves ‘Uncle Li’, but he...more This book made me such a nervous wreck that I developed a facial tic and had to take antacids while I was reading it.

Desmond Pepperdine is a 15 year old lad living in a very rough part of England where life expectancies are short and violence is common. Des is a bright and gentle boy with a big secret. His 39 year old grandmother Grace has seduced him, and Des is worried that his uncle Lionel will find out.

Lionel took Des in after his mother died a few years earlier. Des loves ‘Uncle Li’, but he’s also terrified of him. He should be. Lionel is the kind of guy who laces his pit bulls’ food with Tabasco to make them meaner, and he took such pride in being the youngest person to ever receive an Anti-Social Behavior Order after a violent spree at age 3 that he had his name legally changed to Asbo. He'll put a man in the hospital over some perceived grievance and then complain when his victim has the nerve to file a complaint with the police.

As a career criminal specializing in loan shark collection and reselling stolen goods, Lionel is constantly in and out of jail. Lionel also has a strict policy that his mom is too old to be dating men, and he doesn’t like it when he hears from a neighbor that Grace has been seeing someone. Des keeps his mouth shut as Lionel finds another young man to blame and forces Des to help him get his revenge.

Years pass as Des lives with his secrets and tries to establish a quiet normal life by going to college and getting a girlfriend. He still lives with Lionel but with him always in jail, Des usually has the place to himself. However, after Lionel wins a small fortune in the lottery, he becomes a tabloid sensation. Unfortunately, becoming wealthy does nothing to make Lionel Asbo a better person, and dealing with his whims and moods becomes an even worse minefield for Des.

The odd thing is that Lionel doesn’t seem quite as monstrous as he should. Amis does a nice job of depicting the affection that Des has for his uncle even as he has absolutely no illusions as to what Lionel is. With Des’s secret about Grace and Lionel’s skewed logic regarding right-and-wrong, every conversation between the two has an underlying tension that really got to me after a while. And the ending nearly killed me. (view spoiler)

While I enjoyed the story about a bright young man trying to create a life for himself while dealing with the constant threat presented by his sociopathic criminal uncle, I was disappointed in the satire aspects of Lionel becoming famous. It seems like Amis just hits all the obvious points of tabloid culture or wealth enabling someone to act like an asshole. (Which he did a better and more subtle job of in the superior Money.)

As a family story, it’s tense and darkly funny. As cultural satire, it seemed obvious and without much bite.(less)

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Mar 21, 2013 William rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: uk, fiction, 21-ce

Lionel Asbo is a bad thief. He spends long stretches in jail. He's in and he's out, a recidivist. Lionel's nephew, Desmond, is at fifteen years of age seduced by his grandmother, Grace, thirty-nine. It is Des's guilt about this incestuous relationship, and his fear of what Uncle Li (lie not lee) might do if he finds out, that shapes Des's character in early adulthood, which is pretty much the span of the novel. Fortunately, Gran breaks off the affair with Des in order to seduce a fourteen year o...more Lionel Asbo is a bad thief. He spends long stretches in jail. He's in and he's out, a recidivist. Lionel's nephew, Desmond, is at fifteen years of age seduced by his grandmother, Grace, thirty-nine. It is Des's guilt about this incestuous relationship, and his fear of what Uncle Li (lie not lee) might do if he finds out, that shapes Des's character in early adulthood, which is pretty much the span of the novel. Fortunately, Gran breaks off the affair with Des in order to seduce a fourteen year old! Right, a younger man. This fellow goes by the name of Rory Nightingale and Lionel does discover his affair with Gran. Of course, Des is both crushed and relieved to hear the news. Then Lionel wins a £140 million state lottery, providing much needed distraction for poor Des. But then Des and his new love, Dawn, have a marvelously described baby: Cilla. (Fantastic description of this baby and much else) which serves only to redouble his anxiety. Martin Amis writes with all the skill and assurance we're accustomed to from so many other fine books, but his style here is as compressed as I've ever seen it. (There are many beautifully compressed pages in Amis. Night Train, to cite just one example, springs most readily to mind.) Amis has always been a great admirer of Vladimir Nabokov, but I think this is the first time he's written a book that echoes that master's peculiarly arch, lean, and very compressed method so well. I speak here merely in terms of narrative compression, mind you, not style. Amis style is unique. As in the unjustly maligned Yellow Dog and to a more limited extent in London Fields, he has a field day with British dialect and slang. He's a master of it, of that there's no question. However, his penchant dialect and slang can really slow down the non-British reader. Agreed, not every book should go down like Simenon, but having to Google a reference every page two can be a drag. If we are to view the novel as dream, these unquestionably enriching quirks of Amis's, it can be argued, slow the dream down, inhibit it. It's too bad, especially in a book that is in every other respect so sprightly, so headlong and fun. I don't fault Amis. He can only write what he can write. However, my own favorite Amis novels have much less of such encryption: Money, The Information, House of Meetings and London Fields. Highly recommended.(less)

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Dec 09, 2012 Maciek rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012, reviewed

In 1998, British Government (under Tony Blair) introduced the Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) - an act which meant to correct minor incidents which would normally not result in criminal punishment - from loudswearing, loitering and beging to public sex and even urban exploration. During the general elections of 2010, future Prime Minister David Cameron promixed to fix "Broken Britain", and after taking office spoke eloquently but harshly about what he perceived to be failure of multiculturali...more

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Aug 10, 2012 William rated it 4 of 5 stars

