Customer Reviews

Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination

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Though I'm almost worryingly Anglophile, I did not find this an all too easy read. The book's structure is unclear - it seems to start out chronologically, but halfway through continues thematically. It is also rather fragmented, though this has the advantage of offering something for everyone; it's like picking through trinkets at some bric-a-brac store. Ackroyd's massive erudition is never in doubt, but it is a pity he seems more concerned with showing it off rather than curtailing it within the confines of a coherent argument. At times the author lapses into mere namedropping that struck me as rather random. Nor is his argument always consistent. E.g., he notes that English gardening is suffused with territorial and warlike thinking and terminology; yet, two pages on he states that English gardens are characterised by meandering lines that bespeak of a "distaste for regimentation."
Be aware also that Ackroyd's interpretation of "imagination" veers very much towards literature; architecture, landscape gardening, painting and music are treated cursorily at best - there is a final chapter on music, but it covers only a few pages and deals almost exclusively with Vaughan Williams.
In general I'm not at all convinced that Ackroyd succeeds in making a case for the specificity of English imagination. He cites many examples for which equivalents could, it seems to me, with equal ease be found in French or German art. Just a glance at a Caspar David Friedrich painting will be enough to show you that there is nothing peculiarly English about a melancholy obsession with the transience of things. Parts of this book are thought-provoking, parts are entertaining, and all of it is definitely well-written. But in the final reckoning it does no more than vaguely delineate the outlines of a hypothesis; it certainly does not prove it. The essence of the undeniably peculiar Englishness that suffuses works by Gainsborough, Turner, Britten, Elgar, Shakespeare, Dickens, "Capability" Brown and Vanbrugh alike (to name just a very few) simply eludes these pages. What you are left with is an erudite scrapbook.

Peter Ackroyd is never at a loss for words and he uses a great many of them to trace the origins and progression of the English imagination from its very early Anglo-Saxon beginnings until the twentienth century in his new massive tome, Albion. Along the way, he covers music, art, religion, philosophy, history, and biography, as well as, of course, literature, and merges them together in quite insightful ways. The book is strongest in the early Anglo-Saxon and medieval sections that set up the author's thesis and it can grow a tad bit repetitious in theme in the later chapters as he pounds home his ideas. Overall though, the reader should be fascinated by the vast number of examples from primary (and some interesting secondary) sources that pepper the book. The author's knowledge is vast and his selection of sources is unimpeccable. A frequently interesting read.

Albion traces ideas, images and patterns across the centuries to consider what it means to be English. Any Anglophile will enjoy the many and varied cultural references linked within Ackroyd's dense but fascinating text. Beginning and ending with Englishmen I admire (historian the Venerable Bede (d. 735) and composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (d. 1958)), these two disparate personalities were brought together in one memorable statement: "The embrace of present and past time, in which English antiquarianism becomes a form of alchemy, engenders a strange timelessness. It is as if the little bird which flew through the Anglo-Saxon banqueting hall, in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, gained the outer air and became the lark ascending in Vaughan Williams's orchestral setting. The unbroken chain is that of English music itself." To me, reading this book was like examining the contents of an ancient attic trunk, ruminating on the people, places, and things that made you who you are. When you come to the end of your literary pilgrimage, you're better for having experienced it.

This was the third Peter Ackroyd book I tried to read. First was his biography of Thomas Moore ¨C which I finished and enjoyed. The second was ¡°London - a Biography¡± ¨C which I loved to distraction at the outset but didn¡¯t finish because it exhausted me with its cyclical (I won¡¯t say repetitious) structure.

¡°London¡± and ¡°Albion¡± share the trait of collecting many aspects of their subject with little chronological progression ¨C so that the reader is lead along with ¡°another aspect, another aspect, one after another..¡±

In the case of London I was finally exhausted and gave up ¨C although I had started with an excitement and love for the subject that was (I assume) all that Ackroyd had wanted to induce. But it just didn¡¯t sustain in the face of continuing new aspects ¨C again and again ¨C with no apparent development or other sequencing to provide an over-riding structure. In fact the lack of development was for me so intense it ate away at my interest, energy and finally my patience. When I was reading it, I had visited London several times and was en-route again ¨C so interest was high and the subject was not unknown ¨C but I am not an intimate of London. It is not my city.

¡°Albion¡± takes a loosely chronological approach. Not strict ¨C but enough for the reader to sense progression as it unfolds. This is a major difference but not the key one I think.

