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Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky
Twenty Thousand Streets Under
A timeless classic of sleazy London life in the 1930s, a world of streets, full of cruelty and kindness, comedy and pathos, where people emerge from cheap lodgings in Pimlico to pour out their passions, hopes and despair in pubs and bars.
511 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1935
141 people are currently reading
4066 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Hamilton
88 books283 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
He was born Anthony Walter Patrick Hamilton in the Sussex village of Hassocks, near Brighton, to writer parents. Due to his father's alcoholism and financial ineptitude, the family spent much of Hamilton's childhood living in boarding houses in Chiswick and Hove. His education was patchy, and ended just after his fifteenth birthday when his mother withdrew him from Westminster School.
After a brief career as an actor, he became a novelist in his early twenties with the publication of Monday Morning (1925), written when he was nineteen. Craven House (1926) and Twopence Coloured (1928) followed, but his first real success was the play Rope (1929, known as Rope's End in America).
The Midnight Bell (1929) is based upon Hamilton's falling in love with a prostitute, and was later published along with The Siege of Pleasure (1932) and The Plains of Cement (1934) as the semi-autobiographical trilogy 20,000 Streets Under the Sky (1935).
Hamilton disliked many aspects of modern life. He was disfigured badly when he was run over by a car in the late 1920s: the end of his novel Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse (1953), with its vision of England smothered in metal beetles, reflects his loathing of the motor car. However, despite some distaste for the culture in which he operated, he was a popular contributor to it. His two most successful plays, Rope and Gas Light (1938, known as Angel Street in the US), made Hamilton wealthy and were also successful as films: the British-made Gaslight (1940) and the 1944 American remake, and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948).
Hangover Square (1941) is often judged his most accomplished work and still sells well in paperback, and is regarded by contemporary authors such as Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd as an important part of the tradition of London novels. Set in Earls Court where Hamilton himself lived, it deals with both alcohol-drinking practices of the time and the underlying political context, such as the rise of fascism and responses to it. Hamilton became an avowed Marxist, though not a publicly declared member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. During the 1930s, like many other authors, Hamilton grew increasingly angry with capitalism and, again like others, felt that the violence and fascism of Europe during the period indicated that capitalism was reaching its end: this encouraged his Marxism and his novel Impromptu in Moribundia (1939) was a satirical attack of capitalist culture.
During his later life, Hamilton developed in his writing a misanthropic authorial voice which became more disillusioned, cynical and bleak as time passed. The Slaves of Solitude (1947), was his only work to deal directly with the Second World War, and he preferred to look back to the pre-war years. His Gorse Trilogy—three novels about a devious sexual predator and conman—are not generally well thought of critically, although Graham Greene said that the first was 'the best book written about Brighton' and the second (Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse) is regarded increasingly as a comic masterpiece. The hostility and negativity of the novels is also attributed to Hamilton's disenchantment with the utopianism of Marxism and depression. The trilogy comprises The West Pier (1952); Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse (1953), dramatized as The Charmer in 1987; and in 1955 Hamilton's last published work, Unknown Assailant, a short novel much of which was dictated while Hamilton was drunk. The Gorse Trilogy was first published in a single volume in 1992.
Hamilton had begun to consume alcohol excessively while still a relatively young man. After a declining career and melancholia, he died in 1962 of cirrhosis of the liver and kidney failure, in Sheringham, Norfolk.
He was born Anthony Walter Patrick Hamilton in the Sussex village of Hassocks, near Brighton, to writer parents. Due to his father's alcoholism and financial ineptitude, the family spent much of Hamilton's childhood living in boarding houses in Chiswick and Hove. His education was patchy, and ended just after his fifteenth birthday when his mother withdrew him from Westminster School.
After a brief career as an actor, he became a novelist in his early twenties with the publication of Monday Morning (1925), written when he was nineteen. Craven House (1926) and Twopence Coloured (1928) followed, but his first real success was the play Rope (1929, known as Rope's End in America).
The Midnight Bell (1929) is based upon Hamilton's falling in love with a prostitute, and was later published along with The Siege of Pleasure (1932) and The Plains of Cement (1934) as the semi-autobiographical trilogy 20,000 Streets Under the Sky (1935).
Hamilton disliked many aspects of modern life. He was disfigured badly when he was run over by a car in the late 1920s: the end of his novel Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse (1953), with its vision of England smothered in metal beetles, reflects his loathing of the motor car. However, despite some distaste for the culture in which he operated, he was a popular contributor to it. His two most successful plays, Rope and Gas Light (1938, known as Angel Street in the US), made Hamilton wealthy and were also successful as films: the British-made Gaslight (1940) and the 1944 American remake, and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948).
Hangover Square (1941) is often judged his most accomplished work and still sells well in paperback, and is regarded by contemporary authors such as Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd as an important part of the tradition of London novels. Set in Earls Court where Hamilton himself lived, it deals with both alcohol-drinking practices of the time and the underlying political context, such as the rise of fascism and responses to it. Hamilton became an avowed Marxist, though not a publicly declared member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. During the 1930s, like many other authors, Hamilton grew increasingly angry with capitalism and, again like others, felt that the violence and fascism of Europe during the period indicated that capitalism was reaching its end: this encouraged his Marxism and his novel Impromptu in Moribundia (1939) was a satirical attack of capitalist culture.
During his later life, Hamilton developed in his writing a misanthropic authorial voice which became more disillusioned, cynical and bleak as time passed. The Slaves of Solitude (1947), was his only work to deal directly with the Second World War, and he preferred to look back to the pre-war years. His Gorse Trilogy—three novels about a devious sexual predator and conman—are not generally well thought of critically, although Graham Greene said that the first was 'the best book written about Brighton' and the second (Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse) is regarded increasingly as a comic masterpiece. The hostility and negativity of the novels is also attributed to Hamilton's disenchantment with the utopianism of Marxism and depression. The trilogy comprises The West Pier (1952); Mr. Stimpson and Mr. Gorse (1953), dramatized as The Charmer in 1987; and in 1955 Hamilton's last published work, Unknown Assailant, a short novel much of which was dictated while Hamilton was drunk. The Gorse Trilogy was first published in a single volume in 1992.
Hamilton had begun to consume alcohol excessively while still a relatively young man. After a declining career and melancholia, he died in 1962 of cirrhosis of the liver and kidney failure, in Sheringham, Norfolk.
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February 12, 2023
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky are the streets of London… And there people meet and part… And there they fall in love.
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky trilogy is the three interconnected moody and beautifully written novelettes of unrequited love.
There are Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky and those are the streets of broken hearts…
Love is the most desirable and entrancing thing… But an unanswered love brings much anguish and sadness.
For he was in that mood when he loved all human creatures. He loved Ella because she was a good woman, and he loved the other because she was a bad woman. It was a good world.
In brief, because he had given ten shillings to a young prostitute without expecting the usual thing in return he was dreadfully conceited. He was so innocent as to believe the transaction was almost unique. He little suspected cunning mankind’s general awareness of the charms of chivalry. He was in love with himself.
And a man successfully in love desires above all things to sing.
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky trilogy is the three interconnected moody and beautifully written novelettes of unrequited love.
There are Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky and those are the streets of broken hearts…
Nevertheless, the gas-lit walls and objects around him were heavy with his own depression – the depression of one who awakes from the excess in the late afternoon. Only at dawn should a man awake from excess – at dawn agleam with red and sorrowful resolve. The late, dark afternoon, with an evening’s toil ahead, affords no such palliation.
Love is the most desirable and entrancing thing… But an unanswered love brings much anguish and sadness.
January 18, 2024
London! It was half-past five and he knew the dusky hour well. It was the hour when London glistened - when the lights came forth - when people were going home - when pleasure was just beginning - when, in the ordinary way, Jenny and her honest but intemperate companions arrayed themselves in dusky dishevelled rooms, and came glowing down upon the lit West End.
This glorious trilogy is definitely more than the sum of its parts as Hamilton sets up a triptych in which he rotates the roles of the main characters and sets up illuminating parallels and contortions. Through it all, his focus is characters - a waiter, a barmaid, a streetwalker - who are more usually marginalised and disenfranchised by literature, particularly the literature of the 1930s. That he does this via writing which is colourful and individual, which is infused with comedy, pathos and, occasionally, the sublime is impressive. People express who they are via what they say, not least the monstrous Mr Ernest Eccles who stars in the third volume, The Plains of Cement.
Criminally under the radar, I completely understand why there is a cult following for Patrick Hamilton.
Volume 1: The Midnight Bell
The first volume of the Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky trilogy, this introduces us to Bob, a waiter at The Midnight Bell pub and Jenny, the young and pretty prostitute with whom he becomes obsessed. I'm sure I'm not the first person to say that London itself (Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, Soho) is almost a character in the story and we can often trace Bob's wanderings from pub to café to cinema on a street by street basis. There's a distinctive Dickensian vibe here despite this being set in the 1920s, but that merges with a more modernist tone from the 'violet hour' of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1921) to the scene where Bob ends up in a room shared by three prostitutes which reminded me of the similar scene in Woolf's Orlando (1928) - though the mood is very different.
Hamilton has a lovely fluency in the writing here which grips and involves us from the opening page. The style is flexible from the high comedy of the denizens at The Midnight Bell who are delineated with Dickensian economy and vividness - the Governor and his Mrs, Mr Sounder, Mr Wall - to the darker obsessions of Bob as he twists between worship and threat in his obsessive pursuit to possess the elusive Jenny. The point of view is a close third person putting us in Bob's head throughout, giving a claustrophobic and tense feel to the narrative. This means that we don't know what Jenny is thinking either - though we have a clearer idea of what this relationship consists of and where it's going than Bob appears to.
It's fascinating that there's no sexual transaction between the two given Jenny's profession - and this made me think of Catullus, Propertius and Ovid, those writers of Latin erotic elegy where the poet-narrator is in pursuit of a mistress who is, or may be, a courtesan, especially as Bob too has literary aspirations. But for all the literary allusions, this feels singular and with a character all of its own and one of the qualities I like is that Hamilton seems to feel a compassion for both his characters.
