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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"London, the largest metropolis in the world, was poisoning itself.", September 30, 2005
William Henry May, mapmaker and surveyor, joins England's battle against the Russians in the Crimean War, but is wounded and consigned to a filthy hospital ship, where he languishes almost unto death. Given to unaccountable rages and despair, May never imagines he will survive to be recalled to London. He has frozen into uncaring acceptance of his predicament, but recovers the will to live, the raw emotion so painful that he begins to cut himself, the self-mutilation a relief for his overburdened mental state.
When May is hired in the rebuilding project of the London sewers, a huge and expensive undertaking, his prospects have changed radically for the better. Married, with one son and a baby on the way, William is a changed man, but still tormented by nightmares, unhinged by his experiences in the war. William, nicknamed "The Sultan of the Sewers", continues to disintegrate in this dark hell, where his psyche finds peace only in cutting, his wife purposefully oblivious to her husband's suffering. This is the landscape of 1880's London, with little opportunity for advancement, men desperate to carve out a niche that will keep their families from starvation.
As gruesome and as poverty riddled as any Dickensian tale, this novel exposes the indigenous city poverty, personified by the denizens of the sewers, those who make a scant living collecting the mud-encrusted detritus of others. Vast numbers of poor people create income from the even the filthiest refuse, bought and sold for profit. The great rotting underground sewers are a metaphor for the class distinctions that leave the destitute to wallow in the most extreme conditions, soothed by cheap gin, while the Fancy, the rich, indulge in betting to alleviate their boredom, visiting the slums for sport. Even the bureaucracy is corrupt, the sewer project approved, while the funds are withheld by a bickering Parliament.
As the project progresses, the sewers become less navigable, the flushers left to ever more ingenious ways in and out. Under the threat of exposure, agents supplying bricks attempt to force May to accept substandard materials, especially Alfred England, whose bricks have been contracted by May's superior. The stress of constant threats to his family should he not agree to the illegal contracts drive May deeper into the chaos of his own mind, thoughts of death and war merging with everyday reality. Indeed, in the face of murder, who better to blame than the insane, self-mutilating William May?
With remarkable detail that requires a strong constitution, the author reveals the complex underpinnings of city management and graft. In a complex blend of murder, greed and madness, the London bureaucracy ripe for plundering by privateers, the protagonist becomes the unwitting victim of greedy villains. In this unhealthy mix, all are caught in the rude stew of city waste, men with their own personal demons and small enjoyments. Not an easy book to read, with its unflinching detail, The Great Stink is a timely reminder of the skeleton that must be maintained, a framework for civilization, where opportunity offers freedom from a life of discontent and distorted appetites. Luan Gaines/2005
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clark gives Dickens a run for his money!, March 31, 2006
There's no doubt Clare Clark modeled THE GREAT STINK after Dickens. Readers will be surprised at how well she succeeded.
Clark's acknowledgments tell us quite a bit about how she planned her novel and where she got the title. One of her sources was THE GREAT STINK OF LONDON by Stephen Halliday about the great engineer Joseph Bazalgette's attempt to completely overhaul the sewers of London. Another, Marilee Strong's study of self-injury, A BRIGHT RED SCREAM, provided motivation for one of the novel's main characters, William May. A primary source, LONDON LABOUR AND THE LONDON POOR, gave credibility to her other main character, Long Arm Tom.
The story starts when a Russian soldier bayonets William May during the Crimean War. Robert Rawlinson, who was in charge of sanitary reforms during the war, took an interest in May and helped get him a job as a surveyor working on the Bazalgette's sewer project. The problem was that May was suffering from what sounds like battle fatigue or clinical depression. He began to cut himself to drive away the dark moods, and he used the sewers to do it. Despite his affliction, William May is a highly principled young man, and when a senior engineer solicits a bribe from one of the brick makers, May refuses to go along. The senior engineer sets out to ruin him.
Clark shifts back and forth between May's dilemma and that of Long Arm Tom whose vocation will definitely remind you of Dickens. Long Arm Tom is a rat catcher. He sells them for a penny a piece to gin joints where "Fancies" bet on how many rats a ratter (a dog) can kill in two minutes. Tom adopts one of these ratters when her owner dies. She's one of the best ratters in the history of the sport. The fact that Tom makes a living in the sewer provides a tie to William May. Another Dickens character is the lawyer who takes William May's case when he is arrested for murder. Watch what she does with this guy's hands; she learned from the master.
The scatological descriptions and the emphasis on cutting will bother some, but if you can get past this, this is a really entertaining read. You're never quite sure if William May will make it. Long Arm Tom and his dog Lady add a certain amount of warmth to a sometimes brutal novel.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
DARK DARK book....that will remind you of Dickens., November 10, 2005
I am giving this book 5 stars, because I found the story and the history of the London sewers so fascinating. I appreciate wonderful fiction that educates me as well as entertains.
Summary, no spoilers:
The is the story of William May, a soldier from the Crimean War.
May has been psychologically damaged from that war, and the horrible treatment he received at the hospital afterwards.
He is married to a very sweet, optimistic woman, but it's is hard for her to keep her mental and emotional balance with someone as severely disturbed and depressed as William.
William, back from the war, is now a surveyor who is assigned the task of helping to redo the decrepit sewer system under the streets of London.
The story features the sights (and SMELLS!) of this amazing underground world, and the book features assorted sundry characters and a murder to boot.
I guarantee you will learn a lot reading this book. And if you are like me, you will find the first 4/5 so depressing, that you may want to consider a Prozac drip.
Saying that, when I was done with the book I was glad I had read it.
I applaud the effort and research that went into this book.
It is not a fast read, but a worthwhile one.
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