Customer Reviews

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky: A London Trilogy (New York Review Books Classics)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It would be wonderful to walk into a pub, or bar inhabited by characters like the ones in these stories, and one can by reading the book. The characters are so well developed, their thoughts, language and conversations so exact that one finds it easy to relate to them and their circumstances. These characters are alive to the reader and these characters know themselves, and still, because of time (1929) and station (working class), cannot do much to improve their plight. Most men have been in a situation similar to Bob with Jenny, and if not, then they have missed both the highs and the anguish of unrequited love, but perhaps are better off in other ways. As I read about Bob, I thought this book should be required reading for young men just starting with romance. The three stories in this book are so real that the reader wants so badly to warn, and to help; if you open this book you will become involved in a new place at a different time with real people -- it won't be casual; it will be real: five stars are too few.

Patrick Hamilton (1904 - 1962) was an English playwright and novelist, who has an extraordinary number of admirers with glowing reviews cited in the Amazon editorial comments. He has a distinctive style: a Dickensian voice, sympathy for the dispossessed, black humor. Michael Holroyd wrote an excellent introduction to the book in another edition; it captures the "authentic atmosphere of what it was like to live in England between the two world wars".

The book contains a trilogy of novels: "The Midnight Bell", "The Siege of Pleasure" and "The Plains of Cement". Taken together, they describe a seamy side of London between the world wars. An example of his writing:

"How had she done it? How had she gained this hypnotic ascendancy over him - how, from being a pretty and rather piteous little wretch, had she subtly developed into an erotic and deadly drug now utterly indispensable alike to his spiritual and nervous system? And she was nothing else. He could weep with wanting her and her kindness."

Hamilton is a master at creating atmosphere and at making us empathize with the lonely desperation that his characters share.

As Doris Lessing wrote: "Hamilton was a marvelous novelist who's grossly neglected". These three novels are an excellent introduction to his work.


Robert C. Ross 2008

I had not come across these books or this author until I saw it on an Amazon recommendation but both are certainly worth knowing about. The 3 interrelated short novels include strong character studies and an atmospheric feeling for London between the wars. The main characters are 2 workers in a London pub and a prostitute; with a story fashioned around each.

The first concerns the strange and doomed attraction of a waiter for Jenny Maples, a London prostitute. Bob's backwards and forwards approach to her resembles that of Julian Sorrel in The Red and the Black while his inability to disengage from her after numerous attempts reminds the reader of the protagonist from Of Human Bondage. The second story explains how Jenny became a woman of the street. The final novel completes the triangle in telling the story of the waitress who secretly loves Bob. Spurned by his indifference, she puts up with the measured attentions of Mr. Eccles until she decides that she prefers loneliness to irritation. (Actually, Eccles is a minor character that is masterfully portrayed and another in a long literary line of memorable, eccentric English supporting actors).

There is a sense of spititual and emotional impoverishment in each of the stories which is reflected in the oppressing city environment. None of the stories ends happily but the reader is well prepared for this from the tone of the narrative.

These books are less ambitious than those of Dickens or Trollope but achieve their goal of etching clear, sympathetic portraits of the type of person usually ignored in the arts. Although not memorable in a historical sense, Bob, Jenny and Ella live with the reader long after he closes the book.

If you have never heard of Patrick Hamilton, you are not alone. Described by the [London] Daily Telegraph as "a criminally neglected British author," Hamilton wrote nine novels from the 1920s through the early 1950s , along with the famous dramas of Rope and Gaslight. Almost Dickensian in his sympathetic attention to London's poor and struggling classes, Hamilton may finally be gaining the widespread public recognition he so richly deserves. A writer of enormous gifts, Hamilton's sense of time, place, and voice bring backstreet London in the 1930s alive with sense impressions. At the same time, he creates characters the reader instinctively cares about, even when they are being foolish. Three overlapping novellas filled with dark humor focus on three different characters associated with a pub called "The Midnight Bell," providing a close look at ordinary people living at the margins of society and doing the best they can in often fraught circumstances.

Bob, the bartender, is a young man for whom "Dreams were his life." Naively, he hopes to become a great writer, though he has not produced any work. Having inherited forty-seven pounds upon the death of his mother, he has scrimped from his small salary and tips so that he now has eighty pounds, a sum which symbolizes security for him. The arrival of Jenny Maples, a gorgeous, young prostitute whose pathetic story of needing money inspires his sense of protectiveness provides the turning point of this story. As she plays on his weaknesses, including his penchant for drink, he falls in love with her.

"The Siege of Pleasure" is Jenny's story, detailing her descent into prostitution. Though she has come to London to work--and finds a job as maid to a pair of hilarious old women and their deaf brother, which gives some much-needed comic relief--she soon becomes interested in being a "mannequin." The "victim" of a "glass of port" while out with friends, Jenny wakes up the next morning in a strange bed--her very gradual intoxication and equally gradual loss of control depicted with agonizing slowness.