Volume 2: The Siege of Pleasure
A flashback/prequel to the first book, this traces Jenny's story with a long section on a night and the morning after that proves crucial to the shape of her life. After having seen Jenny only through the eyes of the infatuated Bob in The Midnight Bell, this places Jenny and her thoughts and feelings at the heart of the narrative and shows how limited her choices are given her class and gender in 1930s London. I'm hugely impressed at how compassionate Hamilton is as an author to a flawed character like Jenny.
Volume 3: The Plains of Cement
An absolute tour de force, this final volume gives our characters another turn of the wheel and this time we're in the head of Ella, the barmaid at The Midnight Bell. Hamilton cleverly gives us another version of the 'love pursuit' story but instead of Bob and Jenny we have the monstrously funny and creepily arch Mr Eccles, a middle aged man who may be lonely but who also articulates criminally bad lines in his awkward courtship of Ella: "Though I don't know," added Mr Eccles with his head on one side, "that Little Ladies need bother their little heads too much about such grave matters." Again, there is something Dickensian about Eccles but while the 'dates' he has with Ella are excruciating, I also had shivers of horror when he encroaches on her physically, eventually kissing her, something which Ella primes herself for like someone waiting to have a tooth pulled at the dentist.
At the heart of all three stories are issues of asymmetrical relations, whether through class, money, or who is pursued and who the pursuer. Eccles wants Ella who wants Bob who wants Jenny - and none of them have any form of reciprocation. It's fascinating to see how Bob who is abject and humiliated in the first book is the god-like figure of a man in Ella's eyes in the third.
For all the gorgeous evocations of seedy London pubs, cinemas and tea shops, it's the play of these lives, rendered in exquisite detail, that is what held me gripped. And the third book, especially, raises the already high bar, particularly the last few chapters: Hamilton metamorphoses these lives that some deem 'insignificant' to the tragic.
May 26, 2021
here is a man who understands the impositions placed upon women, and how difficult it is to be polite while also discouraging further involvements from overeager men. you know who you are...
come to my blog!
come to my blog! 
August 28, 2018
The
Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky
trilogy is an amazing achievement, originally published as three separate books: The Midnight Bell (1929), The Siege of Pleasure (1932) and The Plains of Cement (1934).
In 1935, these books were first collected in one volume as Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky.
The Midnight Bell (1929)
Patrick Hamilton’s protagonist Bob, the waiter at a Euston pub called The Midnight Bell, has saved £80 (worth several thousands of pounds in today's money) in the bank through prudence and maximising his tips. Following a chance encounter with Jenny, a prostitute, and with whom he becomes obsessed, and believing he can change her, he becomes ever more reckless and desperate. Towards the end, Bob, realising the folly of his misadventure, concludes "that it had all come from him, and only the hysteria and obsession of his pursuit had given a weak semblance of reciprocation". Basically he'd been played.
As with all the best books by Patrick Hamilton, in addition to a riveting drama, The Midnight Bell also provides a powerfully evocation of London - 1920s London in this instance. The character of Euston, the West End, Soho, and Hampstead, still recognisable to the modern Londoner are beautifully captured, especially the various pubs and cafes which feature so heavily in the story.
The other aspect that rings true so authentically is the dialogue: whether this be the conversations between the regulars at The Midnight Bell, or the somewhat stilted and love lorn conversations between Bob and Jenny, or most powerfully a dreadful scene when Bob visits Jenny in the room she shares with two other prostitutes. The true horror of his situation dawns on Bob, who remains powerless to escape. Frequently these experiences are accompanied by boozing, and then appalling hangovers and self-loathing: clearly something about which Patrick Hamilton had already gained a thorough knowledge.
The Siege of Pleasure (1932)
The Siege of Pleasure is essentially a prequel to The Midnight Bell and the story describes Jenny's drift into prostitution.
In common with Bob, Jenny is the architect of her own downfall. Patrick Hamilton again allows his characters moments of reflection and self-insight during which there are ample opportunities to escape their downward trajectory. It's a clever technique that had me hoping first Bob, and then Jenny, might escape. Like The Midnight Bell, The Siege of Pleasure is superb at bringing the era to life via numerous little details. In this novel, Patrick Hamilton wonderfully describes the household where Jenny gets a job as a live in maid and housekeeper. The two older sisters, Bella and Marion, who employ her, are fabulous creations.
One of the novel's longest scenes takes place over a night out in a pub in Hammersmith. Needless to say, Patrick Hamilton nails both the pub's atmosphere, and the way the evening evolves as two women and two men, first meet and get to know each other as inebriation takes hold and inhibitions melt away. Jenny's descent into drunkenness is one of the best descriptions of getting drunk I have ever read.
Patrick Hamilton also works in an incident of drunk driving - this following his own horrific accident at the hands of a drunk driver. In 1932, whilst walking with his sister and wife in London, Patrick Hamilton was struck by a drunk driver and dragged through the street. His injuries were devastating. After a three-month hospital stay, multiple surgeries (the accident ripped off his nose and left one arm mangled), and a period of convalescence, Hamilton suffered physical and emotional scars that would continue with him for the rest of his life. Some claim this contributed to his alcoholism. It certainly badly affected his self-esteem and he became very self conscious about the visible scars and loss of mobility. (His second play, To The Public Danger, commissioned by the BBC as part of a road safety campaign, was also an account of the carnage caused by drink driving).
The Plains of Cement (1934)
As with the other two books, The Plains of Cement works as a stand alone story, however the reading experience is even richer, for those that read the trilogy in sequence.
When writing this book, Patrick Hamilton saw himself as a Marxist, and, in common with the previous books, part of the book deals with the limited options for someone with no capital. Ella, in addition to herself, has to support her Mother, and Step Father, from her meagre earnings at The Midnight Bell. She also acknowledges that she is a plain looking woman.
Unexpectedly, she is courted by one her customers, Mr Eccles, an older man. Mr Eccles is at pains to point out he has Something Put By, and for Ella's benefit He's Letting Her Know (Patrick Hamilton again employing his customary "Komic Kapitals" to emphasise key phrases, and/or cliches, homilies etc).
Mr Eccles is another of Patrick Hamilton’s monstrous males (which start with Mr Spicer in Craven House (1926), continue with Mr Eccles, and which reach its apogee with Mr Thwaites in The Slaves of Solitude (1947) (although perhaps Ralph Gorse tops them all in The West Pier (1952); and Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse (1953)).
I digress, Mr Eccles at first appears absurd, but quickly becomes more sinister, using his creepy and evasive conversational style, along with this financial independence to trap and coerce poor old Ella. He is lecherous and exploitative. However, Ella is not the naive fool he assumes, and is able to see through him. Some of the book's most appalling scenes are a result of Ella's internal thoughts on Mr Eccles' absurd conversation, conduct and attitudes.
Anyone looking for a happy conclusion, to the trilogy, should look elsewhere. The final story continues the tragic arc of the previous books, and perhaps more distressingly - and unlike Bob and Jenny - Ella is not the architect of her own situation, she's a victim of circumstance.
Ella is one of the most sympathetic characters ever created by Patrick Hamilton and this makes her tale even more affecting. This story confronts the loneliness and sorrow of existence and concludes that all we have is our humour and humanity to confront and counteract this cold truth.
Conclusion
Whilst Hangover Square may be Patrick Hamilton’s best-known London novel I think that Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky trilogy (in particular The Midnight Bell) is a key book in understanding his world view and the way he used his own life to inform his fiction.
The Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky trilogy is a masterpiece. Each story works well on its own terms, however when combined it creates one of the ultimate London novels. The twilight world of ordinary Londoners, trying to get by, yet all too easily seduced or distracted by the capital's temptations before coming crashing back down to earth. Beautifully written, it unerringly captures the world of the London pub, and the desperate lives of many ordinary people in the 1920s and 1930s, from a writer who was familiar with this world and sufficiently skilful to capture its every nuance.
Brilliant - but very, very bleak.
In 1935, these books were first collected in one volume as Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky.
The Midnight Bell (1929)
Patrick Hamilton’s protagonist Bob, the waiter at a Euston pub called The Midnight Bell, has saved £80 (worth several thousands of pounds in today's money) in the bank through prudence and maximising his tips. Following a chance encounter with Jenny, a prostitute, and with whom he becomes obsessed, and believing he can change her, he becomes ever more reckless and desperate. Towards the end, Bob, realising the folly of his misadventure, concludes "that it had all come from him, and only the hysteria and obsession of his pursuit had given a weak semblance of reciprocation". Basically he'd been played.
As with all the best books by Patrick Hamilton, in addition to a riveting drama, The Midnight Bell also provides a powerfully evocation of London - 1920s London in this instance. The character of Euston, the West End, Soho, and Hampstead, still recognisable to the modern Londoner are beautifully captured, especially the various pubs and cafes which feature so heavily in the story.
The other aspect that rings true so authentically is the dialogue: whether this be the conversations between the regulars at The Midnight Bell, or the somewhat stilted and love lorn conversations between Bob and Jenny, or most powerfully a dreadful scene when Bob visits Jenny in the room she shares with two other prostitutes. The true horror of his situation dawns on Bob, who remains powerless to escape. Frequently these experiences are accompanied by boozing, and then appalling hangovers and self-loathing: clearly something about which Patrick Hamilton had already gained a thorough knowledge.
The Siege of Pleasure (1932)
The Siege of Pleasure is essentially a prequel to The Midnight Bell and the story describes Jenny's drift into prostitution.
In common with Bob, Jenny is the architect of her own downfall. Patrick Hamilton again allows his characters moments of reflection and self-insight during which there are ample opportunities to escape their downward trajectory. It's a clever technique that had me hoping first Bob, and then Jenny, might escape. Like The Midnight Bell, The Siege of Pleasure is superb at bringing the era to life via numerous little details. In this novel, Patrick Hamilton wonderfully describes the household where Jenny gets a job as a live in maid and housekeeper. The two older sisters, Bella and Marion, who employ her, are fabulous creations.
