London: A Biography [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Imagine someone telling you stories about London; stories which over 2000 years have been embellished and polished to the point where they might be considered mythology. Consider these stories ranging over the whole course of the city's life, and you have some idea of what this book is like. It is a breathtaking book, where anecdotes of Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, The Victorian Era, and today are all seamlessly mixed in a wonderful stew. I cannot imagine the amount of scholarship that went into this work; I rather think that Mr. Ackroyd is some type of immortal who has experienced these stories and anecdotes of London firsthand.

This is a truly wonderful book to give to any Anglophile friends you may have; it is history at its compelling best, long on anecdote and short on drudgery. It is also written extremely well; there is never a jarring turn of phrase in the book. Well worth the hardbound price, this is the perfect Christmas present to anyone you know who has lived in London, been to London, or who loves history.

Since I'd rather be in London than anywhere else, especially the Southern California I'm in, I began this volume with giddy anticipation. In his narrative of the city from pre-Roman times to the present, Ackroyd touches on the history of many of its diverse aspects: rivers, commerce, architecture, transport, theaters, street ballads, parks, food, weather, maps, neighborhoods, nationalities, fires, fog, pestilences, the effects of the Blitz, public lighting, law enforcement, sanitation and clubs. He also doesn't neglect London's unsavory side: alcoholism, gambling, blood sports, prisons, crime, the homeless, poverty, beggars, mob violence, racism, child labor, prostitution, overcrowding, the insane, slums, air and water pollution, and general squalor and filth. Because the author seemed (to me) so preoccupied with the latter dreary group, I suspect he's a closet social reformer.

LONDON isn't a riveting read. Surprisingly, I could put it down for such jolly pursuits as taking out the trash and cleaning the cats' litter box. Perhaps it's because the author's style, never leavened by any humor, becomes at times almost ponderous. For instance, in the chapter "How Many Miles to Babylon?", he comments:

"Yet there is one more salient aspect to this continual analogy of London with ancient civilisations: it is the fear, or hope, or expectation that this great imperial capital will in its turn fall into ruin. That is precisely the reason for London's association with pre-Christian cities; it, too, will revert to chaos and old night so that the condition of the 'primeval' past will also be that of the remote future. It represents the longing for oblivion... The vision is of a city unpeopled, and therefore free to be itself; stone endures, and, in this imagined future stone becomes a kind of god. Essentially it is a vision of the city as death. But it also represents the horror of London, and of its teeming life; it is a cry against its supposed unnaturalness, which can only be repudiated by a giant act of nature such as a deluge."

Good heavens, man! Get a grip!

I assume that the author loves his city, or he wouldn't have expended such enormous effort to tell its story. However, his affection is ofttimes difficult to infer, as when he writes:

"This is the horror of the city. It is blind to human need and human affection, its topography cruel and almost mindless in its brutality... The image is of a labyrinth which is constantly expanding, reaching outwards towards infinity. On the maps of England it is seen as a dark patch, or stain, spreading slowly but inexorably outwards."

LONDON provides a magnificent tapestry of information, and is a colossal achievement. However, until the last twenty-five or so pages, the author failed both to convince me that he derived any personal joy from residence in the city or to remind me why I love this place so much. Ackroyd's references to a city brutalizing, oppressing and dehumanizing its inhabitants are numerous to the point of being tiresome. Therefore, I finished the book admiring it much more than feeling good about it. Indeed, it wasn't until page 772 that I came across a statement (by Boswell) that struck a very personal emotional chord:

"I was full of rich imagination of London ... such as I could not explain to most people, but which I strongly feel and am ravished with. My blood glows and my mind is agitated with felicity."