Ackroyd¡¯s subject here is ¡°the English Imagination¡± ¨C but really the whole spectrum of art, literature experience and thought. For my reading, there were ample of Ackroyd¡¯s points that resonated with my own experience of (especially) literature, but also the art of England, and the imagination-stimulating atmosphere of its monuments (StoneHenge, Winchester Cathedral and so on) and places (Lake District etc). The sequentiality of the book is an assisting catalyst ¨C it helps the reading experience by avoiding a vacuum of structure ¨C but it is the sharing of emotions based on books, paintings and places that is the chemistry that makes reading ¡°Albion¡± a massive enjoyment.

For this reader, English literature is my literature ¨C and Ackroyd is pointing to its inherent patterns, just as he does with English painting and the other aspects that are part of the ¡°English imagination¡±. Given then that reader and writer are intimates of the subject and there is enough apparent structure for the reader to sense progression as opposed to seemingly interminable chaotic cycles, then ¡°Albion¡± becomes a memorable joy to read.

Ackroyd reminded me of so much of what I have enjoyed with so many books read, music heard, etc ¨C but he also loosely sketches out continuing themes and threads. So my delights are brought to mind and compounded as they are shown to have an inter-relationship. I compliment Ackroyd that these inter-relationships are such soft tones and colours that they never obtrude with didactic adamance, but instead massage and tinge the memories invoked.

And here I fear the book narrows its relevance. I really could not image anyone with scant knowledge of ¡°the English Imagination¡± - or worse without a love for it ¨C finding a tight understandable thesis in this book. By analogy it¡¯s a little like a photo-album ¨C if it contains pictures of people and events you know and love, reviewing it can be most enjoyable, but if not it is almost always a rather boring experience.

The actual thesis of the book ¨C ¡°the Origins of English imagination¡± ¨C side-steps a crisp definition of exactly what is ¡°the English Imagination¡±. Ackroyd exploits this to allow his definition a maximum of extent and flexibility to allow him opportunity to go in any direction his temptations lead him. Nor is there a scalene and exact definition of the ¡°origins¡±. Yet somehow this imprecision is apealling as any absolute nominations of influence must fail as they would render pedestrian and mechanical a chimerical and spiritual thing.

So for me, Ackroyd¡¯s ¡°Albion¡± is a marvelous experience and has sent me back into English literature re-energized to experience what I have not yet read and to discern cross-references of colour and tone that gently and equivocally tie the whole (very loosely) together.

But for anyone seeking a hard crisp polemic, or anyone motivated to read a book on the English imagination curious of what that subject might be, they will I think give up on it before they finish it, or finish complimenting their persistence rather than Ackroyd¡¯s clarity of insight.

I'm only half way thru the book, but i will just
quickly say, it's a great read. The author has a very
good feel for the mystical/spiritual side of creativity
and although this survey is a big topic i think he does
it great justice. I recommend his biography
of Blake too.

When a book and a head collide, and there is a hollow-sounding thump, the thump isn't always coming from the book. That said, as much as I was impressed by this book, I didn't really get a whole lot out of it. For one thing, I'm not English, and therefore many of the touchstones of the national character presented here resonated with me at second-hand, if at all. For another, Peter Ackroyd is so fearsomely learned that many of the references and allusions here were unknown to me, and many of the explications were over my head. Plus, the subject is so abstract, if not amorphous, that the reader must necessarily hold the mood of many successive passages to get the cumulative impact that is intended. It's not surprising that your average culturatus will flag on this journey.

There are plenty of fine passages here, though, resulting in quite lapidary reading, in all senses of that adjective.

Albion : Origins of the English Imagination
It's possible to learn new information from reading this book, even if it does not have any obvious bearing on the stated thesis. That the thesis is itself a metaphor is one of the difficulties of mounting any kind of argument either for or against, and the author fails to do so. If the editor had been able to persuade the author to remove all of the unsupported assertions, inapposite literary anecdotes, and forced connective phraseology, the book would be about 20 pages long. It reads like a term paper by a 14-year-old trying to impress the reader with how many big (non-Anglo-Saxon!) words he knows, while not realizing that the topic is beyond his reach.

Ackroyd has an encyclopedic knowledge of English literature and so drops fascinating factoids and snippets of quotes throughout this long and boring book. Throughout the ages he attributes the opposing strains of melancholy and optimism to English literature, plus lots of other opposing attributes. Save your money and your time.

mentions the beatles, the kinks or the stones or the floyd or the who--or any pop music for that matter (and i am an academic in comparative lit and film). you gotta take the rock into account, pete! scattered argumentation. coffee table bait. for total novitiates only (maybe!). his LONDON book is an only intermittently fascinating mess as well. avoid!