One of the novel's longest scenes takes place over a night out in a pub in Hammersmith. Needless to say, Patrick Hamilton nails both the pub's atmosphere, and the way the evening evolves as two women and two men, first meet and get to know each other as inebriation takes hold and inhibitions melt away. Jenny's descent into drunkenness is one of the best descriptions of getting drunk I have ever read.
Patrick Hamilton also works in an incident of drunk driving - this following his own horrific accident at the hands of a drunk driver. In 1932, whilst walking with his sister and wife in London, Patrick Hamilton was struck by a drunk driver and dragged through the street. His injuries were devastating. After a three-month hospital stay, multiple surgeries (the accident ripped off his nose and left one arm mangled), and a period of convalescence, Hamilton suffered physical and emotional scars that would continue with him for the rest of his life. Some claim this contributed to his alcoholism. It certainly badly affected his self-esteem and he became very self conscious about the visible scars and loss of mobility. (His second play, To The Public Danger, commissioned by the BBC as part of a road safety campaign, was also an account of the carnage caused by drink driving).
The Plains of Cement (1934)
As with the other two books, The Plains of Cement works as a stand alone story, however the reading experience is even richer, for those that read the trilogy in sequence.
When writing this book, Patrick Hamilton saw himself as a Marxist, and, in common with the previous books, part of the book deals with the limited options for someone with no capital. Ella, in addition to herself, has to support her Mother, and Step Father, from her meagre earnings at The Midnight Bell. She also acknowledges that she is a plain looking woman.
Unexpectedly, she is courted by one her customers, Mr Eccles, an older man. Mr Eccles is at pains to point out he has Something Put By, and for Ella's benefit He's Letting Her Know (Patrick Hamilton again employing his customary "Komic Kapitals" to emphasise key phrases, and/or cliches, homilies etc).
Mr Eccles is another of Patrick Hamilton’s monstrous males (which start with Mr Spicer in Craven House (1926), continue with Mr Eccles, and which reach its apogee with Mr Thwaites in The Slaves of Solitude (1947) (although perhaps Ralph Gorse tops them all in The West Pier (1952); and Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse (1953)).
I digress, Mr Eccles at first appears absurd, but quickly becomes more sinister, using his creepy and evasive conversational style, along with this financial independence to trap and coerce poor old Ella. He is lecherous and exploitative. However, Ella is not the naive fool he assumes, and is able to see through him. Some of the book's most appalling scenes are a result of Ella's internal thoughts on Mr Eccles' absurd conversation, conduct and attitudes.
Anyone looking for a happy conclusion, to the trilogy, should look elsewhere. The final story continues the tragic arc of the previous books, and perhaps more distressingly - and unlike Bob and Jenny - Ella is not the architect of her own situation, she's a victim of circumstance.
Ella is one of the most sympathetic characters ever created by Patrick Hamilton and this makes her tale even more affecting. This story confronts the loneliness and sorrow of existence and concludes that all we have is our humour and humanity to confront and counteract this cold truth.
Conclusion
Whilst Hangover Square may be Patrick Hamilton’s best-known London novel I think that Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky trilogy (in particular The Midnight Bell) is a key book in understanding his world view and the way he used his own life to inform his fiction.
The Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky trilogy is a masterpiece. Each story works well on its own terms, however when combined it creates one of the ultimate London novels. The twilight world of ordinary Londoners, trying to get by, yet all too easily seduced or distracted by the capital's temptations before coming crashing back down to earth. Beautifully written, it unerringly captures the world of the London pub, and the desperate lives of many ordinary people in the 1920s and 1930s, from a writer who was familiar with this world and sufficiently skilful to capture its every nuance.
Brilliant - but very, very bleak.
October 5, 2023
Hamilton's Hangover Square was one heck of a novel, but its dark and disturbing nature left me feeling as cold as ice; whereas here, although at times quite bleak, there is more depth, humanity, and even warmth, making his characters just so darn readable, where I got completely wrapped up in their lives, and truly missed them when the book was done. It's easily one of my fave reads this year. Basically, this is three early novels - The Midnight Bell, The Siege of Pleasure, The Plains of Cement - under one title. All link the three main West End characters of Bob the waiter, Jenny the prostitute and Ella the barmaid. The first focuses on the relationship between Bob and Jenny, the second Jenny's employment as a maid to a couple of old sisters, and the third returns to The Midnight Bell with the focus this time being Ella.
Hamilton is a writer that seems to have gone under the radar, and I scratch my head as to why. From the rumble of traffic and cold wintery streets, he captures an unsettling and visceral central London and its boozing of the late 20s/early 30s so effortlessly well, infusing lots of alcohol & cigarettes with loneliness, infatuation and love, frustration and dreams. The first novel in particular, featuring the pub The Midnight Bell, I can't think of anything else in any novel that made me feel like I was sat there at the bar, basking in the pub life. His London pub here, and the way he presents its workers and patrons is so rich in detail, so wonderfully alive, it's like an old fashioned literary Eastenders for grown-ups only - if you're British you'd know what I'm talking about - only a million times better. A brilliant book.
January 23, 2013
You know that feeling of giddy pride you get when you feel like you have discovered an author? Such a "discovery" is, of course, ridiculous. If the author's been published then many other readers have most likely been there before you. Still, I feel like I just discovered Patrick Hamilton for myself. It just turns out that Doris Lessing discovered him, too. Then Sarah Waters. Nick Hornby compared his discovery with chancing upon a new best friend. When I first read the back cover to this collected edition of three linked novels written in the late 1920s/early 1930s I really didn't think it would be my kind of bag at all. Desolate lives set in desolate pubs in grim grimy Soho. Right, I thought, some sodden 1930s version of Bukowski. But I couldn't have been more wrong. The three novels drop us in a failed love triangle seen from all angles, each novel focusing on a different character. Bob falls in love with Jenny, a prostitute; Jenny doesn't really love Bob because she has her own life troubles to deal with; and Ella loves Bob, but Bob doesn't really notice her at all. Again, as a plot descriptor this was not something I would have necessarily gone for. What got me, though, in the end is the writing throughout. Writing in a Woolfian era, Hamilton is not that kind of stylist, but he captures character like few writers I've ever read. There is a master class in here on character creation and character development. And engulfing, gripping plotting. I've been struggling to put in words what I love about Hamilton, but I have fallen for him, and I look forward to reading more. So glad I discovered him.
December 17, 2013
I was first introduced to Patrick Hamilton when I watched a TV adaptation of this very book. I went on to try Hangover Square as I'm not keen on reading source material so close to watching something I love. After many years, I finally got around to it and I love it. It shows how faithful the TV adaptation was, but as always with TV, it cannot show effortlessly the inner workings of characters' minds, as a novel can.
My favourite section was always Ella's, but when reading the novel Bob's struggle when he falls in love with a prostitute is very affecting. I had dismissed his section as a stupid and vain man looking for someone to control, but in the novel you see how much his obsession is motivated by loneliness, just like Ella, and they bookend and mirror each other perfectly. I still have the same view of Jenny as vain, silly and easily led, but most of all young and trapped by stupid choices.
The only problem I had is that the last section 'Plains of Cement' the sentence structure gets a bit parenthetical and convoluted (perhaps Hamilton was having third book nerves by this stage), but later on it returns to the simple, touching sentences so impressive earlier on in the trilogy. What has also impressed me is how well Hamilton writes about women's lives and Ella in particular, all her loneliness and complications with men.
Despite being set in a pub, alcohol plays a much lesser role than in Hangover Square, but his observations on London and its inhabitants are extraordinary. I have so many pages bookmarked with wonderful quotes on love and loneliness from this book, but I don't want to spoil anyone who wants to read it, so I won't post them. I have sent for Hamilton's biography as I am interested to see how autobiographical this novel is. In a word, wonderful.
My favourite section was always Ella's, but when reading the novel Bob's struggle when he falls in love with a prostitute is very affecting. I had dismissed his section as a stupid and vain man looking for someone to control, but in the novel you see how much his obsession is motivated by loneliness, just like Ella, and they bookend and mirror each other perfectly. I still have the same view of Jenny as vain, silly and easily led, but most of all young and trapped by stupid choices.
The only problem I had is that the last section 'Plains of Cement' the sentence structure gets a bit parenthetical and convoluted (perhaps Hamilton was having third book nerves by this stage), but later on it returns to the simple, touching sentences so impressive earlier on in the trilogy. What has also impressed me is how well Hamilton writes about women's lives and Ella in particular, all her loneliness and complications with men.
Despite being set in a pub, alcohol plays a much lesser role than in Hangover Square, but his observations on London and its inhabitants are extraordinary. I have so many pages bookmarked with wonderful quotes on love and loneliness from this book, but I don't want to spoil anyone who wants to read it, so I won't post them. I have sent for Hamilton's biography as I am interested to see how autobiographical this novel is. In a word, wonderful.
December 16, 2024
'The Midnight Bell': 2.5
'The Siege of Pleasure': 4
'The Plains of Cement': 3
Overall: 3
Having been quite taken with various works by Hamilton (esp. 'Hangover Square' and 'The Slaves of Solitude'), it's somewhat sad to report my half-disappointment here. I thought I could perhaps chalk this up to being earlier works (from 1929/32/34) - but 'Craven House' is even earlier (1926; revised 1943) and that's a marvelous book.
It would be interesting to know how these three (apparently partially autobiographical) novellas eventually came to be known collectively as 'Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky', a title that suggests the wide expanse in which pockets of life are likely to be seen at their most mundane. That's Hamilton's focus here: the very, very ordinary lives of three very ordinary people: a waiter, a (reluctant) prostitute and a barmaid (secretly enamored of the waiter).
