Hawksmoor

6-6-22 Updated review of Hawksmoor after re-reading.

Hawksmoor is one of those novels that make you view the world a little bit differently, and I mean that in a literal sense. This book was so well written it was easy to forget that it wasn't a horrifying portrayal of an actual man, it was easy to forget that it was fiction. The great thing about Hawksmoor is that it impressed itself on me, captured my imagination, and even after finishing it, I keep thinking about it.

Hawksmoor is a book that makes me do a double-take while walking, just to make sure I'm not being followed by a shadowy white haired figure, while at the same time I'm pondering the interpretations of life, time and human nature that the novel postulates, all the while I show more cannot figure out what actually happened in the book. In a strange way, Hawksmoor is refreshing, scary, and thought provoking. I understood and appreciated it much better on this second read than on the first.

Although it wasn't a page turner by any means, or an easy read, nor is Hawksmoor for everyone, it remains by far my favorite novel.

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Original Review 4-7-22

Hawksmoor was a truly unique read. This book is unlike anything I have read before. In the vein of the good classics, Ackroyd used the novel as a vehicle to express and postulate a worldview. It wasn’t merely fluffy fiction and a good story.

Some have called novel ‘post-modern’ I beg to differ with that classification. The fact that Ackroyd wrote half this book in exquisite 18th century prose indicates that Hawksmoor is something more than just a postmodern novel. There were times when I forgot that Nicholas Dyer was not a real character, and that we were not actually reading his journal penned in the early 1700s. I have read plenty of books that attempt to imitate 18th or early 19th century prose, but this is the only one that has been convincing.

Right until the end of Hawksmoor, I couldn’t decide whether or not I liked it. I kept swinging from absolutely adoring it, to utter contempt. In the end, I would have to give it 4.5 starts, unreservedly. I did listen to an audiobook, and I’m pretty sure that if I had read it, it would have been much better. Hawksmoor is hands-down, one of my favorite novels. I cannot wait to get a physical copy and re-read it. show less

A fascinating if ultimately remote book. I loved many of its ideas: the problematisation of time and reality as we understand them; the psychogeographic exploration of London's darkness (if cities can fall victim to such things, it's a character assassination); and most of all, Dyer's dark, syncretic version of Christianity.

It could be engaged with as folk horror – a fascinating and particularly British genre that was only identified about 20 years after the book's writing, and one I love. But it also shares some of that genre's common failings, not least a wilful obscurity that pushes the reader away even as it tries to draw you in. (It's not the book's fault, but certain elements, such as the refrain of nursery rhymes, have become show more cliche in the years since its publication.)

Overall, a book that it's easier to admire than to enjoy. Recommended for those who found From Hell that bit too accessible. show less

It's in two halves - one written in 18th century vernacular (ala Mason & Dixon), one in grim 80's London (ala, maybe Will Self?). The first works marvelously, the latter doesn't at all. The (weirdly thorough) wikipedia article calls it "postmodern", but to me it just feels poorly planned-out, and the title character feels like a lump of grumpy nothingness.

Also, whilst the book is obviously the work of An Historian, it seems like Ackroyd makes a couple of glaring errors. A man walking from Bristol via Bagshot "arrives in London via the Isle of Dogs". Not possible by my reckoning.

A couple of recommendations if you chance upon this review before attempting the book. (1) if you’ve picked this up because you love a good, literary murder mystery, you may wish to reconsider; though murders occur, and there’s a detective intent upon solving them, you’ll find almost every other traditional mystery trope – clues, motives, suspects, an investigation, a denoument – unsettlingly absent here. (2) Fully half the book is written utilizing 17th century literary conventions (complete with period-appropriate erratic spelling, punctuation, and grammar) – if this doesn’t appeal to you, you’ve another reason to move on. (3) Though I tend to avoid spoilers, in this case you may actually want to start off by reading show more one or more of the many literary essays devoted to this book, so that you don’t waste three quarters of the book (as I did) trying desperately to make sense of incidents that, it turns out, aren’t necessarily meant to make sense – at least not in any traditional, logical way.

For Hawksmoor is, according to people smarter than me, a work of “postmodern” literature – a deliberate effort on the part of Ackroyd, the novel’s erudite author, to pervert narrative conventions, genre, character development – even chronological time. In the process, he’s created an uneven tale consisting of two parallel narratives, one of them a great deal more fully-realized and engaging than the other.

The more engaging narrative, set in late 17th century London, tells the tale of Nicholas Dyer, an architect in charge of building a series of major churches throughout the city and also, secretly, a worshipper of ancient, fearful gods who, among other things, require that each of his churches be consecrated by a human sacrifice. His professional and philosophical rival is Sir Christopher Wren, a fellow architect who, in contrast, is a champion of the Age of Reason, intent upon displacing the old gods and setting new ones – science and logic - in their place. This juxtaposition allows Ackroyd to explore both these forces – and especially the opposition between them – at some length, resulting in a series of richly imagined, often disturbing scenes and set-pieces. (Seriously, some of the scenes are presented in the form of miniature plays – more postmodern experimentation, I presume, but it works.)

Perhaps because these chapters are so rich, dark, and disturbing, the half of the narrative set in (more or less) modern-day London, featuring Det. Hawksmoor and his attempts to solve a series of murders at churches designed by Dyer, can’t help but pale in comparison. Dyer’s gradual descent into madness is satisfyingly convincing and creepy; Hawksmoors’, alas, is merely tedious.

