London: The Biography (original 2000; edition 2003)

This is a book I've been looking forward to reading for several years, but its thickness meant I wasn't very keen on carrying it around for a long time, so I kept putting it off until I picked it up as Christmas travel reading. And it didn't quite live up to my expectations; organised thematically, it seemed unorganised and haphazard at times, and discussions on various things seemed pretty shallow. So I'm a little disappointed; I've seen the TV version based on the book, and while I can't remember very much about it, I think it didn't impress me either. ( )

This was just fucking brilliant. It's not a linear history. Rather, each chapter is a new topic, and Ackroyd covers the history of that topic before moving on to the next topic/chapter. There are chapters on the history of lighting London (torches, gas lights, etc.), one on the behavior of crowds over the centuries, one on churches, one on effluvia (read: poop), one on the buried rivers of London (yes there's more than one)... It's amazing. And 79 chapters long. This mother is HUGE. And worth it. Ackroyd plays it pretty straight, but every so often he'll say things like, "The bowels of God moved, and he took a shit on London." Peter Ackroyd is AWESOME. ( )

I've only had the opportunity to spend a few days in London, so I can't claim to know the city well. But, says Ackroyd - himself seemingly a lifelong Londoner, it's been centuries since anyone can claim to really know the city. His bibliographic essay notes there are at least 21, 778 works on the city, and he doesn't claim to have read them all. Still, he has overturned a fair sized library for this book , added some personal observations, and produced an impressionistic, kaleidoscopic book.

Ackroyd eschews a straightforward chronological history. There are sections on London from its beginnings to 1066, medieval London, the Great Fire, Victorian London, and the city's destruction in the Blitz and its later rebuilding. But most of the book is essay like chapters built around themes covering every aspect of London life from its Underground and buried past to its notorious fogs and smogs, its wildlife and street life, markets illicit and licit, disasters and buildings, festivals and executions. And it's not exactly a celebration of the city. Again and again he returns to the metaphor of London as prison. The exemplar here is Jack Sheppard who escaped from London prisons six times. Yet, he never left the city for more than a few days even though it cost him his life.

London as theater is Ackroyd's other metaphor. It extends far beyond the literal stage to the garb of its inhabitants or the speeches of the soon to be hanged at Newgate. London, emphasizes Ackroyd, is a great commercial maw. All has been subsumed in trade at one time or another from the goods of empire coming in at the Thames docks to the sewer hunters and mudlarks scouring muck for treasures. Men, women, and children all played their roles. Even would-be rebels became a trade in Carnaby Street.

One of the most fascinating things in the book is Ackroyd's frequent quotes from foreign visitors. Yoshio Markino, a Japanese painter, noted that the garish colors of London's buildings became beautiful when seen in a fog. Dostoevsky remarked on Londoners haste to drink themselves insensible. (After reading the book's accounts of London riots and drinking, one is tempted to see some modern London problems as a return to some sort of default state for the city.)

How certain London neighborhoods have long been associated with certain acivities is also well told by Ackroyd. He not only talks about the famous Soho but Clerkenwell as well. The latter has, for centuries, been associated with religious heretics and revolutionaries. (Lenin lived there for a time.) And the same neighborhood has a long tradition of clockmaking. (Perhaps explaining why Hiram Maxim worked on his machine guns there.)

Given Ackroyd's many books on literary figures, quotes from British literary figures are to be expected. (Ackroyd notes that it is exceptional for them not to have a London connection.) Dickens, Defoe, Smollett, Milton, Boswell, Orwell, and Wolfe all had things to say about London in essays, letters, and fiction. The literary minded reader may be tempted to make a game of remembering relevant quotes and writers not in the book.

As well as being associated with literature and the capitol of empire, London's bustle helped develop the theories of Darwin and Engels - though Ackroyd asserts this in passing without much proof. The instrument makers of London were crucial to developing the science of the Enlightenment.

There are three minor quibbles with the book. Some of the anecdotes do get repeated though not many in a book so long. Second and more seriously, Ackroyd exhibits some unquestioned pieties. Seeing the poor as diseased and dirty is not a totally groundless stereotype. Mental illness can underlie all three conditions as well as less pathological mental traits. And Ackroyd, in a section on immigrants to London, makes the lazy analogy that complaints about today's immigrants are the same - and equally groundless - as those of the past. That ignores the numbers and cultures of Britian's current immigrants and the corrosive effects of modern transportation and communication on assimilation. One wonders, now that Islamic terrorism has made its way to Britain and sharia law can be enforced by the state, if he feels the same eight years after the book was published. The third quibble is that sometimes Ackroyd thinks he is describing a unique trait of Londoners when it's really more universal. For instance, in what city aren't children attracted to dangerous and forbidden places?

Still, this is a remarkable book in its variety, and it almost never bores despite its length. Anybody interested in one of the great cities of the Western Mind will want to read it. ( )

This weighty tome about the life of the city of London was a massive disappointment, and a grueling and nearly impossible book to read. It isn't a biography in the linear sense, rather it is a collection of short chapters about different aspects of the city throughout its history, including its rivers, churches, theatres, and outcasts. Each chapter consists mainly of quotes from other sources, and its lack of narrative flow makes for an exceptionally dry and thoroughly unrewarding read, which reminded me of an 800 page essay written by a college freshman. Anyone brave enough to tackle this book is advised to read it in tiny segments, or, as I did, skim the book to read the most interesting sections. ( )

I brought this book home from the library soon after my trip to London, all excited to dig into the history of the places I had been and learn more about this great historic city. In the beginning, my reading was going well. Thought it is structured thematically rather than chronologically, I got a kick out of recognizing street names that I had walked or passed and got a kick out of imagining the city during the Middle Ages.

Fast forward several hundred pages and several weeks later. I'm still enjoying learning the history, but reading has become slow. Ackroyd includes several quotes and then interprets them, English-major fashion, making a comment about "London itself" and sometimes, IMHO, stretching things a bit. This is getting old, and repetitive. His quotes come from both fiction and nonfiction, but there is not one note included at the back for me to look at his sources. Instead, he has an eleven-page-long "Essay on Sources" that, should you have the energy after 760 pages of text, you can read if you like. Frankly, the book was due back at the library a few days ago, and I thought it was safe to skip (though I did briefly glance through it last night and added London at War to the TBR list). Comprehensive, but a bit repetitive. I daresay I would've liked it better if I hadn't read the last 300 pages in the last 5 days. ( )