Each character is given a novella for his / her POV. The first is the least complex and the least interesting. It follows, in rather repetitive, alcohol-fueled detail, the doomed love of the waiter for the girl of the street. For him, it's pretty much 'love' at first sight when he (Bob) sees her (Jenny) as a customer in his pub. They begin an uneasy connection; frustrating from start to finish, as Jenny never fails to toy. Bob - basically 'an alright guy' otherwise - allows himself to become something of a sap. It's difficult to witness.
The middle book is the highlight (such as it is). Parts two and three certainly contain the best writing - and here, in the equally liquor-laced part two, we see quite clearly how Jenny (constantly told by just about everybody just how beautiful she is) fell into the life of 'love for sale'. As well, her elusiveness and air of mystery in part one become understandable (if not likable). Her ever-so-carefully cultivated duplicity is singularly cunning (esp. during her brief stint as a servant girl). This is the shortest of the three books but the most satisfying.
The barmaid (Ella) comes to the forefront in book three (where tea is the main beverage of choice). Whereas, in book one, it appears that she has a welcome bit of common sense in her character, we now see her as being just as tentative and insecure as the other two main persons. Ella (who seems to have cornered most of the author's sympathy) finds herself in a-triple-pickle when she's dealing not only with unfortunate parents and a deceptive new-job search but also with the most unlikely sudden suitor imaginable: an older gentleman who's kind of... a bother, really.
Throughout, Hamilton succeeds in terms of revealing the environment's changing moods. He's very good at capturing a sense of place and the people in it. His understanding of class structure is well-observed And he can certainly accurately zone in on the contradictory nature of the feelings of the lonelyhearted. He even occasionally allows some mordant wit to come through.
Those who, like myself, are already rather familiar with the writer may find enough here to appreciate. But its 'moments' (which are largely thanks to the quality of Hamilton's writing) come and go and - though not terrible - it's not among his best work.
'The Siege of Pleasure': 4
'The Plains of Cement': 3
Overall: 3
Having been quite taken with various works by Hamilton (esp. 'Hangover Square' and 'The Slaves of Solitude'), it's somewhat sad to report my half-disappointment here. I thought I could perhaps chalk this up to being earlier works (from 1929/32/34) - but 'Craven House' is even earlier (1926; revised 1943) and that's a marvelous book.
It would be interesting to know how these three (apparently partially autobiographical) novellas eventually came to be known collectively as 'Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky', a title that suggests the wide expanse in which pockets of life are likely to be seen at their most mundane. That's Hamilton's focus here: the very, very ordinary lives of three very ordinary people: a waiter, a (reluctant) prostitute and a barmaid (secretly enamored of the waiter).
Each character is given a novella for his / her POV. The first is the least complex and the least interesting. It follows, in rather repetitive, alcohol-fueled detail, the doomed love of the waiter for the girl of the street. For him, it's pretty much 'love' at first sight when he (Bob) sees her (Jenny) as a customer in his pub. They begin an uneasy connection; frustrating from start to finish, as Jenny never fails to toy. Bob - basically 'an alright guy' otherwise - allows himself to become something of a sap. It's difficult to witness.
The middle book is the highlight (such as it is). Parts two and three certainly contain the best writing - and here, in the equally liquor-laced part two, we see quite clearly how Jenny (constantly told by just about everybody just how beautiful she is) fell into the life of 'love for sale'. As well, her elusiveness and air of mystery in part one become understandable (if not likable). Her ever-so-carefully cultivated duplicity is singularly cunning (esp. during her brief stint as a servant girl). This is the shortest of the three books but the most satisfying.
The barmaid (Ella) comes to the forefront in book three (where tea is the main beverage of choice). Whereas, in book one, it appears that she has a welcome bit of common sense in her character, we now see her as being just as tentative and insecure as the other two main persons. Ella (who seems to have cornered most of the author's sympathy) finds herself in a-triple-pickle when she's dealing not only with unfortunate parents and a deceptive new-job search but also with the most unlikely sudden suitor imaginable: an older gentleman who's kind of... a bother, really.
Throughout, Hamilton succeeds in terms of revealing the environment's changing moods. He's very good at capturing a sense of place and the people in it. His understanding of class structure is well-observed And he can certainly accurately zone in on the contradictory nature of the feelings of the lonelyhearted. He even occasionally allows some mordant wit to come through.
Those who, like myself, are already rather familiar with the writer may find enough here to appreciate. But its 'moments' (which are largely thanks to the quality of Hamilton's writing) come and go and - though not terrible - it's not among his best work.
June 15, 2007
Got a bit bogged down by life so this took a while to read - it is quite a tome. It's three novels in one telling the stories of three characters that exist in and around a pub called The Midnight Bell in 1930s Central London - one's a waiter, one's a prostitute and t'other is a bar maid.
It's pretty harsh stuff and is like watching your friend fall in love with an idiot, but its so well observed and inside the bits of us that we try and hide that it just blew me away. In fairness, Hamilton is a better playwright than novelist - a lot of it is described in minute detail - but he knows how to pace his prose so just when you start to wander, everything accelerates beyond recognition. Also, if you know London at all and like a drink, the recognition element is a huge part of the enjoyment.
Anyway, probably the best thing I've read since Underworld. Man's a genius
It's pretty harsh stuff and is like watching your friend fall in love with an idiot, but its so well observed and inside the bits of us that we try and hide that it just blew me away. In fairness, Hamilton is a better playwright than novelist - a lot of it is described in minute detail - but he knows how to pace his prose so just when you start to wander, everything accelerates beyond recognition. Also, if you know London at all and like a drink, the recognition element is a huge part of the enjoyment.
Anyway, probably the best thing I've read since Underworld. Man's a genius
July 6, 2025
What a great book this is! I had expected this to be primarily a book of mood; a sort of early proto-noir, like Jean Rhys’ 1931 *After Leaving Mr. MacKenzie”. But it is not really that. Well, in part, it is. The first story begins rather conventionally. And it was only about 2/3 in that the narrative grabs the reader and begins to pull him deep into the vortex of madness. The final story is not really noir at all (though it is…). And yet the whole work is so rich, so poignant, so full of sadness and insight, that I entirely forgot my stylistic expectations.
Here is one passage”
“But you cannot walk away from sorrow like that. And in any case there is nothing in the world more dreary, damping, and obscurely perturbing than to come out of a cinema in the afternoon to a noisy world. And she did not want any tea, or know where she was going. And it was bitterly cold again, with the wind in the east. She walked into Lower Regent Street and up towards Piccadilly.
“And in the murky dusk of evening, it was a turbulent and terrifying spectacle which met her eyes and smote her ears. She had never seen so many desperate buses, and blocked cars, and swarming people, in her life. In all the teeming, roaring, grinding, belching, hooting, anxious-faced world of cement and wheels around her it really seemed as though things had gone too far. It seemed as though some climax had just been reached, that civilization was riding for a fall, that these days were certainly the last days of London, and that other dusks must soon gleam upon the broken chaos which must replace it.”
Patrick Hamilton, 20,000 Streets Under the Sky (1935) [5.5]
The Midnight Bell / Bob (1929) [5.5]
The Siege of Pleasure / Jenny (1932) [5]
The Plains of Cement / Ella (1934) [5.5]
Here is one passage”
“But you cannot walk away from sorrow like that. And in any case there is nothing in the world more dreary, damping, and obscurely perturbing than to come out of a cinema in the afternoon to a noisy world. And she did not want any tea, or know where she was going. And it was bitterly cold again, with the wind in the east. She walked into Lower Regent Street and up towards Piccadilly.
“And in the murky dusk of evening, it was a turbulent and terrifying spectacle which met her eyes and smote her ears. She had never seen so many desperate buses, and blocked cars, and swarming people, in her life. In all the teeming, roaring, grinding, belching, hooting, anxious-faced world of cement and wheels around her it really seemed as though things had gone too far. It seemed as though some climax had just been reached, that civilization was riding for a fall, that these days were certainly the last days of London, and that other dusks must soon gleam upon the broken chaos which must replace it.”
Patrick Hamilton, 20,000 Streets Under the Sky (1935) [5.5]
The Midnight Bell / Bob (1929) [5.5]
The Siege of Pleasure / Jenny (1932) [5]
The Plains of Cement / Ella (1934) [5.5]
January 19, 2017
A poignant, working-class epic. Heartbreaking, gripping and with a gaze so focused, so evocative and so incisively applied to the anxieties and mannerisms of a small cast of characters in 1930s London, that it is the closest thing to time-travel you'll ever stumble upon. Above all, regardless of their sorrows and frustrations, the author's devotion and love for his players surges from the pages and somehow redeems and resurrects them and the generic lost souls they represent.
Devastating.
Devastating.
June 3, 2016
This is a trilogy of linked stories.
"The Midnight Bell" is the name of a public house just off the Euston Road in London. All the major characters are introduced in this story, but the main focus is Bob. Bob is a dreamer who has worked at sea and is now a waiter in the pub, but he dreams of being a writer. To be more accurate Bob dreams of having written a wonderful novel by some form of spontaneous generation, since he never actually puts pen to paper.
The pub is so well described that I could smell the beer and smoke atmosphere. We also meet the landlord and landlady, the bar staff and a few of the pub regulars. These vignettes show Patrick Hamilton at his very best. That is exactly how people talk in pubs much of the time. They are at their most boring when they think they are at their most interesting and rarely listen to each other. One of the regulars is a writer, of poems and letters to the newspaper of such banal verbosity that I couldn't help feeling grateful that the Something he was working on at home never saw the light of day.
Bob develops an obsession with a beautiful prostitute, Jenny, who often stands him up, always spends his money and generally leads him a merry dance. We feel sorry for Bob, he is a nice man, but can't help feeling that it mostly his own fault for being so blinkered.
"The Siege of Pleasure" is Jenny's story and pre-dates the meeting with Bob. It is much shorter because it is intentionally a simple and predictable one. It is also perfectly formed. Jenny is also simple, predictable and perfectly formed, and ignorant, shallow, self-absorbed, vain, callous and unscrupulous. (The latter group from the author's description of her.)