Before too long you begin to notice that the two narratives are tied together by more than Dyer’s churches (which, by the way, are laid out in the form of a pentagon, along ancient “lay lines” of power); increasingly, incidents in the lives of Hawksmoor and Dyer parallel/intersect, the intent of which could be interpreted in any number of ways. My own interpretation is that Ackroyd means us to understand that the conflict between reason and chaos, though less visible beneath our 20th century veneer of reason, continues unabated, particularly at sites (like Dyer’s churches) where ancient evils have long festered and concentrated. This interpretation is supported, I believe, by the parallels that Ackroyd draws between his London of 1690 and his London of today – despite the passage of years, the two Londons are eerily similar, from the songs the urchins sing in the streets to the cries of the vendors selling their wares, from buildings perched uneasily upon the foundations of structures dating back to prehistory to the timeless cruelty and bullying of children, from streets still named after their ancient antecedents to the sad, desperate lives of the beggars, whores and madmen who exist at the fringes of humanity.

A provocative thesis, and when combined with Ackroyd’s gift for authentic period detail and eerie narrative, enough for me to recommend this as a worthwhile read, even if “postmodern” isn’t ordinarily my cup of tea. show less

“And his own image was sitting beside him, pondering deeply and sighing, and when he put out his hand and touched him he shuddered. But do not say that he touched him, say that they touched him. And when they looked at the space between them, they wept. The church trembled as the sun rose and fell, and the half-light was strewn across the floor like rushes. They were face to face, and yet they looked past one another at the pattern which they cast upon the stone; for when there was a shape there was a reflection, and when there was a light there was a shadow, and when there was a sound there was an echo, and who could say where one had ended and the other had begun? And when they spoke they spoke with one voice:
and I must have slept, show more for these figures greeted me as if they were in a dream.”

—Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd

Had to dig into commentary to confirm whether I’d gotten what I was supposed to have; and the research did not disappoint. Just like this book. It’s nice to come across challenging fiction that is also poetic and narratively interesting—even if the experimentation gets more rope to range into the field as far as possible from the driven stake. Actually, I prefer it that way. Far too much emphasis is placed on narrative. Far too much on character. And I get it. Those are where the hooks are, that’s where the money is made. But when a novel has so much research that it makes me look up whether the world invented was real or not (partially, in this case), I call that a huge accomplishment; especially given that I love to write pseudo-historical fiction myself. Definitely looking forward to dipping into Mr. Ackroyd’s bibliography. Such astounding dedication to research and style can hardly be expected to disappoint. Just like this book. (Wait a minute . . . am I going in circles? Oh, that’s just the ourborical structure of the book—the circular shadows swallowing their own tails.) show less

You say the timing is crucial, Superintendent, but I have to say that in this case, I don’t understand the timing at all.

Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd is entirely about time: how we experience it, how it flows, what we don’t comprehend about it. It’s a story with what appear to be two timelines. One is the story of Nicholas Dryer, an early 18th century architect charged with designing/rebuilding six London churches and Nicholas Hawksmoor, a Scotland Yard detective of the 1980s charged with solving a series of murders at the same London churches. Switching by chapter between the eras, Ackroyd links the two times with common names, phrases, bits of songs and poems. A compass is lost; a compass is found. A boy’s teachers bear the same show more or similar names to another boy’s schoolyard tormentors. Soon characters begin to hear snatches of conversation from another time or see shadows of the past or future. Lives and deaths are being acted out with identical plots, hundreds of years apart.

…it seemed to him that the river itself was perpetually turning and spinning: it was going no certain direction, and Hawksmoor felt for a moment that he might fall into its darkness.

Ackroyd might well be describing his vision of time instead of the Thames. In Hawksmoor time turns on itself, meeting itself where it wills.
As it happens, I felt I needed to set aside large blocks of time to read [Hawksmoor]. This is not a book to pick up and put down, reading in small snippets. The rhythm of the writing, especially in the 18th century chapters, is somewhat demanding and easier, at least for me, read in longer stretches.

I can’t say that I enjoyed Hawksmoor; it would be more truthful to say I admire it. It is very well done and quite engrossing. It’s a novel that would reveal, on further readings, even more depth and nuance, but it is unlikely I’ll ever pick it up again. Still, I’m glad I read it. show less

Difficult to do justice to this complex book with so many parallels in its interwoven narrative that switches between the early 18th century and late twentieth. The narrative of Nicholas Dyer, based on the real life Nicholas Hawksmoor - whose name Ackroyd gives instead to his 20th century detective - is an impressive recreation of the thought processes and even the style of expression, down to the eccentric spelling and frequent capital letters, of a deeply sinister character whose nihilism and devil worship has been formed from the trauma of witnessing his parents' deaths in the plague and from the education given subsequently by a cult leader who took him in off the streets. Dyer secretly adds elements to the seven churches he show more designs, to embody the power of his negative religious beliefs and to ensure that the churches form an everlasting nexus of murder and degradation, sanctifying each with a human sacrifice, but as time goes on, becomes increasingly paranoid that others are onto him, with disastrous results for two of his work colleagues. Centuries later, it seems that someone is repeating the human sacrifices with many parallels and Hawksmoor unravels as he fails to solve the killings.

I like most the 18th century parts of the novel. I couldn't take to Hawksmoor, finding him a cipher rather than a character and found the ending baffling. show less