Two books read for Novellas in November which detail Black men’s lives in London 55 years apart but with many similarities as well as differences. Of course the men in Sam Selvon’s novel, Selvon himself, have fairly recently arrived in London from Caribbean countries, while poet Caleb Femi was born in Nigeria. South London features heavily in both – Brixton and Peckham, respectively; I don’t know Brixton that well but I lived in Peckham for a year in the mid-1990s, well before the gentrification I’ve been reading about in later novels and at the time of the North Peckham Estate, which Femi records in detail in his poems and photographs. Both men detail simple wishes for safety, companionship, some money, some way to advance in life. Both have friends laughing at friends who wouldn’t know what to do with the women they are chasing if they caught them, and both feature strong, uncompromising women.
I bought “The Housing Lark” in November 2021 after it was mentioned on Ten Million Hardbacks’ blog; out of the eight print books purchased that month, I’ve read two so far, but that is only still a year ago. “Poor” came in Bookish Beck’s parcel-before-last in December 2021 and I’ve actually read four out of the ten making up the pile I gathered before Christmas that year!
Sam Selvon – “The Housing Lark”
(04 November 2021)
Is so life was, you had to take chances, and one day your luck might turn. And if you yourself ain’t have anything to offer, it good to stick with fellars like Harry, and Alfy and Syl and the rest of the boys. All of we can’t be blight, Bat think, out of six seven fellars, one bound to be lucky, something good bound to happen to one of we. Bat ain’t care who it happen to, as long as he around to share in the good fortune. (p. 34)
I can’t remember if the characters in this short novel appeared in “The Lonely Londoners” but we’re back in familiar territory with a disparate group of men struggling to survive in a mainly unfriendly and difficult post-war London. We open with Battersby regarding his rented room, hoping the lamps on the wallpaper might issue a genie, wishing for simple things, food, company, money. The plot revolves around the resolve of a group of friends to club together to buy a house – the only way they can see of getting secure accommodation and their own agency.
Maybe it’s not such a good idea to make Battersby the treasurer, as the money seems to fritter itself away … He does run a coach trip to Hampton Court which gives us a hilarious interlude as the participants eat and laugh their way around, observed with some alarm by their White counterparts, and of course it’s the women, Battersby’s sister Jean, her room-mate Mathilda and Teena, unfortunate enough to be married to one of the men, who take the scheme in hand and make it work. Written in dialect like “The Lonely Londoners”, like that novel, too, it’s both funny and tragic, the characters making the best of their situation, destitution only one step away.
Interestingly, it has a very modern comment to make about education:
‘I must say you boys surprise me with your historical knowledge. It’s a bit mixed up, I think, but it’s English history.’ ‘We don’t know any other kind. That’s all they used to teach we in school.’ ‘That’s because OUR PEOPLE ain’t have no history. But what I wonder is, when we have, you think they going to learn the children that in the English schools?’ (pp. 100-101).
A touching and lively novel and an important record of first-generation immigrants’ lives.
Caleb Femi – “Poor”
(11 December 2021 – from Bookish Beck)
This will not be enough for them
so they’ll force us to put it into words
& we will say: When hipsters take selfies
on the corners where our
friends died, the rent goes up. (“On Magic / Violence”, p. 39)
I have read more poetry this year than I have for a long time; I still favour the very clear and direct and I got a bit lost in the allusions in this one (I was mainly OK with the language and dialect terms) but could see my way through a good proportion of them. I’m not sure “enjoyed” is the word as most of them are very hard-hitting and full of pain and distress, but it’s an important and strongly beautiful collection of both words and images.
With poems about the concrete landscape and the miles of walkways connecting the spaces of the North Peckham Estate, the poetry is going to be unyielding and strong, but there’s a lot of feeling, emotion and care in the book, from the unconventional signs of spring (young boys play on the grass, people get the new trainers) to the moving eulogies for Damilola Taylor, Mark Duggan and the Grenfell Tower residents. It’s worth looking at the notes, which explain which poems are memorialising which lost people.