Patrick Hamilton does not make us give Jenny much of our our sympathy, she behaves just as callously towards the besotted Tom as she later does to the obsessed Bob. (If he had, it would have undermined his earlier story.) He does make us understand her and how she came to be in the situation and profession she is.
"The Plains of Cement" returns to 'The Midnight Bell' story and pub and to its barmaid Ella. She is a nice, charming, sensible girl and popular with the customers, but not (unfortunately for her) beautiful enough to attract Bob (the silly man).
There is another one-sided love affair; one of the customers asks her out and falls in love with her. She is maddeningly indecisive about some very important matters and carries on with this relationship, even becoming engaged. She does not love this man or even fancy him, she finds some little things about him intensely irritating (so do we, though her eyes). She ends up stringing him along in the same way as Jenny does to Bob, but this time Patrick Hamilton ensures that our sympathies are with the girl.
Patrick Hamilton portrays his London pub-dominated world with love and care. He shows us that drinking too much and becoming obsessed with prostitutes is not a very good idea, but also shows the euphoria of the moment. He knows, he did both.
"The Midnight Bell" is the name of a public house just off the Euston Road in London. All the major characters are introduced in this story, but the main focus is Bob. Bob is a dreamer who has worked at sea and is now a waiter in the pub, but he dreams of being a writer. To be more accurate Bob dreams of having written a wonderful novel by some form of spontaneous generation, since he never actually puts pen to paper.
The pub is so well described that I could smell the beer and smoke atmosphere. We also meet the landlord and landlady, the bar staff and a few of the pub regulars. These vignettes show Patrick Hamilton at his very best. That is exactly how people talk in pubs much of the time. They are at their most boring when they think they are at their most interesting and rarely listen to each other. One of the regulars is a writer, of poems and letters to the newspaper of such banal verbosity that I couldn't help feeling grateful that the Something he was working on at home never saw the light of day.
Bob develops an obsession with a beautiful prostitute, Jenny, who often stands him up, always spends his money and generally leads him a merry dance. We feel sorry for Bob, he is a nice man, but can't help feeling that it mostly his own fault for being so blinkered.
"The Siege of Pleasure" is Jenny's story and pre-dates the meeting with Bob. It is much shorter because it is intentionally a simple and predictable one. It is also perfectly formed. Jenny is also simple, predictable and perfectly formed, and ignorant, shallow, self-absorbed, vain, callous and unscrupulous. (The latter group from the author's description of her.)
Patrick Hamilton does not make us give Jenny much of our our sympathy, she behaves just as callously towards the besotted Tom as she later does to the obsessed Bob. (If he had, it would have undermined his earlier story.) He does make us understand her and how she came to be in the situation and profession she is.
"The Plains of Cement" returns to 'The Midnight Bell' story and pub and to its barmaid Ella. She is a nice, charming, sensible girl and popular with the customers, but not (unfortunately for her) beautiful enough to attract Bob (the silly man).
There is another one-sided love affair; one of the customers asks her out and falls in love with her. She is maddeningly indecisive about some very important matters and carries on with this relationship, even becoming engaged. She does not love this man or even fancy him, she finds some little things about him intensely irritating (so do we, though her eyes). She ends up stringing him along in the same way as Jenny does to Bob, but this time Patrick Hamilton ensures that our sympathies are with the girl.
Patrick Hamilton portrays his London pub-dominated world with love and care. He shows us that drinking too much and becoming obsessed with prostitutes is not a very good idea, but also shows the euphoria of the moment. He knows, he did both.
July 23, 2023
There's just something about Hamilton's writing that speaks to me. He has such an wonderful touch of melancholy in his soul. And he writes so beautifully about lonely people.
This book is actually three books. The Midnight Bell (1929), The Siege of Pleasure (1932), and The Plains of Cement (1934). They were put together as '20,000 Streets Under The Sky' in 1935. Which makes sense because they share the same characters and themes. The first book is by far the best and focuses on Bob falling in love with a young mercurial prostitute named Jenny. It's the longest of the three but by far the most engaging and well-paced. He is, to use modern parlance, a simp who, despite her indifferent nature, becomes obsessed with saving and loving her. The second book is a prequel and focuses on Jenny before she became a prostitute. It's less fun to read and becomes a little overly dense and slow but does a good job of showing how Jenny fell into her life. Then finally, we have the third section which is about the lovely Ella, perhaps the most lonely of them all; she is a barmaid who works with Bob at the Midnight Bell and begins a tentative relationship with an older man named Mr Eccles.
The book is very clever in how it entwines these people and plays out their stories over the same period but from different perspectives. I would suggest it was immensely innovative for the time. And like his other books, the story is firmly about lonely people and unrequited love (often focusing on the fact that we look for it in the wrong places). It's also very British in its humour and outlook. I genuinely feel that Hamilton has a real gift for writing women too, putting himself in their place and dangling hope in front of them. I don't think it's quite as accomplished as 'Hangover Square' or 'Slaves of Solitude' but it's very close and certainly a wonderful read.
The final chapter is heartbreaking and so cleverly done. Hamilton once again dangles hope in front of us but it's very clearly a lie. It's the ending Ella wanted. And, having shown us so many of her hopes already, he agrees to show us just one more. Just one more.
This book is actually three books. The Midnight Bell (1929), The Siege of Pleasure (1932), and The Plains of Cement (1934). They were put together as '20,000 Streets Under The Sky' in 1935. Which makes sense because they share the same characters and themes. The first book is by far the best and focuses on Bob falling in love with a young mercurial prostitute named Jenny. It's the longest of the three but by far the most engaging and well-paced. He is, to use modern parlance, a simp who, despite her indifferent nature, becomes obsessed with saving and loving her. The second book is a prequel and focuses on Jenny before she became a prostitute. It's less fun to read and becomes a little overly dense and slow but does a good job of showing how Jenny fell into her life. Then finally, we have the third section which is about the lovely Ella, perhaps the most lonely of them all; she is a barmaid who works with Bob at the Midnight Bell and begins a tentative relationship with an older man named Mr Eccles.
The book is very clever in how it entwines these people and plays out their stories over the same period but from different perspectives. I would suggest it was immensely innovative for the time. And like his other books, the story is firmly about lonely people and unrequited love (often focusing on the fact that we look for it in the wrong places). It's also very British in its humour and outlook. I genuinely feel that Hamilton has a real gift for writing women too, putting himself in their place and dangling hope in front of them. I don't think it's quite as accomplished as 'Hangover Square' or 'Slaves of Solitude' but it's very close and certainly a wonderful read.
The final chapter is heartbreaking and so cleverly done. Hamilton once again dangles hope in front of us but it's very clearly a lie. It's the ending Ella wanted. And, having shown us so many of her hopes already, he agrees to show us just one more. Just one more.
October 28, 2014
This is knockout. It’s all here, as promised: the respectably hard up, the hanging-on, the kindhearted and the sleazy. It’s a novel of small lives on huge canvasses, written with great empathy. There’s plenty of comedy amid the sleaze: memorably awful creeps like Ernest Eccles, the punters and the bar room twits. Ella is all good. Bob is an immature looker and will learn in time. Jenny is fantastically sinister (as the reader, you feel almost hoodwinked yourself). In some respects it’s social commentary, but this is no bleak-max ‘Love on the Dole’.
It is also the Great Pub Novel (or three novels). I have often found myself in pubs down the years (who wouldn't?) thinking ‘Oh, someone has to do this – and I don't mean Eastenders’. Well, here it is. Patrick Hamilton captures the pub and that drinking world extremely well – the process by which random people inflate a jolly bubble with every round; the time lapses and the way one drink becomes another and ‘one for the road’. The twats in the bar – the wag and the romeo. There are some fine ‘morning after’ horrors here too (one, appropriately, in Richmond).
My favourite drinkers' Coming of Age in fiction is ‘My First Dissipation’ in David Copperfield – which is drinking, aged perhaps 15. Twenty Thousand Streets is drinking, aged maybe 25. And the drinks themselves are a social history too: Gin & French and Gin & It and Port and…was that ‘Bitter and Brown’? (one of the customers has it).
If you’re a Londoner, the great thing about Patrick Hamilton is that his novels are almost entirely geographically accurate, meaning you’re getting that ‘1930s in Colour’, box-of-ghosts feeling (that I get from the New York non-fiction of Joseph Mitchell) and a strong sense of social history. So, they’re forever down the Lyons’ Corner House (Coventry Street, TCR) ; they’re at the cinema at Madame Tussaud’s. The prostitutes (and the lovestruck Bob) do a regular round of Shaftesbury Avenue, Rupert Street and Soho. There are pubs that are still there today (e.g. the Green Man at Great Portland Street) and there’s poverty on Whitfield Street (this is a time where to be poor in London means living in Camden and Pimlico). It has set me off again on a journey to find the Corner Houses. The social history is enough of a draw for me.
Meanwhile, delighted to read that Patrick Hamilton also wrote a trilogy set in Brighton, no less (oh, and he was born in Hassocks). He’s less overlooked now than when Doris Lessing said he was ‘neglected’, but he still deserves much more attention.
It is also the Great Pub Novel (or three novels). I have often found myself in pubs down the years (who wouldn't?) thinking ‘Oh, someone has to do this – and I don't mean Eastenders’. Well, here it is. Patrick Hamilton captures the pub and that drinking world extremely well – the process by which random people inflate a jolly bubble with every round; the time lapses and the way one drink becomes another and ‘one for the road’. The twats in the bar – the wag and the romeo. There are some fine ‘morning after’ horrors here too (one, appropriately, in Richmond).
My favourite drinkers' Coming of Age in fiction is ‘My First Dissipation’ in David Copperfield – which is drinking, aged perhaps 15. Twenty Thousand Streets is drinking, aged maybe 25. And the drinks themselves are a social history too: Gin & French and Gin & It and Port and…was that ‘Bitter and Brown’? (one of the customers has it).
