London Belongs to Me

London Belongs To Me covers two years, from Christmas 1938 to Christmas 1940. Momentous years for London, but it starts in a very un-momentous way, with an office Christmas party which includes a farewell to the loyal but invisible clerk, Mr Josser. Of all the characters in that chapter, I was surprised that the narrative then followed Mr Josser home - but I think I was meant to feel that way, as the point of the story is to look into the lives of the sort of people who go about their lives barely noticed - the quiet clerk, the ageing cloakroom attendant, the car mechanic whose abilities will never live up to his dreams. All these people live in the same building as Mr Josser, and (with the rest of their neighbours) we follow them for show more the next two years. It's a lightly written book, but in some ways all human life is here in these quiet characters, with all their human emotions, ambitions, loyalties and dreams. The author's real sympathy for these people comes through.

One of my favourite scenes was the one in which the Jossers meet their future in-laws for the first time. We see Mrs Josser in a complete panic about how to make a good impression - the other father is a country doctor, not a retired South London clerk. But when we meet the other parents, it's clear that they have been in just as much of a panic about the impression they will make on these glamorous city folk. Even though the dinner goes badly, my heart was warmed by the fact that Mrs Josser was not, in the end, shown up as she had feared.

London itself, in all its grimness and rich diversity, is almost a character in the book as well. It's a bit reminiscent of Dickens in this way, and in the detailed attention it gives to people's lives. (Also, the character names - Veesey Blaize, the lawyer, for example). show less

London Belongs to Me had everything I look for in a book: well-drawn characters, a vivid setting, and interesting storylines. Throw in some history and I’m pretty well set. The novel opens on Christmas Eve, 1938, as Fred Josser is retiring from his long career as a bookkeeper. His entire adult life has been shaped by daily routine, and one can imagine he will have difficulty coping with retirement. Mr Josser returns home to celebrate Christmas with his family, introducing the reader to the other tenants of 10 Dulcimer Street. Besides Mr & Mrs Josser and their adult children Ted and Doris, there’s Mr Puddy, Mrs Boon and her son Percy, Connie the aging former actress turned hatcheck girl, spiritual medium Mr Squales, and landlady Mrs show more Vizzard. Each has a story that will play out gradually over two years and more than 700 pages.

The Jossers are very much at the center of this novel. They look out for their neighbors and seem to be involved to some degree in most anything that happens. This is not always by choice -- Connie has a way of putting her nose into everyone’s business, to amusing effect. But when Mrs Boon and Percy fall on hard times, the Jossers work tirelessly on their behalf, setting their own dreams aside. When Mrs Vizzard suffers a betrayal, Mrs Josser overcomes her natural reserve to provide comfort. And then there’s the war and its far-reaching impact on everyone’s lives.

This book makes for easy, relaxing reading, thanks to a pleasing rotation of chapters focused on the many characters, and ending with mini-cliffhangers that made me eager to keep reading to learn what would happen next. show less

I've been telling anyone who will listen about this book. It is an incredible piece of literature - full of life, humour, pathos. It reads like a classic Ealing Film and it made me warm to London in a way I haven't before. All of the characters are beautifully real, from the landlady of the house that acts as the focus of the novel, to her crazy fiancé who pretends to be a medium without realising he really is a medium, and the perpetually resting actress who likes to be in the thick of everyone's business. The best characters, though, are the Josser family. They are every working class family from that era - resolute, principled, kind but not showy. I was sad when I had to close the book on them. I love it when characters become show more important to me like that. show less

Heavily Dickens-influenced slab of London life covering the inhabitants of a Kennington rooming-house from Christmas 1938 to Christmas 1940. There are some funny scenes, especially involving the novel's best character, the spiritualist and con-man Mr Squales, who unwittingly possesses real psychic powers (which I thought ought to have featured more than just twice). However, most of the humour is very much of the "gentle" variety, as Collins affectionately steers characters like the bumbling, congestive Mr Puddy and the impoverished but optimistic Connie through a series of minor misadventures. The scenes from the blitz, which only get going in the last 1/4 of the novel, are very well done. The trials of Connie and Percy are also show more standout set-pieces.

The two downsides for me were the Dickensian nomenclature (Josser, Puddy, Squales, a barrister by the name of Veesey Blaise) and Collin's constant narration from within his characters' heads which, given they speak in rather similar voices, gives the prose a saminess that grates over 700+ pages. But that's the kind of book this is.

There's no grand scheme to this novel; it's just a well-drawn soap focusing on ordinary Londoners. I can absolutely see why it was a popular smash on publication. show less

Anticipating Colin MacInnes but with the word count of Dickens, London Belongs To Me is a sort of wartime soap opera about the lives of the landlady and five tenants of a South London house. There's a murder in the early chapters and the Blitz at the end - or what should be the end - but the characters are the real focus of the story. Collins writes about people in a timeless yet slightly comic style which means that they are both ordinary and larger than life. I didn't really get a sense of the pre/early war era in which the book is set, either, but enjoyed much of my stay at Dulcimer Street - a better editor, to crop around two hundred pages and pick up on characters with multiple names, would have made this a five star book for me. show more And on a side note, I haven't loathed a character like Percy Boon since having to endure Pinkie in Brighton Rock! show less

London Belongs To Me begins in Christmas 1938 and follows the lives of the inhabitants of 10 Dulcimer Street, a large house in south London, over a year. The house is owned by the widowed Mrs Vizzard who lets out rooms to a number of people; she's keen to ensure that her residents are the right kind of people, no riff-raff. Despite her best efforts they're a mixed bunch, including a single gentleman who likes his food, an ageing nightclub hostess, a mother deeply devoted to her only son in the most difficult of circumstances. While not hiding their faults and foibles and often poking gentle fun at them, Collins clearly has affection for his characters. The nightclub hostess, Connie, for example, is horribly nosy and pushes her way into show more situations where she's not wanted but we also see how deeply lonely she is and the precariousness of her livelihood. After 700+ pages I was sad to leave them all, even the wrong 'uns.

The other character in the book is London. The city that Collins describes isn't Buckingham Palace and St Paul's Cathedral. It's the London of commuters from the suburbs and the streets of what is essentially a series of villages that all link together. On the surface these streets are quiet but there are all sorts of things happening behind closed doors. I live in London and love London, so this kind of story always appeals to me. It feels very familiar and reminds me of my grandparents' stories of growing up in the East End of the city. There also something very English about this novel. It's really hard to explain what I mean by that because of course it's going to feel English. One of the residents, Mrs Josser, can't get over the fact that her son has married a woman who was a cinema usherette who's 'no better than she should be'. Perhaps it's this kind of petty snobbery that feels so specific to this country!

As the book is set in 1938, the impending war is a constant backdrop and unsurprisingly comes to have a profound impact on many characters' lives. The novel was published in 1945 and there is a immediacy to this aspect of the story conveyed in the details of how war affects 'the little people', rather than the Churchills of that time. show less

It's a pity this book is so little known. A wonderful evocation of life in London at the beginning of WWII, seen through the eyes of ordinary Londoners living in a boarding house - a common occurrence at that time, very few people owned their own home, so it's interesting to see the Jossers planning for their little house in the sticks.