There’s anger and understanding of anger, with some very powerful poems about the “riots”/uprisings and their meanings, and there’s bewilderment at the start of the gentrification which has now hit the South London suburb (I have most notably read about this in “Yinka, Where is your Huzband?“). The images of people and tower blocks work perfectly with the poems, couplets and prose pieces and the work is technically complex and adept, pulling at the heartstrings, raising a smile, documenting how it feels to feel you are every Black man who is shown mistreated on the TV. I hope this reached a variety of audiences, including those people who are portrayed in it and will see themselves in a poetry book published by a mainstream publisher, for once. Rebecca’s review which originally attracted me to the book is here.
These were Books 6 and 7 for Novellas in November, both from the original selection of 15.
Nov 26, 2022 @ 12:41:26
I have to read more Sam Selvon, it sounds so compelling. And what a great comparison to Caleb Femi – 55 years apart but what has changed, what hasn’t?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 27, 2022 @ 08:04:10
I loved this and there are more, I think! And yes, it was striking to read them together (as I’d hoped it would be, of course!).
LikeLike
Nov 26, 2022 @ 12:58:21
I’ve read your reviews Liz with great interest. The Lonely Londoners and A Ghost in the Throat have gone on my tbr list. I’ve seen performances and read poetry by Zephaniah and Kwesi Johnson but nothing on Caleb Femi. Thanks for bringing Poor to my attention. Glad you read The Children too. I hope the ones I taught took something from it in a very white school.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 27, 2022 @ 08:05:08
Thank you – Selvon’s books are great, a wonderful snapshot of that time.
LikeLike
It’s Novellas in November time – add your links here! #NovNov22
Nov 26, 2022 @ 14:58:40
Nov 26, 2022 @ 17:20:32
Such an interesting pairing, Liz. Selvon is someone I keep thinking I *must* read – “The Lonely Londoners” sounds like a good place to start!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 27, 2022 @ 02:54:10
I’d second that. The Lonely Londoners was a revelation to me…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Nov 27, 2022 @ 08:06:06
I had read other things like Absolute Beginners and then histories of the time, but these really bring it alive.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 27, 2022 @ 10:59:37
I loved Absolute Beginners too, though it’s decades since I read it. As you say, it really captures the period so strongly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 27, 2022 @ 08:05:34
They’re very short and incredibly compelling.
LikeLike
Nov 26, 2022 @ 18:06:40
I’m also intrigued about The Lonely Londoners. I keep seeing it mentioned. Peckham: isn’t that Del Boy territory? Always hoping to be upwardly mobile, Del Boy and Rodney. They would have liked the gentrification.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 27, 2022 @ 08:07:13
Yes, I imagine they’d have been touting knock-off Farrow and Ball paint and the like as it came up. Desmond’s, the wonderful sitcom set in the barber’s, was also set there; in fact more in my bit of Peckham than Only Fools and Horses; I used to walk past where it was filmed!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 26, 2022 @ 22:10:38
More books on a topic I love to read, like you. I’ve added them to my list.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 27, 2022 @ 08:07:37
Excellent (or, sorry!). Both good reads and valuable contributions.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 27, 2022 @ 08:16:29
Haha … apology accepted!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 27, 2022 @ 10:49:49
The Housing Lark sounds like a potentially useful text for my students! The comment on education is familiar to me from other black writing about education I’ve read from the 1960s.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 27, 2022 @ 11:55:51
That’s interesting. I’ve seen a lot about how people in the Empire learned British history not their own, but not much comment from then about what people in Britain were taught.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 27, 2022 @ 14:46:18
I think I need to try again with Sam Selvon, possibly as an audiobook as the rhythm of the prose feels like an important component of the text. (My previous attempt to read The Lonely Londoners wasn’t a big success, but that’s my issue rather than a criticism of the book as I know how highly its regarded.) That’s a great pairing with the Caleb Femi, an interesting comparison between the old and the new.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 28, 2022 @ 18:09:19
Thank you, I was pleased I could pair these two (I have some random ones to round up the month!!). Do you just tend to not like books in dialect? I know a few people who really don’t. It might be good if you can find an audio book, they’ve got such a lovely voice to them.
LikeLike
Nov 28, 2022 @ 21:24:05
A great pairing for novellas in November. I love the sound of The Housing Lark, though I haven’t read The Lonley Londoners yet and I feel I want to read that. I keep forgetting to buy it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nov 29, 2022 @ 09:10:03
Best to read The Lonely Londoners first but they’re great reads as well as important records.
LikeLike