"Plains of Cement" concentrates on the homely but loving Ella, the barmaid at The Midnight Bell, a woman in her late twenties who is a "little mother" to the late-at-night patrons. Hopelessly in love with Bob, who is not attracted to her, Ella soon finds herself being courted by Mr. Eccles, a much older man with a healthy bank account. Mr. Eccles, both peevish and demanding, soon attempts to take over her life, "superadding Religion to all the other mental thumbscrews and tortures," he has applied. As Ella tries find an escape, her plight elicits the greatest of empathy from the reader.

With its ironic title, suggesting that the lives of the denizens of The Midnight Bell are as far "under water" as Captain Nemo was in the Nautilus, this novel explores three desperate characters with sensitivity, care, and genuine emotion. The overarching problems of alcohol in two of the sections parallel the alcoholism of the author, and the development of the characters and the author's ability to involve the reader are enough to overcome the superficially trite plot lines. A rediscovered classic of the 1930s. Mary Whipple

Hangover Square
The Slaves of Solitude (New York Review Books Classics)
Craven House. Patrick Hamilton

A barmaid Ella and a waiter Bob work in an average London pub Midnight Bell. The time is - somewhere between the two World Wars. Both Ella and Bob are in their late twenties, both are single. Ella is in love with Bob, he's not aware of that, and Ella would never ever give Bob even a slightest hint at her feelings.

Meanwhile Bob meets a beautiful young Jenny, who's a prostitute, a street girl, and he falls madly in love with her, even though he knows who she is and she keeps giving him plenty of reasons to believe that she would never mend her ways, would never find a "regular" job, would never be faithful to him. Bob is only too happy to be deceiving himself, making himself blind to the obvious.

There are three parts in the book. The first one, "The Midnight Bell", is mostly about Bob and his mad and ruinous love to Jenny. The second part is about Jenny, about her childhood and how she became a prostitute. Both first and second part are very good (if a bit moralistic); Hamilton with his usual precision describes details of everyday life, feelings, thoughts and emotions of his characters.

The most beautiful and unexpected part, though, is the third one, "The Plains of Cement". This part is about Ella, and about one Mr. Eccles who starts "making advances" towards her, and eventually becomes her fiancé - against all odds, because he's twice her age, not good looking at all, and is an insufferable bore. Ella, who's shown by Hamilton as having natural taste, tact, beautiful sense of humor - but being a barmaid with no means or getting proper education, feels obliged to reciprocate to Mr. Eccles' advances, who - she thinks - is a real gentleman, educated and from a good family, and, most importantly - has money.

It is sad and sobering to read how big a role money considerations play in shaping behavior of a nicest character in this book. Hamilton spares no effort showing what a beautiful person Ella is in every respect: she's delicate, caring, considerate, polite, just name it - and if even she must consider marrying a man she despises & reviles, one cannot help but think what other women would do in her situation.

In this third part Hamilton's prose quality rivals that of Jane Austin's in its precision, subtle humor, nuanced description of human feelings, behavior and interaction. The third part also gives one a very interesting view of British class system, and relationships between different social strata. "The Plains of Cement" definitely deserves 5 stars.

Patrick Hamilton wrote brilliantly through the pathos of his own life. The title implies that Hamilton considered his characters to inhabit a subterranean world; class is a silent character here, although it bursts into the open in the third novel in the relationship between Ella and Mr Eccles. Reviewers have compared Hamilton to Dickens and Trollope, and his vivid depiction of London and its characters will certainly resonate with those who love the city. However, I think his true literary kinsman is Balzac; his ability to get inside his characters, see through their eyes, feel their emotions and speak through their mouths is superior to his English predecessors. There is irony aplenty here, but it is not authorial irony, at least not often. But there are amazing supporting comic characters, richly and precisely drawn.

It is true, as another reviewer wrote, that the trilogy does not end happily, but perhaps it is truer to say that though the novel ends, the lives of the main characters go on, and it is a tribute to Hamilton that I badly needed a fourth novel to accomplish a happier ending. But that novel could not have been written by Patrick Hamilton.

This is a trilogy of pure genius. Each section focuses on the perceptions and inner life of one of the 3 characters we are introduced to in the first section titled " The Midnight Bell " . The Bell is a pub in London that attracts a mixed though mostly working class crowd. Working there are two young people Bob , a waiter, and Ella the barmaid. Early on Bob makes the acquaintance of an attractive young prostitute named Jenny.
The structure of the three sections of this are incredibly unique as each of these in turn becomes the focus and the reader sees the same events through the perspective of these very different and well developed characters. In the first story Bob becomes obsessed with Jenny and pursues her despite the obvious futility of his objective which is painfully apparent to the reader. In the second part we become more attuned to Jenny's past and her downfall, seeing both her character flaws and circumstances in ways that Bob had been blind to. Finally Ella , who is secretly in love with Bob , is revealed in part 3 as a young woman trying desperately to figure out her place in the world as she is courted by a man who is much older and is confronted with some difficult choices.

