tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post5757701748071499434..comments2023-11-29T07:39:34.401+00:00Comments on Carla Nayland Historical Fiction: Capital, by John Lanchester. Book reviewCarlahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-37418276212949831842014-08-06T11:32:11.391+01:002014-08-06T11:32:11.391+01:00Gabriele - I don't know whether you'd need...Gabriele - I don't know whether you'd need to care about London as such. For what it's worth, what I liked about the book was the various people in it. London matters in the sense that its peculiar economy is what happens to have brought them all together, but as they are mostly transient - Petunia and the Kamal family are the only characters who have lived in Pepys Road for any length of time and have any particular connection to the area - the place itself is rather incidental. Some of the characters, like Zbigniew, explicitly consider that their 'real life' is elsewhere and that London is just temporary. It might be important to know a bit about London culture (e.g. the obsession with house prices).<br /><br />Rick - yes, recent history indeed! Yes, I am sure the title is a deliberate play on the meanings of the word 'capital'. London is the major setting; almost everything happens there. I wouldn't say it acts as a sort of character, though - see my reply to Gabriele above. It's the set on which the cast of characters happen to meet, and you wouldn't get the same cast in a different setting, e.g. a novel set in a small provincial town might well have the elderly lady who's lived there all her life, the Polish builder and the Asian shopkeeper family, but it probably wouldn't have the premier league footballer or the concept artist, and it would likely only have the rich banker family at weekends now and then (and then only if it happened to be a fashionable place to have a 'weekend cottage'). So in that sense it's important, but I didn't pick up a sense of London itself as a sort of character in its own right. Not at all like Rutherford's novel New York, for example. Although to be fair, New York is set over a much longer period of time (400 years+) so the city is the thread of continuity, which is quite different to Capital set over only a year or two. Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-46558562257502962082014-08-05T17:02:20.542+01:002014-08-05T17:02:20.542+01:00Recent history!
How much does London figure as a ...Recent history!<br /><br />How much does London figure as a setting and perhaps sort of a character? Perhaps the author was making a bit of a play on the word 'Capital'.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-33360278920799193322014-08-05T17:01:26.043+01:002014-08-05T17:01:26.043+01:00Recent history!
How much does London figure as a ...Recent history!<br /><br />How much does London figure as a setting and perhaps sort of a character? Perhaps the author was making a bit of a play on the word 'Capital'.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-69003930809191497592014-08-03T15:51:09.914+01:002014-08-03T15:51:09.914+01:00I browsed that (German translation) a few weeks ag...I browsed that (German translation) a few weeks ago when I looked for a birthday present for my father. Eventually I decided for a mystery set in Berlin in the 1930ies which he liked. I thought you'd maybe need to care about London and know a bit about it, to appreciate that book fully and so decided it was not a perfect fit for my father. Gabriele Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17205770868139083575noreply@blogger.com