My favorite Martin Amis novel since The Information. Lionel Asbo is the Martin Amis of London Fields and Money : dazzling prose, vicious animals, demented, ugly people, violence, and of course, a filthy, harrowing London juxtaposed to a glittering, money's-no-object London. Surprisingly, though, there is a beautiful flip-side to Amis' trademark hilarity and disgust, found in the character of Desmond, a thoughtful teenage boy who longs for peace, knowledge, and love (and who is having an affair w...more My favorite Martin Amis novel since The Information. Lionel Asbo is the Martin Amis of London Fields and Money : dazzling prose, vicious animals, demented, ugly people, violence, and of course, a filthy, harrowing London juxtaposed to a glittering, money's-no-object London. Surprisingly, though, there is a beautiful flip-side to Amis' trademark hilarity and disgust, found in the character of Desmond, a thoughtful teenage boy who longs for peace, knowledge, and love (and who is having an affair with his grandmother, Grace -- revealed on page one, so not a spoiler). I'm a huge fan of Martin Amis, and his last three works of fiction left me a bit confused: Yellow Dog was funny but seemed cartoonish and trying too hard. House of Meetings was tremendous, but a somber historical novel about life in the slave camps of the USSR, and The Pregnant Widow, while wise and thoughtful and occasionally funny, didn't quite pack the punch that I've grown to love in Amis' earlier work.
So yeah, as a longtime admirer of Martin Amis, I'd say he's fully back in the satirical, sickening swing of things. And the prose has never been sharper. A sample:

" All day, all night (what was the difference?), eyes open, eyes shut (what was the difference?), Des attended the cinema of the insane. In beady pulses and thudding flashes he rehearsed what he supposed were essentially vulpine themes and arguments to do with anxiety, hunger, and shelterlessness, refracted through an urban setting of asphalt and metal, or rubber and cellophane and shattered plexiglas. It was the longest motion picture of all time: and his attention never strayed. The definition was as sharp as a serpent's tooth. The lighting was indecently and lawlessly lurid. The dialogue (sometimes dubbed) and the voiceover and the occasional subtitles were all in the language of Grace."

Final thoughts: a smart, profane, funny, and even loving novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. It may not be as ruthless and riotous as his earlier work, but I like the direction he's heading in.(less)

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Jan 02, 2013 Darwin8u rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013

Amis can write the darkest satire with a lyrical heart that beats with warm, soft blood. 'Lionel ASBO' is sad, funny, gratuitous, sick and full of life. It is like a Dickens novel was written by William Burroughs.

Covered in grit, the characters in this Amis novel seem at first like bizarre 21st century, Cruikshank caricatures that just keep bouncing back and forth in my head between the real, the surreal and the unreal -- so I keep on doubting my own palsied view of the world.

Anywho, this nove...more

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Sep 19, 2012 Bruce rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On a recent interview I heard Martin Amis say, "When one examines my writing they will notice that the one thing that I never write about is the middle-class. I have no interest in the middle-class. I either write about the upper-class or the criminal element of society." I won't carry on about the plot or characters as enough people have done that already, but I will say that this book was far better than The Pregnant Widow. Lionel Asbo was far more enjoyable than what I was expecting based upo...more

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May 23, 2013 Col rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, a

Synopsis/blurb.....
Lionel Asbo - a very violent but not very successful young criminal - is going about his morning duties in a London prison when he learns that he has just won £139,999,999.50 on the National Lottery. This is not necessarily good news for his ward and nephew, the orphaned Des Pepperdine, who still has reason to fear his uncle's implacable vengeance.
Savage, funny, and mysteriously poignant, Lionel Asbo is a modern fairytale from one of the world's great writers.
Well May’s readin...more Synopsis/blurb.....
Lionel Asbo - a very violent but not very successful young criminal - is going about his morning duties in a London prison when he learns that he has just won £139,999,999.50 on the National Lottery. This is not necessarily good news for his ward and nephew, the orphaned Des Pepperdine, who still has reason to fear his uncle's implacable vengeance.
Savage, funny, and mysteriously poignant, Lionel Asbo is a modern fairytale from one of the world's great writers.
Well May’s reading started with a bit of a damp squib. Having previously struggled valiantly with House of Meetings, been subsequently less tortured when reading The Pregnant Widow, albeit falling short of rapturous admiration for Amis, I had higher hopes for this one.
Not the worst book I have ever read, but when I’m long into my dotage, probably a couple of weeks or so from now, I reckon I will have banished this long from the memory. It wasn’t that it was “bad”, in the sense that it was awful, it was just fairly uninteresting. When you can’t empathise with a character, you don’t particularly care how he behaves and what the consequences of such behaviour are. I was bored and irritable when reading it, so bored I had to down tools halfway through and start another book, which by the way was only slightly less boring.
Back to Mr Asbo; an unsuccessful career criminal, from a deprived family, in a deprived area where everyone hates everything and everyone, and expresses the hate through violence and feckless sex and alcohol and drugs. Lionel’s unmarried mother had her first child at 12 years of age and Lionel her 5th or 6th at..........zzzzzzz.
Oops sorry I dozed off there for a minute...............that’s it in a nutshell.
I bored myself reading it, and I’m bored trying to write about it!
Highlights, at less than 300 pages long, I could have been more bored if he had dragged things out. Plus, I borrowed it from the library, so apart from the time wasted I didn’t part with any cash for it. 2 minor plusses, and I’m grateful for small mercies.
On the basis that I didn’t feel like sticking pins in my eyes when reading it, so it can’t qualify as the worst ever book I have had the misfortune to read I will give it a 2 from 5.