The most remarkable aspect of all this is the way Hamilton creates these parallel lives and allows the reader to see more about the inner lives of the characters than their counterparts can perceive. Hamilton's writing is atmospherically brilliant and London itself as it was in the 1930s comes alive in these pages. I've read that his work has been largely neglected which is a shame since this was a writer with deep empathy for the characters he created and should be classified among the greats. I feel lucky to have stumbled on this and highly recommend it.

There is a highly cinematic cast to the way the book is written and easily seen and heard as a good absorbing film. It is spooky how Hamilton can get right inside 'how the mind works' and the reader feels almost as though they are living out the story alongside in real life as a fly on the wall or in the full immediacy of being inside Bob himself. And facinating to consider that it is all so autobiographical.

As a Londoner myself i can vouch from collective memory that the atmosphere of pre-war London is (again) eerily captured in a way time-warped and documentary . This Edwardian england fizzled out after world-war 2 -its continuity with its past faded on a deeply cultural level. (For example the heap of used book sellers on the Charing cross road dissappeared probabaly with advent of radio and t.v., the (unthinkabley now) pub regular with his obsequious word play, the way shakesperian words and phrases entered english language through a love of them)Particularily facinating and historical is how the dialogue is captured in print.There is alot of dialogue in the story and, deliciously throughout, the tip of the ice-berg of unspoken implications in regard to filling out the character/s.

This story should almost be required reading for A.A. memebers as a classic rendering of 'the slippery slope'.

It is good to see this classic is getting the recognition it deserves as a 'New York Review book classic' because it is one of those books that should and the world would be a poorer place if it did not.

Patrick Hamilton was a popular novelist and playwright in England during the 1920s through the 1950s. He wrote eight novels all with a very smooth and fluid style. His descriptions of environment, events, and characters are perceptive, and his artistic understanding of them is evident in his interpretive comments within the descriptions. The reader will enjoy the intrusive voice of the author in his novels, a technique that can be distracting in less skilled authors.

Hamilton was comfortable writing stories about individuals trapped by circumstances in lives of daily toil, limited funds, memories of wars, restricted hope for the future, illusions of perfect love relationships, and reliance on alcohol to live briefly in an impossibly glorious present.

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is a trilogy including: The Midnight Bell (1929), The Siege of Pleasure (1932), and The Plains of Cement (1934). Published in one volume by the New York Review of Books, the novels describe life in London after The Great War from the points of view of a waiter in a neighborhood public house called The Midnight Bell, a prostitute working the streets near the pub, and a barmaid serving drinks to the mostly well-behaved denizens of the bar.

The Midnight Bell is written from the point of view of Bob, a former sailor and would-be author who has come to realize he does not have the motivation or talent to actually write a book. Hoarding his money and daydreaming through his daily chores in the pub, Bob encounters Jenny, a pretty prostitute, and becomes obsessed with a delusion that he has found his true love in life.

In The Siege of Pleasure, the point of view shifts to Jenny. The reader follows her adventures from her working class origins modeling her neighbors' solid work ethic to dissolution of character as she discovers the insidious hedonism of alcohol. This discovery plus Jenny's physical attractiveness and youth cause her to give up her work ethic and live her life manipulating men like Bob.

In The Plains of Cement, Hamilton changes the point of view to Ella who toils in The Midnight Bell and lives in an uncomfortable room next to Bob above the bar. Unlike Jenny, Ella loves Bob who is friendly but does not return her affection. Ella never misses a day of work even though she sees senseless years of economic hardship ahead.

Each novel is a complete story with persistent attention to detail and consistently good writing. Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is an excellent trilogy with seems similar to two of the author's other great novels, Hangover Square and The Slaves of Solitude (see my Amazon Customer Reviews).

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is autobiographical and illustrates Hamilton's own obsessions, identification with the working class and the downtrodden, and bleak view of his own life in spite of literary success. I strongly recommend the trilogy to readers and give the work a five star rating.

Hamilton at one point places his characters Bob and Jenny up on Hampstead Heath. Jenny concedes under Bob's pressure that she loves him, but it is a declaration wrung out of her and has no value. Hamilton creates a sense of the claustrophobia in London, brought on by class, and the peculiarities of the English, and I guess the weather. Up on the Heath looking out over Greater London anything might seems possible and perhaps that is why Hamilton chose it for Bob's moment of false hope. Dick Whittington is said to have gazed back on London, from what is now Archway, a spot about a mile East of the Heath, and plunged back in to the city, rather than continuing his escape with cat in tow. Cities look good from above and a distance, but down in them the urge to escape is common. Of Hamilton's characters only Bob escapes London.