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Hilary's Reviews > Lionel Asbo: State of England
Lionel Asbo: State of England
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Mitch Hedberg used to joke that people either liked him, hated him, or thought he was okay. Given Martin Amis� penchant for satire utilizing characters who are unlikable grotesques, it’s safe to say there aren’t many people in the third category for his novels. In his latest, Lionel Asbo, he’s kind enough to divide people right from the book’s opening lines, which describe Desmond (“Des�), a 15-year-old boy, having an affair with his 39-year-old grandmother, Grace. The affair is short-lived, but the fear and shame of it stay with Des forever, particularly since his uncle and caretaker, Lionel, a violent, semi-crazed career criminal, makes his mother’s lovers either disappear or bleed profusely.
The novel is centered on Des and Lionel’s relationship, with most of the narrative thrust coming from Lionel’s transition from a two-bit criminal into a national celebrity after he wins around 140 million pounds from a lottery ticket he stole from someone he assaulted. Overnight, he’s given alliterative nicknames like “the Lotto Lout,� starts dating another faux celebrity whose name requires quotation marks (“Threnody�), and living in a stately mansion he names after the jail he’s spent so much time in.
Lionel Asbo has been pretty widely panned for a whole variety of reasons, with reviwers primarily claiming that it pales in comparison to Amis� other novels (particularly Money) or noting that the “worthless person becomes tabloid celebrity� plot feels like a decade-late critique of reality TV culture, but I haven’t read enough Amis to feel the former, and I liked the writing, characters, and humor too much to agree with the latter. The biggest problem may have been that awful subtitle, “State of England,� which implies A Serious Look At London Today, With Much Tsk-Tsking And Clucking Of Tongues About How Yesteryear Was Ever So Much Better that fortunately isn’t in the book. Instead, there’s a dynamic established between Des, who turns out to be incredibly sweet (despite the affair), who is slowly succeeding through hard work and education, and Lionel, whose violent and sociopathic nature is always threatening to ruin all that he has as well as everything Des has worked for. There’s a great deal of tension created by Lionel’s unpredictability and dangerousness, and at the same time, Amis’s hyperbolic portrayal of Lionel’s evil nature (e.g., he’s first arrested at age 3; he changes his last name to “ASBO� to reflect his diagnosis with Anti-Social Behavior Order) makes it clear that the satire’s fairly tongue-in-cheek. I found it funny, well-written, and very enjoyable, but maybe I just need to read Money so I can complain about everything else Amis has ever done.
The novel is centered on Des and Lionel’s relationship, with most of the narrative thrust coming from Lionel’s transition from a two-bit criminal into a national celebrity after he wins around 140 million pounds from a lottery ticket he stole from someone he assaulted. Overnight, he’s given alliterative nicknames like “the Lotto Lout,� starts dating another faux celebrity whose name requires quotation marks (“Threnody�), and living in a stately mansion he names after the jail he’s spent so much time in.
Lionel Asbo has been pretty widely panned for a whole variety of reasons, with reviwers primarily claiming that it pales in comparison to Amis� other novels (particularly Money) or noting that the “worthless person becomes tabloid celebrity� plot feels like a decade-late critique of reality TV culture, but I haven’t read enough Amis to feel the former, and I liked the writing, characters, and humor too much to agree with the latter. The biggest problem may have been that awful subtitle, “State of England,� which implies A Serious Look At London Today, With Much Tsk-Tsking And Clucking Of Tongues About How Yesteryear Was Ever So Much Better that fortunately isn’t in the book. Instead, there’s a dynamic established between Des, who turns out to be incredibly sweet (despite the affair), who is slowly succeeding through hard work and education, and Lionel, whose violent and sociopathic nature is always threatening to ruin all that he has as well as everything Des has worked for. There’s a great deal of tension created by Lionel’s unpredictability and dangerousness, and at the same time, Amis’s hyperbolic portrayal of Lionel’s evil nature (e.g., he’s first arrested at age 3; he changes his last name to “ASBO� to reflect his diagnosis with Anti-Social Behavior Order) makes it clear that the satire’s fairly tongue-in-cheek. I found it funny, well-written, and very enjoyable, but maybe I just need to read Money so I can complain about everything else Amis has ever done.
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