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May 20, 2013 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A very enjoyable novel, despite what it's about. The cover flap informs me that Amis is living in Brooklyn. This is downright shocking and surreal. Rather than hearing that Joyce lived in Trieste, it's more like hearing something crazy - like Orwell lived in San Francisco (he didn't) or Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World while vacationing in Hawaii (he didn't), or that the novels of Evelyn Waugh were actually just senior high school class projects by the graduating class of Akron, Ohio, over th...more A very enjoyable novel, despite what it's about. The cover flap informs me that Amis is living in Brooklyn. This is downright shocking and surreal. Rather than hearing that Joyce lived in Trieste, it's more like hearing something crazy - like Orwell lived in San Francisco (he didn't) or Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World while vacationing in Hawaii (he didn't), or that the novels of Evelyn Waugh were actually just senior high school class projects by the graduating class of Akron, Ohio, over the course of 3 decades (they were). However, I think that this fact, of Amis living, waking up, reading the newspaper and watching the news, in America, goes towards explaining why this novel exists. Amis is more disgusted with England than he usually is, and perhaps this novel is his attempt to disabuse people of the notion that England is a place a bit like Downton Abbey, and that London is still Conan Doyle's London, or some weird amalgam of the Beatles' "swinging sixties" and a Dickens novel. It isn't. Most of metropolitan London is as nasty, polluted, and garbage strewn as any horrible American downtown. It's offensively overpriced, to the point that prices seem like they are inflated just to get a shock out of people. e.g., I've seen a family spend £600 on a single shopping cart of groceries at Waitrose, and over by Sloan street its Maseratis and Lambos up and down the street, many of them the color of florescent hi-liters. Despite the prices, nothing in London looks very nice, and the architecture had me considering a life of crime. Anyway, I wonder what Amis thinks of Brooklyn? Where does he live? Can you picture him riding the L train through Brooklyn, getting off on dirty 3rd Avenue to stroll down to St. Marks Bookstore? Do hipsters spot him at the Bedford stop? Does he have to buy groceries & produce at the corner bodega that's 110 Fahrenheit in the summer, maybe cooling off with one of those 99¢ Ice Teas in a can in the horrible sun (intensified by all that concrete), as the elevated subway trains go screeching past overheard? What neighborhood could he POSSIBLY fit in? The answer is "none".
Anyway, while this book has received a critical hammering,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/...
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n12/adam-mar...
(it was his turn to be out of fashion, wait another 10 years and he'll be back in the limelight), it is a fully functional Amis novel. And by that, I mean, an unmissable, essential work of fiction by a master of language and storytelling, more enjoyable than The Pregnant Widow or his other recent work, and perhaps up there with his best, which is Time's Arrow, The War against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000, and The Information. The ending was decently climactic, and Amis excels not just in his dexterous descriptions, but in his expressions of human feelings. While these feelings are most often disgust, guilt, revulsion, and portrayals of thoroughly horrible people, like Dickens, his grotesque characters instill some type of edifying message to the reviled reader. At least I hope.(less)

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Mar 17, 2013 Jillwilson rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Warning: This episode contains potentially offensive language…

Wot’s wif Martin and the bleedin working class? First Keef – from London Fields and now Li’nel from this novel. This novel is a two-hander between the grotesque working class thug Lionel, who wins the lottery and sets himself up in palatial but bogan-like surroundings (with ‘lifepartner' Threnody) and his nephew Des. Des is a saintly young man whose journey of social mobility is propelled by intellect and hard work. Despite his brains...more Warning: This episode contains potentially offensive language…

Wot’s wif Martin and the bleedin working class? First Keef – from London Fields and now Li’nel from this novel. This novel is a two-hander between the grotesque working class thug Lionel, who wins the lottery and sets himself up in palatial but bogan-like surroundings (with ‘lifepartner' Threnody) and his nephew Des. Des is a saintly young man whose journey of social mobility is propelled by intellect and hard work. Despite his brains (and in a way that strains belief), he is unable to move out of dangerous connection with his uncle; this relationship is the driver for the novel.

He’s great with language, Amis, just a pity that his skills are lost in this gristly and un-nuanced depiction of class in England. As one reviewer said: “Amis has a strange way of plotting, in that the characters are left to drift through a vague jumble of scenes, stepping in and out of various scenarios. Cohesion isn’t a quality one would typically use for Amis’ work. That’s not necessarily a problem, but it does leave one occasionally forlornly watching as a potentially fascinating plot thread is passed by, like an adrift boat helplessly watching the slow fade of dry land.” (http://litreactor.com/reviews/lionel-...)

Here’s a couple of grabs of the language – you have to love the energy:
This is Lionel at his most paranoid: “Champagne in a beer mug? Are you a cunt? They staring now! No they ain’t! They thinking you off to the boxing with the Duke of Edinburgh! No they ain’t! They laughing at yer – they pissing theyselves!”

And Lionel’s lifestyle being described by a tabloid: “At this point “Threnody” bustles out, wearing a turquoise rubber catsuit, retrieves her sunglasses, and bustles back in again.
There’s a silence.
“Them other birds,” says Asbo, “they were all up for a porking on the very first night! Not ‘Threnody’. She’s not that kind of girl. ‘Lionel,’ she says, ‘you’re like a little boy lost. Trust me. I’ll be your . . shepherdess. And guide you through the er, celebrity circuit. Give me your hand.’ We shake on it. And she gazes into me eyes and she whispers, ‘Let’s seal our pledge,’ she says, ‘with a swift “jobbie” in the stretch.’ You know, the limo. There. Dead discreet.”
Another silence (and I hope he doesn’t hear me gulp). “She knows how to deal with the er, the media spotlight. From her I’ll learn to cope with the pressures of me new lifestyle.””

I didn’t agree with the following reviewer but you can see that she’s picked up on the energy of the novel: “Is this an offensive book? Hell, yes. Deeply. But then maybe modern England needs offending. Is this a readable book? It's a Big Mac made from filet mignon. Is it a clever book? Clever and ignorant and topical and sad and cruel and ridiculous and breathtaking. It is a book of lovehate. It is a powershake. And the biggest joy is that Amis seems to find himself (and finds us, by extension) loving the thing he loathes. It is a great big confidence trick of a novel – an attack that turns into an embrace – a book that looks at us, laughs at us, looks at us harder, closer, and laughs at us harder and still more savagely. It is every inch the novel that we all deserve. So let's give thanks that Martin Amis was bad enough and brave enough to write it.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/...)

In an interview, Amis said "I'm only interested in extremes... I never write about the middle class." There’s nothing wrong with this polarisation. It’s just that it descends into stereotype. Lionel is scary – what he does is horrible but the bizarre grotesque kind of takes over and obscures what I think might be the real points that Amis is trying to make about English society.
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Mar 11, 2013 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Lional Asbo: State of England is the first book I've read by Martin Amis. I don't think it will be the last, though it's hard to imagine a novel, or a writer, so lathered in its satire that often you can't tell what's going on…or decide whether anyone who lives as comfortable a life in England as Martin Amis has any right to write such devastating prose about the English who aren't his kind of English anymore.