If you’re a Londoner, the great thing about Patrick Hamilton is that his novels are almost entirely geographically accurate, meaning you’re getting that ‘1930s in Colour’, box-of-ghosts feeling (that I get from the New York non-fiction of Joseph Mitchell) and a strong sense of social history. So, they’re forever down the Lyons’ Corner House (Coventry Street, TCR) ; they’re at the cinema at Madame Tussaud’s. The prostitutes (and the lovestruck Bob) do a regular round of Shaftesbury Avenue, Rupert Street and Soho. There are pubs that are still there today (e.g. the Green Man at Great Portland Street) and there’s poverty on Whitfield Street (this is a time where to be poor in London means living in Camden and Pimlico). It has set me off again on a journey to find the Corner Houses. The social history is enough of a draw for me.
Meanwhile, delighted to read that Patrick Hamilton also wrote a trilogy set in Brighton, no less (oh, and he was born in Hassocks). He’s less overlooked now than when Doris Lessing said he was ‘neglected’, but he still deserves much more attention.
September 29, 2010
I was so excited when I bought this book at Hatchards. Can not wait to get stuck in. See you later.
Brilliant . I will never ever forget this book. I could not put it down, yet again Hamilton has blown me away.
Every Londoner should read this book. Hamilton is a master story teller.
Brilliant . I will never ever forget this book. I could not put it down, yet again Hamilton has blown me away.
Every Londoner should read this book. Hamilton is a master story teller.
February 5, 2019
130117: this is three books: 'midnight bell', 'siege of pleasure', 'plains of cement'.
the first book is longest, introducing bob the waiter at the pub so named, and his pathetic relationship with prostitiute jenny, avowedly the most autobiographical story, not too different than hamilton's 'hangover square'. this was most difficult to read, for though i have never had such hopeless pursuit yes i have had stupid relationships (ask my friends...). this story made me think actually of proust's saint loup and his obsession with a woman who is, as he marvels 'not really his type'. reminds me in fact of proust in general, though these characters are definitely not aristocrats but working stiffs....
the second book is shorter and describes how jenny fell into her prostitution, though this is perhaps too deterministic, but it gives a new perspective on her treatment of bob. hamilton has, throughout this trilogy, admirable sympathy, irony, compassion, for all his characters, though this is in comparison with the dickens just read...
the third book follows ella the barmaid at the pub, whose unrequited love for bob and awareness of her poverty lead her into a tentative courtship with a man who promises her security, financial, class, if only love she must argue herself into. class is an overriding concern for this world. money matters. but there is hope, there is love, there is self-respect, there are real lives given simple, direct, gently comic expression. this might not be a world i know, but this trilogy makes it real. even at such ninety years and thousands of kilometres and gap in class and so life expectations...
the first book is longest, introducing bob the waiter at the pub so named, and his pathetic relationship with prostitiute jenny, avowedly the most autobiographical story, not too different than hamilton's 'hangover square'. this was most difficult to read, for though i have never had such hopeless pursuit yes i have had stupid relationships (ask my friends...). this story made me think actually of proust's saint loup and his obsession with a woman who is, as he marvels 'not really his type'. reminds me in fact of proust in general, though these characters are definitely not aristocrats but working stiffs....
the second book is shorter and describes how jenny fell into her prostitution, though this is perhaps too deterministic, but it gives a new perspective on her treatment of bob. hamilton has, throughout this trilogy, admirable sympathy, irony, compassion, for all his characters, though this is in comparison with the dickens just read...
the third book follows ella the barmaid at the pub, whose unrequited love for bob and awareness of her poverty lead her into a tentative courtship with a man who promises her security, financial, class, if only love she must argue herself into. class is an overriding concern for this world. money matters. but there is hope, there is love, there is self-respect, there are real lives given simple, direct, gently comic expression. this might not be a world i know, but this trilogy makes it real. even at such ninety years and thousands of kilometres and gap in class and so life expectations...
February 13, 2024
This charming West End novel was written in 1929. It is divided into the three parts each from the perspective of the three protagonists. Bob is a waiter who falls in love with Jenny the prostitute. Ella is the barmaid who is in love with Bob.
There are a lot of cockney accents in this novel but the character development is quite good. Over the course of the story, I grew attached to Bob and Ella. Jenny is not a particularly likable character but the most interesting. The plot itself is not overly complicated and the story moves slowly. It frequently feels like some big plot twist might be coming but rather is a realistic depiction of what life could have been like for the less fortunate.
This book has held up very well in my opinion for being written some ninety-five years ago.
Solid 4 stars.
There are a lot of cockney accents in this novel but the character development is quite good. Over the course of the story, I grew attached to Bob and Ella. Jenny is not a particularly likable character but the most interesting. The plot itself is not overly complicated and the story moves slowly. It frequently feels like some big plot twist might be coming but rather is a realistic depiction of what life could have been like for the less fortunate.
This book has held up very well in my opinion for being written some ninety-five years ago.
Solid 4 stars.
October 29, 2017
I've read The Midnight Bell in another edition, and returned it to the Library. So to the second book, The Siege of Pleasure, to pick up the story again of Jenny.
Well, The Siege of Pleasure wasn't what I was expecting, that was a pleasant surprise. How wonderful to see this character from another perspective.
Now to Ella, in The Plains of Cement.
Well, The Siege of Pleasure wasn't what I was expecting, that was a pleasant surprise. How wonderful to see this character from another perspective.
Now to Ella, in The Plains of Cement.
March 22, 2015
I found this to be a good read overall, but not nearly as good a read as the novel that introduced me to and left me in awe of the brilliant mind of Patrick Hamilton: The Slaves of Solitude. While I quickly added TSOS to my list of favorite books, I found the individual novels in this trilogy to be more of a mixed bag.
The first part (The Midnight Bell) is the strongest and stands very well on its own. The characters and the setting come vividly to life and I strongly related to Bob the bartender's story. I'd just reread this part if I ever were to revisit this trilogy.
The second part (The Siege of Pleasure) felt comparatively flat and didn't add much, if anything, to the trilogy as a whole. The characters felt more like caricatures and it's more of a short story than a novel.
The 3rd part (The Plains of Cement), comes back to the original story and presents it from the POV of Ella, the barmaid, and then brings in other elements. I liked this third part, but Hamilton starts hitting you over the head with so much obvious political discourse that the characters start to feel more like puppets than characters after awhile. Still, I appreciated the extra layer that it added to the first part.
I'd mostly recommend this to fans of The Slaves of Solitude as a sort of rough sketch for that later, better-crafted novel.
The first part (The Midnight Bell) is the strongest and stands very well on its own. The characters and the setting come vividly to life and I strongly related to Bob the bartender's story. I'd just reread this part if I ever were to revisit this trilogy.
The second part (The Siege of Pleasure) felt comparatively flat and didn't add much, if anything, to the trilogy as a whole. The characters felt more like caricatures and it's more of a short story than a novel.
The 3rd part (The Plains of Cement), comes back to the original story and presents it from the POV of Ella, the barmaid, and then brings in other elements. I liked this third part, but Hamilton starts hitting you over the head with so much obvious political discourse that the characters start to feel more like puppets than characters after awhile. Still, I appreciated the extra layer that it added to the first part.
I'd mostly recommend this to fans of The Slaves of Solitude as a sort of rough sketch for that later, better-crafted novel.
own-but-not-yet-read
January 7, 2009The author of "Gaslight".
“Patrick Hamilton is being revived again. And it looks serious this time… JB Priestley was an early supporter. Hamilton's book The West Pier was generously described by Graham Greene as "the best novel ever written about Brighton". He was John Betjeman's favourite contemporary novelist. Writers from Julie Burchill to Doris Lessing are warm admirers. Biographer Michael Holroyd has written numerous essays and introductions. Nick Hornby recently described him as 'my new best friend'.” —The Independent [UK]
“I've gone Patrick Hamilton crazy. I was blown away by the superbly excruciating Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky , and I'm going to track down some of his out-of-print novels. He writes brilliantly about infatuation and drunkenness - two subjects close to my heart.” –Dan Rhodes, The Observer [UK]
“Patrick Hamilton is being revived again. And it looks serious this time… JB Priestley was an early supporter. Hamilton's book The West Pier was generously described by Graham Greene as "the best novel ever written about Brighton". He was John Betjeman's favourite contemporary novelist. Writers from Julie Burchill to Doris Lessing are warm admirers. Biographer Michael Holroyd has written numerous essays and introductions. Nick Hornby recently described him as 'my new best friend'.” —The Independent [UK]
“I've gone Patrick Hamilton crazy. I was blown away by the superbly excruciating Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky , and I'm going to track down some of his out-of-print novels. He writes brilliantly about infatuation and drunkenness - two subjects close to my heart.” –Dan Rhodes, The Observer [UK]
August 12, 2017
I have done it again by rating this Patrick Hamilton novel five stars, despite being very stingy with five stars. I am filled with admiration for Mr. Hamilton's gifts as a storyteller and his marvelous style. I am unable to put down his novels. This exceptional work is actually a trilogy, with each part about one of the characters and their experiences at roughly the same time frame.
January 18, 2009
Patrick Hamilton is at his most unrelenting here - the characters, all doomed, mainly by alcoholism, are sweet and sympathetic and as each step is taken further down the path of self-destruction, you find yourself figuratively shouting at the screen "please, don't do that!".
From a stylistic angle, this trilogy is one of those that retells the same, or interconnected, stories from several different characters' point of view - a bit reminiscent of Durrell's Alexandria Quartet.
From a stylistic angle, this trilogy is one of those that retells the same, or interconnected, stories from several different characters' point of view - a bit reminiscent of Durrell's Alexandria Quartet.
September 23, 2014
Nothing here that attracts undue attention; the narratives and themes are similar to many stories and movies that may seem even more fundamental or iconic, but-- there is something in the hapless characters Hamilton has rendered that makes it all worthwhile.
Each of the three books is driven by a main character, but the overall structure, location and time-frame is the same and shared by all. The three central characters, Jenny, Bob, Ella-- all know each other, and their presence in the other character's timelines varies with whose story is being told.
