This is a wonderful opportunity for me to pay back someone for recommending a fantastic book to me, by doing the same and passing on the praise for it to you. I first heard The Lonely Londoners discussed on a radio 4 programme at the end of the last century, and those on the programme talked with such passion I had to try it. I’m so glad I did. It’s a very hard book to categorize as there isn’t much in the way of plot, but is a fantastic evocation of mood and experience from what was at the time, an unusual perspective.
Selvon was a West Indian who moved to London about 1950, and his novel is largely about the immigrant experiences of the time, though its equally about working class life, aspirations of social mobility, prejudice, and the sense of displacement of being in a city. It’s sad, funny and hugely emotive and I have to admit, by the time the protagonist is talking to his own hand, blaming his skin as almost a separate entity from him for all the prejudice he faces “Color, is you that causing all this, you know”, I was really affected by it.
I remember being shocked by an attempt (maybe – was Phil Redmond a fan?) to echo this is an early character of Grange Hill with the character Benny. To catastrophically bad effect. It just drove home to me even more how clever Selvon is with his use of language and ability to put so many layers implicit in what is often quite simple dialogue.
The approach taken to writing, focusing on the experience rather than being story driven, had a big effect on my own writing, and if I ever manage to write anything a tenth as good I’ll have achieved a huge amount.