The gist of the book is this: In a violent corner of London there's a neighborhood call...more Lional Asbo: State of England is the first book I've read by Martin Amis. I don't think it will be the last, though it's hard to imagine a novel, or a writer, so lathered in its satire that often you can't tell what's going on…or decide whether anyone who lives as comfortable a life in England as Martin Amis has any right to write such devastating prose about the English who aren't his kind of English anymore.

The gist of the book is this: In a violent corner of London there's a neighborhood called Diston Town. Bad things happen there by the minute. One perpetrator of bad things is Lionel Asbo (self-named for Great Britain's Anti-social Behavior Order, a law that is a form ostracism). He has a nephew who, in the weakness a fifteen year old might display, takes to plunking (or chose your own verb) his grandmother, who is also Lionel's mother. But the nephew, Desmond Pepperdine, a modern day Pip, is really as good and hopeful a young man as Dicken's original in Great Expectations.

So we cheer from Desmond as he hopes Lionel won't discover that he spent some time plunking Grace, the gran, and as he finds his true love, a lass named Dawn, and eventually they marry and give birth to Cilla, a mixture of black (Desmond's basic color) and white (Dawn's color).

The complication comes when Lionel, who has spent much of his life in jail--and continues to do so off and on--wins 140 million pounds in the lottery. With this Lionel is empowered, confused, belittled, thrilled and as anti-social as ever. He becomes a national buffoon whose P.R. firm gradually transforms him into something a little less awful than he is.

How awful is he? Well, this is a satire, and satires are supposed to be amusing, and some of the ghastly things Lionel is responsible for do have their moments of infantile glee. Further, he naturally becomes a personage (money will do that for you) and he actually experiences some growing pains, aided and abetted by the women in his life and bitter, backfiring experience full of indignities a man as rich as he ought not to suffer.

In one sense, this novel is an exploration of all the rot and ruin the U.K. has become through immigration and benighted social policy and too many bad drugs floating around. That's where the subtitle comes in: State of England.

In another sense, this novel is a Great Expectations upside down, Magwitch's triumph, and a screed more compressed and just as funny as Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. Every few paragraphs Amis will write a beautiful sentence just to remind you he's awfully good at describing sunsets and mornings and fogs. Most of the time, he writes in the dead-on argot of Diston Town, employing every conceivable misbegotten term for misbegotten people and events.

Lionel Asbo the novel, to its credit, doesn't make too much of drugs. Lionel Asbo the character likes alcohol and violence more. He also acquires a late-in-life taste for actual sex over porn, which he finds just as effective and cheaper, less complicated.

If you want England as it once was--in our imaginations, at least--there's Downton Abbey. If you want a send-up of England as it often is in 2013, there's Lionel Asbo-State of England. Neither is the "real" England, although Martin Amis's work may take us a great deal closer to what life is like in the endless stretches of metropolitan London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and the like.

This is a pungent book, not for everyone, but whether you find it appalling or dazzling, it would be difficult to argue that Amis didn't land his punch where he aimed it.

For more of my writing about contemporary fiction, history and public affairs, see Tuppeny Reviews, on Kindle.(less)

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Feb 22, 2013 Mike Smith rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

I have never read Martin Amis before. I'd like to read more, because this author is a master wordsmith. The pictures he draws with his writing are a joy to read. If only the story were as joyful.

This is the story of Desmond Pepperdine and his uncle, Lionel Asbo. Teenage Desmond has been in his uncle's care since his mother died a few years before the story opens. Lionel is a thug. His occupation appears to be beating people up. Desmond is terrified that Lionel will beat him up, or kill him, if L...more I have never read Martin Amis before. I'd like to read more, because this author is a master wordsmith. The pictures he draws with his writing are a joy to read. If only the story were as joyful.

This is the story of Desmond Pepperdine and his uncle, Lionel Asbo. Teenage Desmond has been in his uncle's care since his mother died a few years before the story opens. Lionel is a thug. His occupation appears to be beating people up. Desmond is terrified that Lionel will beat him up, or kill him, if Lionel ever finds out that Desmond had a brief affair with his own grandmother, Lionel's mother. That basic premise drives the somewhat thin plot. Lionel happens to win a major lottery, and the centre part of the book is taken up with the very funny story of how the uneducated thug, who's been in and out of detention and jail since he was 3, deals with suddenly becoming a multi-millionaire. As the story draws to its climax, Amis is able to create a nearly unbearable sense of dread, a feat that is made even more impressive since I was becoming bored with the aimless middle section.

Although the plotting is uneven, the writing is astounding. Some random passages:

"Drinker noticed the peculiar way Lionel reacted to the sound of nearby laughter: his head jerked round like a weathervane in a crosswind."

"Cynthia--her face as bleached as a London sky but not quite colourless, with a faint rumour of mulberry in it, like the blue of cold."

"Suddenly the train unsheathed itself from the black tunnel and soared out into the light of the May noon."

On nearly every page, there is some turn of phrase that makes you read it twice. It is quite remarkable.

This is a very English book, and there passages I didn't fully understand because of the English, criminal-class slang. You get the sense of it, but I suspect British readers get more out of it than a Canadian or American would.

