London as Language

For fun, I'm re-reading David Mitchell's Ghostwritten these days. Those familiar with the book will know how the narrative voice shifts, in an engaging way, from character to character, across continents, and through time.

At one point the arc of the story arrives at Marco, resident of London, who muses about the city's Underground as he goes about his day. I'm excerpting it here, as a meditation on place, for how Marco views the personality of the different tube lines, and by extension London itself:

As the fine denizens of London Town know, each tube line has a distinct personality and range of mood swings. The Victoria Line, for example, breezy and reliable. The Jubilee Line, the young disappointment of the family, branching out to the suburbs, eternally having extensions planned, twisting round to Greenwich, and back under the river out east somewhere. The District and Circle Line, well, even Death would rather fork out for a taxi if he's in a hurry. Crammed with commuters for King's Cross or Paddington, and crammed with museum-bound tourists who don't know the craftier short-cuts, it's as bad as how I imagine Tokyo....Docklands Light Railway, the nouveau riche neighbour, with its Prince Regent, West India Quay and its Gallions Reach and its Royal Albert. Stentorian Piccadilly wouldn't approve of such artyfartyness, and nor would his twin uncle, Bakerloo. Central, the middle-aged cousin, matter-of-fact, direct, no forking off or going the long way round. That's about it for the main lines, except the Metropolitan which is too boring to mention, except that it's a nice fuchsia colour and you take it to visit the dying.

Then you have the Oddball lines, like Shakespeare's Oddball plays. Pericles, Hammersmith and City, East Verona Line, Titus of Waterloo.


The Northern Line is black on the maps. It's the deepest. It has the most suicides, you're most likely to get mugged on it, and its art students are most likely to be future Bond Girls. There's something doom-laden about the Northern Line. Its station names: Morden, Brent Cross, Goodge Street, Archway, Elephant and Castle, the resurrected Mornington Crescent. It was closed for years, I remember imagining I was on a probe peering into the Titanic as the train passed through.

Yep, the Northern Line is the psycho of the family. Those bare-walled stations south of the Thames that can't attract advertisers. Not even stair-lift manufacturers will advertise in Kennington Tube Station. I've never been to Kennington but if I did I bet there'd be nothing but run-down fifties housing blocks, closed-down bingo halls and a used-car place where tatty plastic banners fluppetty-flup in the homeless wind. The sort of place where best-forgotten films starring British rock stars as working-class anti-heroes are set. There but for the grace of my credit cards go I.

London is a language. I guess all places are.

Comments

[Lucas Gray]

Great post. It makes me want to read the book.

thanks.

-Lucas Gray
www.talkitect.com

[Springy]

All good points. There's also the point that lines' characters change over time. I think the East London line, which links up trendy and scruffy Shoreditch with patrician Greenwich, will be completely different once it runs down to the blight of New Cross and the suburban sprawl of Croydon when its extension is finished. These places will also change, because different people will go and live there, sniffing opportunity.

I disagree a bit about south London - well I would, because I live there. Kennington is actually a slightly boring but perfectly nice neighbourhood, much of which survived the Blitz, and has some beautiful squares. Elephant and Castle is unbelievably horrible, but is being revamped by private contractors, as the wave of gentrification sweeps down from the Borough. It's the last spot in central London where you can live cheaply and still get to the City and Westminster in ten minutes on the Northern Line - almost entirely because utopian planners in the 60s made it so hellish.

I suppose how the Tube creates and destroys places in London follows the law of unintended consequences.