But no fireworks; no cross-cutting transitions or Rashomon-style point-of-view shifts here. No searing sheets of verbiage. Simple words, hard times. Gritty urban characters trying their best & worst in the London of the nineteen-thirties; a sort of Proto- Kitchen Sink/ Angry Young Men work, long in advance of those movements.
Atmosphere and location are deftly sketched, in short confident strokes (the modern reader actually yearns for more):
"It had rained during the night, and when Bob woke next morning he looked at the window and noticed with relief that the Universe had returned. By ten o'clock he was regarding yesterday as a kind of nightmare. It had been the fog. He had been frightened of the dark, and lost his nerve. In familiar weather everything was all right again...
Again, at five to eleven, he left the house. The sky was blue, the wind was blowing, the sun was shining... Drains ran, the reflecting mud on the pavements was bright blue, bicycles were skidding, the wind smelt keen and bashed you in the face, slates glistened, and everything was washed and beginning again."
There is humor, and it is a distinctly British, Kingley-Amis kind of satiric worldview; a set of pratfalls is almost always preceded by the protagonist's unerring recognition that just that is likely to happen. Inevitably, though, the humor is there as a buttress to the tragedy. Alcoholism takes its rightful place as a chief enabler here. And without doubt, Hamilton knows the score with alcohol, at a visceral level:
"... All she could do now, if she really wished to go, was to get up and briefly and discourteously depart. But to one so long and arduously trained in the practice of pleasing strangers, to one so wary of her genteel dignity, so morbidly fearful of participating in the minutest dimension of a Scene, such a line of action was a practical impossibility. It looked as though she must stay.
Over and above this, however, she found that half of her honestly decided to stay. As well as the courage, she lacked the pure inclination to go which she had felt a few moments ago. A new sensation had replaced it. A permeating coma, a warm haze of noises and converstaion, wrapped her comfortably around-- together with something more. What that something more was she did not quite know. She sat there and let it flow through her. It was a glow, and a kind of premonition. It was certainly a spiritual, but much more emphatically a physical, premonition of good about to befall. It was like the effect on the body of good news, without the good news-- a delicious short cut to that inconstant elation which was so arduously won by virtue from the everyday world. It engendered the desire to celebrate nothing for no reason."
But it's not the deep feeling for the life that's here, (though for this reader, passages as exampled above rival Nelson Algren's work on addiction), nor the humor that offsets it. Hamilton is out to draw a kind of medieval altar triptych, with all the planes of sanctity and damnation represented unapologetically.
This is the story of those not born of privilege, who must play the game with Luck as the only arbiter, in a world where the odds are stacked against them.
Each of the three books is driven by a main character, but the overall structure, location and time-frame is the same and shared by all. The three central characters, Jenny, Bob, Ella-- all know each other, and their presence in the other character's timelines varies with whose story is being told.
But no fireworks; no cross-cutting transitions or Rashomon-style point-of-view shifts here. No searing sheets of verbiage. Simple words, hard times. Gritty urban characters trying their best & worst in the London of the nineteen-thirties; a sort of Proto- Kitchen Sink/ Angry Young Men work, long in advance of those movements.
Atmosphere and location are deftly sketched, in short confident strokes (the modern reader actually yearns for more):
"It had rained during the night, and when Bob woke next morning he looked at the window and noticed with relief that the Universe had returned. By ten o'clock he was regarding yesterday as a kind of nightmare. It had been the fog. He had been frightened of the dark, and lost his nerve. In familiar weather everything was all right again...
Again, at five to eleven, he left the house. The sky was blue, the wind was blowing, the sun was shining... Drains ran, the reflecting mud on the pavements was bright blue, bicycles were skidding, the wind smelt keen and bashed you in the face, slates glistened, and everything was washed and beginning again."
There is humor, and it is a distinctly British, Kingley-Amis kind of satiric worldview; a set of pratfalls is almost always preceded by the protagonist's unerring recognition that just that is likely to happen. Inevitably, though, the humor is there as a buttress to the tragedy. Alcoholism takes its rightful place as a chief enabler here. And without doubt, Hamilton knows the score with alcohol, at a visceral level:
"... All she could do now, if she really wished to go, was to get up and briefly and discourteously depart. But to one so long and arduously trained in the practice of pleasing strangers, to one so wary of her genteel dignity, so morbidly fearful of participating in the minutest dimension of a Scene, such a line of action was a practical impossibility. It looked as though she must stay.
Over and above this, however, she found that half of her honestly decided to stay. As well as the courage, she lacked the pure inclination to go which she had felt a few moments ago. A new sensation had replaced it. A permeating coma, a warm haze of noises and converstaion, wrapped her comfortably around-- together with something more. What that something more was she did not quite know. She sat there and let it flow through her. It was a glow, and a kind of premonition. It was certainly a spiritual, but much more emphatically a physical, premonition of good about to befall. It was like the effect on the body of good news, without the good news-- a delicious short cut to that inconstant elation which was so arduously won by virtue from the everyday world. It engendered the desire to celebrate nothing for no reason."
But it's not the deep feeling for the life that's here, (though for this reader, passages as exampled above rival Nelson Algren's work on addiction), nor the humor that offsets it. Hamilton is out to draw a kind of medieval altar triptych, with all the planes of sanctity and damnation represented unapologetically.
This is the story of those not born of privilege, who must play the game with Luck as the only arbiter, in a world where the odds are stacked against them.
March 19, 2016
Not a flawless book by any means but a multi-layered one that is so passionately and evocatively written that it seems churlish to award any fewer than five stars. The first of the three novellas, written from the perspective of the barman and aspiring writer Bob, is semi-autobiographical and exudes genuinely felt pain and anger. The other two, focusing on the prostitute Jenny and the barmaid Ella, feel less authentic but are nonetheless devastating. The overall tone is extremely bleak but there is an underlying defiance and faith in human nature that stops it from being a pure misery fest like Hardy’s Jude the Obscure or Gissing’s New Grub Street. Hamilton also seems to me to have been ahead of his time in the way he depicts women, who in Twenty Thousand Streets… are very much peers of the male characters and much more than one dimensional victims of an unjust society. Jenny is a particularly interesting and enigmatic character who reminded me a lot of Sarah Woodruff in the The French Lieutenant's Woman, which was written the best part of half a century later and considered a fairly challenging book even then.
September 20, 2013
I would have given it four stars if it wasn't for the dull third part. I found the character of Ella charming but colorless to read. When Mr. Eccles makes his advances on her it takes Hamilton about 5 pages to describe him asking her to go to the theatre with him. I wanted to tear my hair out at these parts; very much reminded me of some George Eliot stuff...you know, like the rambling aspect...Dickens does it too, to a certain degree.
Jenny was quite an interesting character...lacked interest in men and used them to her own devices. Not really quite sure why she is quite so miserable and maybe Hamilton should have gone into her background more instead of making her a bit of a bitch. Despite that I preferred her to Bob who was a massive push over from start to finish. I admired his love of literature but I think he had let this go to his head somewhat. He was naive from start to finish. I do enjoy the way Patrick Hamilton writes, he can be very witty and cynical...but at the same time I struggle with his characters. They are really effing annoying sometimes. The moment the story of Jenny and Bob ended I lost interest, I don't think Ella should have had a book dedicated to her. We got the message that she was infatuated by Bob, but there was no need to explain this in an entire novel. Anyway. Not a bad read! Fine writer!
Jenny was quite an interesting character...lacked interest in men and used them to her own devices. Not really quite sure why she is quite so miserable and maybe Hamilton should have gone into her background more instead of making her a bit of a bitch. Despite that I preferred her to Bob who was a massive push over from start to finish. I admired his love of literature but I think he had let this go to his head somewhat. He was naive from start to finish. I do enjoy the way Patrick Hamilton writes, he can be very witty and cynical...but at the same time I struggle with his characters. They are really effing annoying sometimes. The moment the story of Jenny and Bob ended I lost interest, I don't think Ella should have had a book dedicated to her. We got the message that she was infatuated by Bob, but there was no need to explain this in an entire novel. Anyway. Not a bad read! Fine writer!
September 24, 2015
This is extraordinarily good in a stealthy quiet way to start with then before you know it you're drawn in to the insanity of behaviour of each of Hamilton's characters.
Human frailty in it's individual forms is very carefully and cleverly drawn. Bob is infatuated with Jenny and like a car crash in accurate slow motion, and even though you can see far better than Bob how it will all end somehow you can't put the book down. This just shows you that twisty-turny shock-horror surprise plots are NOT necessary to hold interest. There is something compellingly macarbre about knowing what will happen then watching it happen.
The second book which is Jenny's story is the same. As with Bob, Hamilton stealthily shows you her weakness, her rationale for doing what she does and her inevitable and particular personal failure of personality as well as her betrayal by others.
And as you read of course you inevitably are reminded of your own weaknesses and self deceptions. Incredibly clever yet simple writing. The dialogue is relentless and real. Excellent
Human frailty in it's individual forms is very carefully and cleverly drawn. Bob is infatuated with Jenny and like a car crash in accurate slow motion, and even though you can see far better than Bob how it will all end somehow you can't put the book down. This just shows you that twisty-turny shock-horror surprise plots are NOT necessary to hold interest. There is something compellingly macarbre about knowing what will happen then watching it happen.
The second book which is Jenny's story is the same. As with Bob, Hamilton stealthily shows you her weakness, her rationale for doing what she does and her inevitable and particular personal failure of personality as well as her betrayal by others.
And as you read of course you inevitably are reminded of your own weaknesses and self deceptions. Incredibly clever yet simple writing. The dialogue is relentless and real. Excellent
Read
March 22, 2022Set in “The Smoke” before the clean air act made the name redundant. This book reeks of London as it was but is no more. Pimlico, Camden and Clapham went through gentrification so long ago they’ve all now reached a higher plane. Chiswick has been oligarched.
But there’s no nostalgia here, this is proper “penny on the rope” grim. Dead end jobs, rigid social structures, bread & dripping poverty. It’s a tough read and yet there’s just enough humour to keep you turning the pages. Mr Eccles’ umbrella tapping Ella on the head whilst they scuttle through the rain, Ella too inhibited to just get wet.