Amis is one of the cleverest and most interesting writers I've read in a long time. I hope his other works are more pleasant than this tale of mean spirits and family dysfunction.(less)

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Feb 16, 2013 Joshua rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2013

The absolutely best thing about Martin Amis's recent novel for me was the gentleman who did the reading of the audio version--he does an incredible job capturing the unique character of Lionel Asbo. He's funny, violent, strange and the sections where he's at the forefront of the story, the book [at least the audio book] is riveting. Amis ventures off with side characters though and I just wanted more of the scuzzy, rambling thoughts and actions of Lionel. I swore off Martin Amis years ago after...more

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Feb 04, 2013 Andrew Tolve rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Disappointing really. And in terrible need of an edit. There were times when the prose soared or when the sneering thuggish stupidity of Lionel Asbo was endearing and brutal and funny and savage, or when the frame story of a London thug becoming a lotto lout was enjoyably engaging, but on the whole the book had too much and too little. Too much of glossing over years, when nothing of note happened, or when lots of things happened yet were reduced to one liners. And too little of real character d...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Judith rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I know this book has been generally panned if not blasted by the reviewers but I enjoyed it very much. I have always been a Martin Amis fan though I have also criticized a fair number of his books myself. This one I found genuinely fascinating. The basic storyline is that a nasty thug wins the lottery in between his many prison terms. When I read the reviews I pictured this guy as a colorful petty thief who might be redeemed by the great windfall. I was surprised to discover that he was a really...more

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Nov 27, 2012 Lisa Beaulieu rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh Martin Amis! He's funny, he's angry, he's cynical, he's got an eye for the absurdity of modern life - what's not to love? Sadly for me, this book. I liked it, yes. But Lionel himself is so terrifying, I could not enjoy the humor (and there's alot of humor that I saw, but just couldn't laugh at, as I was too busy trembling.) There is a scene with Lionel and a lobster that had me gasping for breath laughing - but that was the only one - I guess because poor Desmond was nowhere to be found in th...more

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Nov 22, 2012 Ken rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book is wry and very perverse, and I don't think that it can appeal to everyone. It's the kind of novel that either you 'love it' or 'hate it'.
Lionel Asbo is a career criminal who works on ' the hairiest end of debt collection' (in between lengthy stays in prison) , but he doesn't really have a conscience, but more of an extreme sense of 'the way things should be'. The book is a madcap chronicle of his escapades, and his relationship with his young orphaned nephew, Desmond Pepperdine. The p...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Emily Kramer rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It seems that Martin Amis is having a bit of fun with his new novel, Lionel Asbo, the State of England. First off, the subtitle refers to type of book that was written to report on all that's proper, when his book talks of all that's not. Second, he no longer obscures his anti-heroes behind meandering plots as he did in Money or London Fields, but has, this time, eschewed plot almost all together. Last, he's made us two characters, black and white in their representation of one person resolutely...more It seems that Martin Amis is having a bit of fun with his new novel, Lionel Asbo, the State of England. First off, the subtitle refers to type of book that was written to report on all that's proper, when his book talks of all that's not. Second, he no longer obscures his anti-heroes behind meandering plots as he did in Money or London Fields, but has, this time, eschewed plot almost all together. Last, he's made us two characters, black and white in their representation of one person resolutely unswayed by fame.

The title character, Lionel Abso, a low brow loving pit bull owning proud-to-be criminal, identifies first and foremost most with being an underdog. He feeds tabasco sauce to his pit bulls to keep them violent and angry. He sees himself as employed by his own disregard for achievement. That's where I did me Yoi, he's always saying, showing allegiance to the Youth Offender Institution he spent time in as a kid, like an academic might do with his alma matter.

In contrast, his well-read, tender-hearted nephew and flatmate, Desmond Pepperdine, wants most to be loved. He was left an orphan when his mom died; his dad had never been too long on the scene; so Lionel is one of the few people he has to call family. Lionel and his youthful gran that is, who has pulled him not only into her heart, but also into her bed, as the book begins.

Des smartens up, learning to leave his gran and his family ties behind enough to earn a respectable job as a newspaper reporter. Lionel on the other hand, only gets worse over time. During one stint in the slammer he comes by some good, or perhaps not so good fortune: he wins the lotto.

While out one night an expensive restaurant Lionel notices "that the salt seller was heavy, was implausibly heavy. The knife in his hand was implausibly heavy…The rich world was heavy, rooted to the ground. It had the weight of the past securing it."

And as if he had heard the phrase "with great power comes great responsibility," and just said, ah the hell with that, he flicks his middle finger up at all respect one might think that money could buy. That very night ends up with him back in prison. It seems that even he is smart enough to know that permanent seat in the good life must be earned.

The only disingenuous part for me was that Des wins out so wholeheartedly. While he does manage to keep himself honest, with a job, a wife he loves, and a child on the way, I’m not sure how he does it, aside from just doing the opposite of his Uncle Li. Perhaps that’s Amis’ point: that we learn to welcome the rogues in our lives to show us how desperately we must hold onto our principles.
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Oct 28, 2012 Mark rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If there was an option not to rate this, I would take it.

Possibly the most disappointing reading experience I have had for years. Amis is a hero of mine. I adore the man with a passion: I have even described him as the best writer this country has produced in two hundred years. Reading this brought tears to my eyes.

The most bullying, mean spirited and cynical exercise in ex-patriate carping it is possible to imagine. Nausea is the instinctive response. Followed by sadness.

