London: A literary inspiration through the ages

Written by Aphra Jikiemi-Pearson

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London: the fast paced, inspiring, enchanting city. It’s changed a lot, it’s most likely changing as this is being written, but it’s part of the charm. To keep up, one has to work. Inevitably, people will long for past versions, fondly holding creased black and white pictures or mudlarking in the Thames. It’s a beautiful city, and I feel like I’m constantly discovering new parts, new art within daily life.

Many writers, old and new, have shared this emotion with me and many other Londoners. They are talented enough to put it into words, artfully crafted sentences and metaphors or descriptive passages that last pages and don’t serve to further the plot at all. Others prefer to use London as a gothic vehicle, a city that plays a part in the violence and secrecy of its inhabitants.

Stevenson does exactly this in ‘The mysterious case of a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. His London is dark and unforgiving, aiding the transgressive and sacrilegious acts that occur in the novella. Depraved things occur in this book with a backdrop of London, and it’s an interesting commentary on the city at the time. The Labouchere Amendment had been passed, and homosexuality was a concealed undertone of Victorian London that is prevalent in some of the themes of Stevenson’s writing. The ‘chocolate coloured pall’ that covers London is also a major factor of the book, how it sweeps through the ‘great arteries’ of the city. It’s extremely similar to Dicken’s fog in Bleak House, how it invaded the ‘eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners’. Notorious for its fog, both these authors explored it in a gothic context, using it to convey the duality of London, and providing it with a sense of malevolence in both these novels.

‘One Day’ is loved for its various depictions of London as well as complicated relationships. As time passes, landscapes and people change in the novel too. The main two characters that you follow in the book move through London, together, then apart, and together again. In the novel, London is the same business focussed city that waits for no one, but I still can’t help but feel it’s romantic. Something about the Kinks ‘waterloo sunset’ playing during the televised version did make evoke a wave of appreciation for the familiar city.

Alongside other factors, the city does play a role in pulling the characters apart. Life, jobs and even other relationships get in their way, and something about the size of London does create the sense of even more distance. In a city with 9 million inhabitants, how could anyone find their way back to their person? It can be a helpless feeling, as it is in the novel, but I still feel that when they do find eachother, it feels that much more meaningful. Out of 9 million people, suddenly they are sat opposite you on the tube or walking into the same restaurant. In ‘One Day’ the changing of London serves to reflect their changing characters and shifting dynamics.

These books were written 140 years apart, and yet I feel a connection to the London depicted in both. In a city that feels endless, it’s hard to not be inspired. I myself was inspired to write this article about it. There is something to be said for London, walking arm in arm with your friends or showing someone your favourite restaurant. It has its downsides, as any city does and it can be hard to not become jaded by them, but to love something even after seeing its dirty underbelly lends it even more weight. This was an ode to British summertime, which belongs in a complete category of its own.

The streets of London have their map; but our passions are uncharted - Virginia Woolf