Perceptions of the city in English and French literature
Peter Heller
Samuel Johnson famously wrote: ‘ When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. ’ Less well-known is his remark in Boswell’s Life : ‘ A man cannot know modes of life as well in Minorca as in London; but he can study mathematics as well in Minorca. ’ This second quote explains, I would argue, why writers have often set their novels and stories in major cities. It is in the nature of great world-cities, with their shifting, diverse populations, with ever-changing relationships, that results in dramas, conflicts, love affairs and jealousies, all the ‘ modes of life ’ to which Dr. Johnson referred. The city thrives from its contrasts; it juxtaposes isolation and community, joy and despair, success and failure. For this reason, throughout history, writers have been enamoured with the idea of the city and the life within it. In this essay, I will examine how a number of British and French writers have used the city as a background to the lives of the alienated people that their stories are about, and how it becomes a metaphor for their individual or collective states of mind. The ambiguous duality – the city-as- buildings and the city-as-people – has fascinated writers down the centuries and they have played with it in various ways, with juxtaposed glimpses of particular locations and of the thought-sequences that the locations conjure up in the characters’ minds. We can find examples of this in both Sartre’s La Nausée and in Camus’ novels; and unsurprisingly we find it as well in some of the great novels set in New York, where the streets become a looming backdrop for madness and pressure, as in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho and Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of Vanities. In the latter, the streets are much more than the backdrop; they become at every level major characters. Henry James wrote that life in London was like ‘ the rumble of the tremendous human mill ’ which is ‘ supremely dear to the consistent London lover ’ . This idea of London’s beauty coming from its hectic, cacophonous nature is one that has been espoused by many. In Cities and People , the architectural historian Mark Girouard talks about a city’s romance, citing William Morris: ‘ By romantic I mean looking as if something was going on. ’ However, Girouard also accepts that the city can provide an acute sense of loneliness and disaffection, quoting Henry James: ‘ [London] sits on you, broods on you, stamps on you. ’ This is the dichotomy present in two works of 20th-century literature about London: Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners and Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia. Sam Selvon is often considered the father of Black British Writing and The Lonely Londoners, written in Caribbean vernacular, is often seen as his masterpiece. In this novel, we follow the lives of several Caribbean immigrants who have moved to London as British citizens to provide a livelihood for their families and themselves. The central character in the novel is Moses, a Trinidadian immigrant who has settled in Bayswater in search of better wages. By virtue of being an early arrival to the city, he acts as a sherpa to the young men who arrive with little money and no job. These characters often struggle to adapt to life in the city which is busier, more tiring and more expensive than their lives in the Caribbean.
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