Yes, I have huge issu...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

LIONEL ASBO: State of England. (2012). Martin Amis. ****.
Amis has managed to write a satire that explores the depths of a family relationship in a manner that reminds you of writers from Fielding to Waugh. The family lives in a small backwater village in England named Diston or Diston Town. It’s full of people on welfare who live in subsidized housing. Most of them are out of work. Most of them drink too much. Most of them have long prison records. The family in question is that of Grace. At th...more LIONEL ASBO: State of England. (2012). Martin Amis. ****.
Amis has managed to write a satire that explores the depths of a family relationship in a manner that reminds you of writers from Fielding to Waugh. The family lives in a small backwater village in England named Diston or Diston Town. It’s full of people on welfare who live in subsidized housing. Most of them are out of work. Most of them drink too much. Most of them have long prison records. The family in question is that of Grace. At the time we meet her, she is 39-years old. I lost count of the number of her children; she started early at age 12. She was an ardent fan of the Beatles, so she named five of her boys after them (she included the lost Beatle, too). She also had additional children, both boys and girls, and was still randy at age 39. Our first character is Desmond Pepperdine, 15-years old, one of Grace’s grandsons. He has been seduced by Grannie, and is living down a feeling of guilt, and not doing very well with it. Desmond is a mixed breed, his father was a native from one of the islands. His mother never married. This was never a problem in Diston Town since marriage was never high on anyone’s list anyway. Even Gran never married any of the various fathers of her children – and there were many different ones. Desmond, not having a father to raise him, is alone in the world since his mother died when he was younger. He is essentially raised by his uncle Lionel (the title character), one of Grace’s sons. Lionel seems to spend most of his life in jail for a variety of offenses, but tries to give the boy good advice in his way. Things change, however, when Lionel wins the Lottery and becomes a multi-millionaire (or is it billionaire?). Suddenly he finds himself in a different world where he has to adapt to a different life style. It doesn’t work. He can’t change his spots. His vast new reserves of money only allows him to get away with his old lifestyle in a more elegant manner. He does learn, however, that somebody had been having it off with his mother and makes it one of his goals in life to find out who it is. Desmond knows his uncle and does all he can to prevent his finding out that he is the culprit. Meanwhile, Desmond goes on to develop a life that is more conventional. He goes to school; marries and has a child. Meanwhile, the threat of exposure looms over him. Throughout all of this, life goes on both in the village and in London, where Lionel carries on with his new lifestyle as one of the rich and famous – but with the Mr. Hyde still on the outside. This is a rollicking novel but moves to an ominous ending as the two opposing lifestyles begin to clash and the relationship between Desmond and Lionel begins to deteriorate. At the end you begin to start flipping the pages to see how it will all turn out. Martin Amis is at the top of his form with this novel. Recommended.
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Sep 30, 2012 Rick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh Martin my Martin! Why do you toy with me so? The Pregnant Widow, to me, was divine. I shockingly read some review last week that besmirched its name, but to me it was a lovely mellowing of your acerbic wit without losing any of your amazing wordplay or brilliant insights. I don't know how anyone could have hated it.

Lionel Asbo, though, seriously, WTF? It started off strong, and I had hopes for it. Lord knows the world of reality TV and micro-celebrity could use a good skewering. And I though...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Christine Rebbert rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I started out with high hopes, but about a fourth of the way in, my enthusiasm started to dim. What seemed funny and edgy at first became just annoying the longer it went on. Interestingly, I told a social-worker friend that I was reading a book about a ne'er-do-well who wins the Lottery, and she said, "Oh, he'll just go back to what he was doing before; that's what most of them do" -- spot on! Lionel had absolutely no redeeming qualities that I could see; I disliked him more and more as I read...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the 2nd Martin Amis book I have been able to finish! Score 1 point for me! I gave up on The Information b/c it just wasn't holding my interest. And I read The Pregnant Widow a few years ago, and remember liking it. This book was a little wonky but maybe I'm not smart enough to appreciate or understand Amis, b/c let's face it - stuff gets weird. When I tried to describe the beginning of this book to my sister, here's how it went.

Me: So this book is a little weird. The main character is h...more

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Sep 03, 2012 christa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Desmond Pepperdine is terrified of his uncle Lionel Asbo. The slab-shaped man has been a full-fledged criminal since he was 3 years old. Now, in his 20s, Lionel fills a room. He’s always at least a size larger than Des remembers. He’s got two pit bulls that he keeps mean by serving Tabasco-soaked steaks. Des suspects his uncle is smart, but his uncle is doing everything possible to kill that theory. While Desmond reads and works on self-improvement Lionel talks about internet porn and carrying a...more Desmond Pepperdine is terrified of his uncle Lionel Asbo. The slab-shaped man has been a full-fledged criminal since he was 3 years old. Now, in his 20s, Lionel fills a room. He’s always at least a size larger than Des remembers. He’s got two pit bulls that he keeps mean by serving Tabasco-soaked steaks. Des suspects his uncle is smart, but his uncle is doing everything possible to kill that theory. While Desmond reads and works on self-improvement Lionel talks about internet porn and carrying a weapon.

Des has a reason to be terrified: He’s been giving his grandmother Grace the beans. He’s writing a letter to the local advice columnist when Martin Amis’s comic novel “Lionel Asbo: State of England” opens. He knows this relationship is a bad idea, but maybe it’s not as bad as he thinks. They live in Diston, afterall, where certain things that are taboo in other places just aren’t as taboo. When Uncle Lionel hears that his mother has been groaning groans audible to her next door neighbor, he goes nuts trying to track down the sicko who would bang his mother. Grace Pepperdine, incidentally, is 39: Old by Diston standards, though not so old outside of their town.

Turns out Gran is also getting friendly with another school-aged boy. Something happens to her young lover Rory, though who knows what. Maybe he’s dead, maybe he was sold into slavery. All that remains of him is the bloody lip ring that was yanked from his body.

Lionel is back in prison when he finds out that he won the lottery. He’s serving time after a giant melee at the wedding of his ex-girlfriend and cousin. Lionel, the best man, started his speech by waxing romantic about his close, criminally-inclined relationship with his cousin, and ended it with an image of the bride voluntarily engaged in a pre-ceremony gang bang. He’s able to buy his way and everyone else’s way out of prison with the cash -- and still has enough money left over to begin living large. He’s got a penthouse in a punk rock hotel, he’s got some fly threads, he’s constantly followed by the press. And he’s got a new girlfriend -- selected from correspondences with women who contacted him while he was locked up. His special lady friend models herself after a high-profile pop star, which includes plenty of trips overseas, a collection of poetry and a pregnancy.

After things end with his Gran, Des meets a nice girl, Dawn. They have a nice traditional life. Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, girl gets pregnant and boy suffers all the quirks of pregnancy including weird craves and swelling. Lionel is still very much involved with them. He refuses to relinquish the bedroom he keeps at their apartment.

The first half of this book is really funny. It’s unconventional and has a great wicked humor. In one of the novel’s best scenes, Lionel’s brothers have gathered to have dinner with him. They’re building a serious tab when Lionel makes an announcement. While this crew, each named for one of the Beatles -- including the lost Beatle Stuart -- thinks he’s about to present them each with some cash, Lionel is actually got another way to help them out. He says that he will take care of putting Grace in an old-folks home.