Reminded me of my mother’s family and childhood visits to The Borough when it was still solidly white and working class. Peabody Trust flats, outdoor khazi, factories with chimneys. Ghastly London in all its ghastliness.
This is a great book about ordinary people in ordinary jobs, engaging in ordinary relationships and failing. Miserably. Can’t wait to read more PH but first of all I need to cheer myself up a bit. 5/5
But there’s no nostalgia here, this is proper “penny on the rope” grim. Dead end jobs, rigid social structures, bread & dripping poverty. It’s a tough read and yet there’s just enough humour to keep you turning the pages. Mr Eccles’ umbrella tapping Ella on the head whilst they scuttle through the rain, Ella too inhibited to just get wet.
Reminded me of my mother’s family and childhood visits to The Borough when it was still solidly white and working class. Peabody Trust flats, outdoor khazi, factories with chimneys. Ghastly London in all its ghastliness.
This is a great book about ordinary people in ordinary jobs, engaging in ordinary relationships and failing. Miserably. Can’t wait to read more PH but first of all I need to cheer myself up a bit. 5/5
May 11, 2015
Oh genre porn, thy name is longwinded stories about British laborers in London living small lives, dealing with small issues and somehow breaking your heart in the process. The amount of tragedy that human beings can cope with never ceases to amaze me especially when treated well by an author with a flare for wry-statements-by-omniscient-narrator. My NYRB edition had a great foreward by Susanna Moore.
September 2, 2017
I've read The Midnight Bell. Five stars. Next to read is The Siege of Pleasure and The Plains of Cement.
Returned to the trilogy 26 June 2017 in another edition, The Siege of Pleasure to resume the story from Jenny's perspective.
Returned to the trilogy 26 June 2017 in another edition, The Siege of Pleasure to resume the story from Jenny's perspective.
October 8, 2021
My second Patrick Hamilton after Hangover Square, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is a novel made up of three novels, or perhaps movements--although I'm not completely convinced Hamilton set out with a plan for all three to be one--he may have been simply writing the first, which prompted the second, and maybe at that point decided to continue with the third, and, even then, perhaps he only agreed to repackage the three together at his publisher's urging for market rather than literary concerns. Whichever the case, the three novels do form something of a piece and are not wholly unlike the three movements of Herman Broch's more ambitious and greater work, The Sleepwalkers which I also recently read.
What perhaps makes Hamilton's trilogy a tad less profound that Broch's is its lack of clear unifying theme. Even if Broch is mired in a more drawn out late-19th-century style--which modernizes slightly as it proceeds into the 20th century--Hamilton's trilogy is pretty strongly conceived and executed in the modernist tradition. Each of the three novels is also quite self contained and doesn't really need the others in order to make its case--which clue leads me to believe there was no grand scheme at work when he began. This doesn't at all work against the novels themselves and each is a fascinating and pleasurable read in and of itself. The latter two, since they kind of posit the existence of the first, perhaps lean on it a bit, but it's really of no great matter.
Besides, then, the London setting and the social (working class) situation of the three protagonists of the three separate novels, I did notice one interesting unifying factor. Thus, if there is a unifying theme here, I would argue that it's linguistic. Kind of fabulously, Hamilton has a remarkable ear for the way the working class uses, abuses, and negotiates their ambiguous English tongue. First and foremost, like his American counterpart Ernest Hemingway, Hamilton has a wonderful ear for dialogue and hearing these people speak their truths is a joy throughout all three novels.
Because of the prostitute character in the first novel, The Midnight Bell, and the protagonist's passion for her, the very word becomes the linchpin of the section. It's easy for the protagonist, Bob, to know and at the same time not know Jenny's profession. Two key scenes later include Jenny, in a rare moment of self-awareness (which is the theme then of the second novel) using the word, thus denuding the reality that Bob's romanticism would gloss over. Then, fatally, it's Bob's throwing the word back at her later that, in my opinion, really concludes the story, as once he's leveled the accusation at her verbally, there's no going back to the romantic dream of ignoring who she really is, reforming her, or going on at all. Brilliant stuff.
The second novel, The Siege of Pleasure, backtracks to Jenny's moment of conversion from chaste working girl to "working girl." This section reminded me very much, despite having a totally different tone, of Boccaccio's Decameron, that medieval collection of tales of seduction in which so many characters pull off either sexual seduction or a confidence trick by re-framing these acts via clever, benign linguistic metaphors. One of Boccaccio's biggest jokes in the Decameron lies in the fact that this happens directly in 99 of his hundred tales, and in the exception, the Masetto of Lamporecchio tale, a man pretends to be a deaf mute and allows a whole nunnery to use his silence to seduce themselves. Jenny's self seduction, her endless rearrangement of the words describing what she is doing, is the fulcrum around which the second section revolves. Again, a great theme!
The third section highlights this theme even more viscerally as we follow he barmaid Ella through her long-suffering attempt to decipher the person, actions, and words of her importunate suitor Mr Eccles. The poor girl's actual desires hinge upon Mr. Eccles' words and actions, but he remains vague and indecipherable almost to the very end, driving both Ella and the reader mad with his ambiguity. Again, great stuff. Only 4 stars because, although really good, I felt that the trilogy was a bit ad hoc overall and its greatness kind of creeps up on the reader rather than forcefully declaring itself outright. (NB although a great title The Plains of Cement, given the recent fury over Colin Whitehead's last novel, should have been The Plains of Concrete, which is, arguably, an even better sounding title.)
One last thing: since the subject of the first novel appears to be rather close to Hamilton's own experience, I find his willingness and to step back and write about himself from a slightly more objective viewpoint rather charming and super well executed. The sympathy and also reserved condemnation of Jenny works well. Also the nearly feminist presentation of Ella's plight in the third volume helps to temper the rather unexpected vague Anti-Semitism toward the end of the the first. Apparently Hamilton was evolving politically as well while writing the three novels: he begins a working class conservative and ended an avowed anti-Fascist Communist by the time he penned the third. Too bad he didn't go back and write out the Anti-Semitism of the first volume, particularly after the horrific events of WWII, which inevitably hinged on that type of working class attitude in order to come about.
What perhaps makes Hamilton's trilogy a tad less profound that Broch's is its lack of clear unifying theme. Even if Broch is mired in a more drawn out late-19th-century style--which modernizes slightly as it proceeds into the 20th century--Hamilton's trilogy is pretty strongly conceived and executed in the modernist tradition. Each of the three novels is also quite self contained and doesn't really need the others in order to make its case--which clue leads me to believe there was no grand scheme at work when he began. This doesn't at all work against the novels themselves and each is a fascinating and pleasurable read in and of itself. The latter two, since they kind of posit the existence of the first, perhaps lean on it a bit, but it's really of no great matter.
Besides, then, the London setting and the social (working class) situation of the three protagonists of the three separate novels, I did notice one interesting unifying factor. Thus, if there is a unifying theme here, I would argue that it's linguistic. Kind of fabulously, Hamilton has a remarkable ear for the way the working class uses, abuses, and negotiates their ambiguous English tongue. First and foremost, like his American counterpart Ernest Hemingway, Hamilton has a wonderful ear for dialogue and hearing these people speak their truths is a joy throughout all three novels.
Because of the prostitute character in the first novel, The Midnight Bell, and the protagonist's passion for her, the very word becomes the linchpin of the section. It's easy for the protagonist, Bob, to know and at the same time not know Jenny's profession. Two key scenes later include Jenny, in a rare moment of self-awareness (which is the theme then of the second novel) using the word, thus denuding the reality that Bob's romanticism would gloss over. Then, fatally, it's Bob's throwing the word back at her later that, in my opinion, really concludes the story, as once he's leveled the accusation at her verbally, there's no going back to the romantic dream of ignoring who she really is, reforming her, or going on at all. Brilliant stuff.
The second novel, The Siege of Pleasure, backtracks to Jenny's moment of conversion from chaste working girl to "working girl." This section reminded me very much, despite having a totally different tone, of Boccaccio's Decameron, that medieval collection of tales of seduction in which so many characters pull off either sexual seduction or a confidence trick by re-framing these acts via clever, benign linguistic metaphors. One of Boccaccio's biggest jokes in the Decameron lies in the fact that this happens directly in 99 of his hundred tales, and in the exception, the Masetto of Lamporecchio tale, a man pretends to be a deaf mute and allows a whole nunnery to use his silence to seduce themselves. Jenny's self seduction, her endless rearrangement of the words describing what she is doing, is the fulcrum around which the second section revolves. Again, a great theme!
The third section highlights this theme even more viscerally as we follow he barmaid Ella through her long-suffering attempt to decipher the person, actions, and words of her importunate suitor Mr Eccles. The poor girl's actual desires hinge upon Mr. Eccles' words and actions, but he remains vague and indecipherable almost to the very end, driving both Ella and the reader mad with his ambiguity. Again, great stuff. Only 4 stars because, although really good, I felt that the trilogy was a bit ad hoc overall and its greatness kind of creeps up on the reader rather than forcefully declaring itself outright. (NB although a great title The Plains of Cement, given the recent fury over Colin Whitehead's last novel, should have been The Plains of Concrete, which is, arguably, an even better sounding title.)
One last thing: since the subject of the first novel appears to be rather close to Hamilton's own experience, I find his willingness and to step back and write about himself from a slightly more objective viewpoint rather charming and super well executed. The sympathy and also reserved condemnation of Jenny works well. Also the nearly feminist presentation of Ella's plight in the third volume helps to temper the rather unexpected vague Anti-Semitism toward the end of the the first. Apparently Hamilton was evolving politically as well while writing the three novels: he begins a working class conservative and ended an avowed anti-Fascist Communist by the time he penned the third. Too bad he didn't go back and write out the Anti-Semitism of the first volume, particularly after the horrific events of WWII, which inevitably hinged on that type of working class attitude in order to come about.
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