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OPINION, INTERVIEWS & FEATURES
London Clay is no guidebook. It is an experience – one that I felt I was going through, along with Chivers. The book is not written as an instruction manual. It is closer to an autobiography, told through Chivers’ journey through London, as if he is not only unearthing buried rivers, but memories so strikingly personal that the reader feels an incredible connection to him and his life. This is where Tom Chivers truly excels, connecting the reader to the rivers, to the city and to himself. His passionate, conversational writing gives the impression of a dialogue, rather than an account. I’ve never felt such a genuine connection with a narrator – one who truly seems like he is talking to you, rather than at you. His use of anecdotes is extremely effective, giving stories of his life as well as of his friends; people met in passing; even people long dead. Two stuck with me particularly: one was of an encounter with an old man in an equally ageing shopping centre at Elephant and Castle. The bond shown between the man and the soon-to- be-demolished shopping centre was moving – two old-timers carrying out a daily routine, as they had for decades, and as they would continue to do in the limited time each knew
London Clay is a journey through the city like no other “
they had left. The other story was that of a slave, a record etched into stone, confirming the purchase of a young girl by a high-level slave. A slave of a slave. This is not an anecdote
of a life well-lived, but of human suffering and injustice. The power of Chivers’ writing lies in its ability to make us aware of, and connect with, myriad stories like these: hundreds of threads linking the reader to groups and individuals and places throughout the past, the present, and occasionally the future. When I stood on the Southbank, facing out across the Thames, I recalled this book. For a moment, I looked down and saw that the world around me was
made of layers, separated by thin, golden lines like filigree – innumerable planes, each just one of uncountable numbers of experiences and moments that the rivers of London have shaped. And I thought I saw strings, in that moment, as golden as the lines that dissected the earth and the water and the air upon which I stood. Strings that branched from my body, and from the bodies of those around me. All connecting to the rivers of London. I’m sure, if I’d cast my mind further, I’d have seen them stretch to Dulwich Wood and the Effra Social, to where buried rivers flow underground, and that I might have been able to trick myself into hearing the trickling of the long-dried ghosts of rivers, forming long, twisting ropes that, sometimes imperceivably, form the paths that each of us will tread, until we reach the sea.
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