After that, the book pretty much grinds to a stop. The jokes are still there, but the laugh-per-sentence pace becomes exhausting and some of the recurring themes become stale. There are more dramatic ripples, but because of the story’s tone they don’t seem weighty or interesting. The story has an oft-repeated quote that plays on old Baha Men lyrics, but the meaning behind this feels like a super elaborate joke set up with just a puff of a punch line. (less)

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Sep 02, 2012 Vivek Tejuja rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Martin Amis’s writing is weird and I say this with utmost respect. It is also intellectually appeasing and at the same time takes the road, not taken by many writers, that of experimentation in terms of plot and characters that are as anti as they can be.

His characters oscillate between wanting to do the right thing and tempted always to do the wrong thing and go that road. That is why I like reading what he writes. I have always admired what he has written in the past. I then started reading Li...more Martin Amis’s writing is weird and I say this with utmost respect. It is also intellectually appeasing and at the same time takes the road, not taken by many writers, that of experimentation in terms of plot and characters that are as anti as they can be.

His characters oscillate between wanting to do the right thing and tempted always to do the wrong thing and go that road. That is why I like reading what he writes. I have always admired what he has written in the past. I then started reading Lionel Asbo and it caught me off-guard a bit.

“Lionel Asbo: State of England” is his latest offering. Let me tell you something about the plot: Desmond Pepperdine is a teen resident of the hopeless borough of Diston Town and shares the home of his late mother, with his uncle Lionel Asbo, the criminal.

Lionel wants Desmond to work according to his crude principles but Desmond wants to be educated – to read and to write. He meets Dawn Sheringham, who becomes his first girlfriend and is just right for him. Desmond also sleeps with his mother’s mother at the beginning of the book. Lionel should not know of this or he will kill Desmond.

Lionel also wins a grand amount of 140 million in the National Lottery and doesn’t want to share the amount with his family. He is on this boisterous buying spree and has a new glamorous girlfriend. The twist in the tale is Lionel finding out about Desmond sleeping with his mother.

So that pretty much is the story of Lionel Asbo (Asbo taken from “Anti-Social Behaviour Order). The writing is funny and odd but I could not handle it after a point of time. It did not have the same effect as Amis’ The Rachel Papers or Money.

I loved some lines like this one that Lionel says, “When you in prison, you have you peace of mind. Because you not worried about getting arrested.” But these lines are few and far in between in the book. Otherwise the book is laced with progressive parade of crudeness throughout, which also I could handle, but then it became monotonous.

Yes the novel has to be experienced for the plot, but that is about it. Desmond’s character does not hold much water and is quite fleshy in places. Lionel on the other hand has an awesome characterization, but obviously. So if you have to read the book, then read it for Lionel. Grace (Lionel’s mother) also has her funny bits but that is about that.

The book is not a masterpiece. It is a fun read in bits and parts. There is sarcasm and there is observation of England. It is not an enjoyable read in other parts. I wanted to feel attached to the book but could not. Having said that, because I am still a Martin Amis fan, I will look forward to his latest book, whenever that is slated for release.
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Aug 30, 2012 Kieran Mcmahon rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

People love Martin Amis; The Guardian's Nicola Barker drools over the ‘the withering coruscation of his writerly stare’ and declares that ‘Amis is the daddy’. The Telegraph's David Annand calls him ‘stylistically unmatched’, The New Statesman's Leo Robson describes him as ‘the most ambitious, seductive and, at 62, promising English novelist of his generation’, Tim Martin speaks of his ‘dazzling catwalk sentences’ and Olivia Cole proclaims ‘there really is only one Martin Amis and like it or not,...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Steven Buechler rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Martin Amis may be mocking English middle class views and values with this novel, but I find that he is stating something about society in general with this book. An interesting read for people in North America as well.

Page 153:

In Diston - in Diston, everything hated everything else, and everything else, in return, hated everything back. Everything soft hated everything hard, and vice versa, cold fought heat, heat fought cold, everything honked and yelled and swore at everything, and all was wei...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

well, I am going to take issue with most of the reviewers, who are disappointed in this book. The Guardian, of course, loathes it, and Amis, but then they always have, because he and his writing reject their easy, and stupid, certainties. But I in my turn was disappointed with UK reviewers, who use phrases like "satirical sideswipe at the underclass", and one says that the class of people portrayed is so easy to send up that Amis is shooting fish in a barrel. None of them have understood this bo...more well, I am going to take issue with most of the reviewers, who are disappointed in this book. The Guardian, of course, loathes it, and Amis, but then they always have, because he and his writing reject their easy, and stupid, certainties. But I in my turn was disappointed with UK reviewers, who use phrases like "satirical sideswipe at the underclass", and one says that the class of people portrayed is so easy to send up that Amis is shooting fish in a barrel. None of them have understood this book. As far as I can tell only Dickens has been able to do what Amis has done here, which is create characters from what might be called the underclass, but certainly is a criminal subset of class, to which he does not belong, and make them human. I wept for Lionel. The characters, especially the eponymous Lionel, are the opposite of caricature. They are human. There are several nods to Dickens here, including calling the school "Squeers Free". Of course, the background that the dead-tree press reviewers in the UK have is, well, Posher Than Mine. I don't think they've met anyone who talks like Lionel does. And Amis has got certain rhythms of white London speech, The words roll and tumble over you - London has a "white-van sky". Of course it all goes too far. That is what has always been so splendid about Amis. The "good" characters (Desmond and Dawn) as in Dickens, are ciphers. But Desmond, at the start of the book, is having sex with his own grandmother. Dickens never went that far. But think about it - he went a long way towards it.

Pitbulls, of course there are pitbulls. I have never read anything about pitbulls other than in the pages of a tabloid newspaper. I read a certain bit, towards the end of the book, on the tram on the way home today and was gibbering with terror. No spoilers from me though.

Mostly, I laughed. Out loud, and often. And I won't forget Lionel. This book may not describe to us the state of England, as it front cover would have us believe it does, but it tells us a lot about England.

One more from the reviewers, this one David Annand in the Telegraph: "Longstanding Amis admirers are, I think, slightly perplexed at the odd duality of his late work". There you are. Posh and meaningless at the same time.
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Jun 29, 2012 Cameron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fun Amis rides again. There have been many 'state of the nation' novels of late, many of which are cluttering up my shelves, unread or partly read (Lanchester's Capital, for one) because they are in the main exceptionally dull. Thank God, then, for the new Martin Amis, whose new book is not the v-sign at England that many assume, but rather a ribald seaside postcard, giving modern Blighty a good natured, satirical ribbing. And the good news it that it is hilarious.
As ever, Asbo crackles along wi...more Fun Amis rides again. There have been many 'state of the nation' novels of late, many of which are cluttering up my shelves, unread or partly read (Lanchester's Capital, for one) because they are in the main exceptionally dull. Thank God, then, for the new Martin Amis, whose new book is not the v-sign at England that many assume, but rather a ribald seaside postcard, giving modern Blighty a good natured, satirical ribbing. And the good news it that it is hilarious.
As ever, Asbo crackles along with the wit and linguistic fireworks one has come to expect from Amis, but holds many surprises. First of which, after two excellent but more sombre, reflective novels of late, we are here again dealing with Fun Amis, the equally lauded and lampooned author of London Fields and Yellow Dog, rather than the Nabokovian Amis of House of Meetings or the autobiographical Amis of Pregnant Widow. Early on in Lionel Asbo, the titular tit himself professes to reading, as his periodical of choice, the Morning Lark, which will be familiar to readers of Yellow Dog as the bottom of the barrel red top contributed to by Clint Smoker, where the editorial staff refer to the readers exclusively as 'wankers'. You will not be surprised to hear that Lionel fits the bill, giving even Keith Talent a run for his money.
The second surprise is that this is not as much about Lionel as you may think. The protagonist is actually Des, a mild mannered orphan, nephew to Lionel, who lives in fear of his 'brutally generic' uncle. Des is certainly Amis' most sympathetic character, and it is all the more surprising to find such a thing in a book like this one.
But the most impressive thing on display here is the energy. Amis' comic set pieces are a joy to behold, and yet none of the jokes outstaying their welcome. The pace of the thing was such that I had it read in a few short hours, and normally I would want to take my time with an author like this, to wallow in sentences as good as these. Undoubtedly I will, on a second or maybe even third reading. This may not be Mart's best, but it is terrific fun. (less)

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Jun 23, 2012 Boris Limpopo rated it 3 of 5 stars

Amis, Martin (2012). Lionel Asbo: State of England. London: Jonathan Cape. 2012. ISBN 9780224096201. Pagine 288. 14,28 €

Quanto a me piaccia Martin Amis l’ho già detto altrove (qui e qui), come ho già detto che capita, e abbastanza spesso, di restare un po’ delusi.

Direi che nel caso di Lionel Asbo è anche peggio: Amis torna a raccontare la Londra contemporanea (come il sottotitolo, che era stato anche il titolo con cui il romanzo era noto nei circoli letterari mentre Amis lo stava scrivendo) e la...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Sam Quixote rated it 4 of 5 stars

Martin Amis' latest novel "Lionel Asbo" is a satirical character portrait of a kind of personality emergent in 21st century Britain: loud, brash, thuggish, stupid, fame-driven and greedy. Lionel is a man who's so proud of his thug background that he's changed his surname from Pepperdine to Asbo (Anti-Social Behaviour Order), of which he's collected many starting at the record-breaking age of 2.

The squalid township he inhabits is the imaginary Diston where nobody lives to their 60s and many women...more Martin Amis' latest novel "Lionel Asbo" is a satirical character portrait of a kind of personality emergent in 21st century Britain: loud, brash, thuggish, stupid, fame-driven and greedy. Lionel is a man who's so proud of his thug background that he's changed his surname from Pepperdine to Asbo (Anti-Social Behaviour Order), of which he's collected many starting at the record-breaking age of 2.

The squalid township he inhabits is the imaginary Diston where nobody lives to their 60s and many women are grandmothers by their 40s. Lionel's own gran, 42, begins an incestuous relationship with her nephew, Des, who is a teenager. Then during one of his frequent stretches in prison, Lionel discovers that he has won the lottery, a staggering 140 million!

Amis' novel is his most enjoyable in years and he's clearly having a good time writing it. Lionel is a fully realised character, his voice is perfect, his character painfully realistic. He's at times charming in a strange way and then changing on a whim to being a cold hearted brute. His calculating mind and overly violent, sometimes sadistic, oftentimes simplistic nature is portrayed brilliantly by Amis as we see Lionel deal with his influx of sudden good fortune and how it warps him, accentuating the violence, ego, and pettiness to a heightened state.

As a contrast, Amis includes Des Pepperdine, Lionel's nephew, who is the sympathetic hero to this story (once the granny affair is put to rest). He claws himself up from his difficult surroundings to educate himself, find a job, and start a family of his own. While his story is the calm in between Lionel's raging storms, I found him to be a less interesting character, mawkish and dull in his own ways.

The book showcases Amis' rich sense of humour, particularly in Lionel's discussions with Des about GILFS (which changes to DILFS when he becomes rich), as well as a Katie Price/Jordan-type character in wannabe-poet/plastic surgery casualty Threnody, a modern day Lady MacBeth with barely any brains. I also liked the faux-newspaper reports on Lionel's antics once he leaves prison and begins spending his money.

The novel works best as a study of a character than a plot-driven novel and while I thought that the last third of the book was boring (as well as the ending which remains Amis' biggest weakness as a novelist), the book is definitely worth reading for its unique voice in Lionel Asbo. Moreover it's an enjoyable and funny book to read from one of the most consistently interesting voices in literature today. "Lionel Asbo" is Amis' best novel in years and well worth a look.(less)

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