Capital

Mar 10, 2012 A. rated it 4 of 5 stars

John Lanchester had me hooked from page one of this 500-page novel. My expectation was that he was going to show us how the financial meltdown of 2008 effected the lives of the people on one London street. He does that to some extent, but what he really delivers is an intimate look at life right before the crash happened.

The people of Pepys Road are mostly upper and upper middle class folks and Lanchester takes us in and out of their houses in smoothly written prose that is just the right mix of...more John Lanchester had me hooked from page one of this 500-page novel. My expectation was that he was going to show us how the financial meltdown of 2008 effected the lives of the people on one London street. He does that to some extent, but what he really delivers is an intimate look at life right before the crash happened.

The people of Pepys Road are mostly upper and upper middle class folks and Lanchester takes us in and out of their houses in smoothly written prose that is just the right mix of intimacy and distance. In addition to the homeowners on the street, he delves into the lives of the handymen, meter maids and nannies on the block as well as their relatives and friends. He creates a kaleidoscope view of the block that bridges class, race and religion. This seeming homogenous steet is shown to be much more diverse than we would realize at first glance.

Money is the obvious thread running through the novel, but equally important are questions of identity. One character is an artist who does his work anonymously, another is a refugee working under an assumed name, the housewife getting repairs doesn't call the Polish contractor by his name and a banker steals passwords to conduct trades. The main thing that binds the characters is that everyone on the block has been getting postcards that say "We Want What You Have." The postcards are pictures of their front doors and it starts as an oddity and ends up feeling menacing. Afterall, once we know what the people have, dysfunctional marriages, terminal diseases and homesickness for Africa, the question is why would anybody want it.

Peel away the posh houses and the expensive cars and even before the crash there was a lot of misery. Although, no one has it as bad as the meter maid (a refugee from Africa desperately seeking asylum in a society that doesn't really care).

I'm a bit heartbroken that I've finished the book. So sad to leave all these amazing characters and their stories. The mystery behind "We Want What You Have," may be over, but their lives go on and I can't help but wonder what happened in 2009. (less)

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Feb 05, 2013 Larraine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Although it's early in the year, this novel is a finalist in my "favorite book of the year" contest. I hadn't read anything by John Lanchester before so I was unprepared for the elegance, humor and irony in the language. The book takes place in London, just before the economic collapse. We meet a wide range of characters centering around a street called Pepys Street that has recently become gentrified. The homes are bought by the up and coming who then pour lavish amounts of money to make the ho...more

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May 01, 2013 Olga Loblova rated it 3 of 5 stars

I picked the book up at the airport because it was long enough to last throughout my travel and because it looked relatively fun. I was disappointed by the writing style on the second page. Sure, it's long - but at what price? Once he has an interesting thought, observation or a piece of character background, Lanchester repeats it two or three times within the two following pages. Yes, we know the character had some extremist tendencies but now no longer has them; yes, we understood that the ass...more

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Apr 28, 2013 Jürgen Zeller rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Die Pepys Road in London hat sich zu einem Mikrokosmos unterschiedlichster Menschen entwickelt. Früher eine Strasse eines Viertels in dem die Angestellten der Mittelschicht wohnten, mit einem Einkommen das es ihnen erlaubte mit ihrer Familie in ein robust gebautes zwei- oder dreistöckiges Haus mit Garten zu ziehen. Gewiss keine spektakuläre aber durchaus eine wohnliche Gegend. Das viele Geld das es ab Mitte der neunziger Jahre an der Börse zu verdienen gab, besonderes in einer Finanzmetropole wi...more Die Pepys Road in London hat sich zu einem Mikrokosmos unterschiedlichster Menschen entwickelt. Früher eine Strasse eines Viertels in dem die Angestellten der Mittelschicht wohnten, mit einem Einkommen das es ihnen erlaubte mit ihrer Familie in ein robust gebautes zwei- oder dreistöckiges Haus mit Garten zu ziehen. Gewiss keine spektakuläre aber durchaus eine wohnliche Gegend. Das viele Geld das es ab Mitte der neunziger Jahre an der Börse zu verdienen gab, besonderes in einer Finanzmetropole wie London, spülte eine neue Gesellschaftsschicht von Leuten hervor die schnell sehr viel Geld verdienten und sich problemlos ein gediegenes Haus leisten konnten. Das Phänomen das gewisse Stadtteile von einem Jahr auf andere plötzlich als hipp gelten und diese In-Quartiere reiche Menschen wie Motten das Licht anziehen gilt auch für die Pepys Road. Die alteingesessenen Bewohner wurden plötzlich vermögend, nicht in Form von Bargeld sondern weil der Wert ihrer Häuser innert kürzester Zeit in schwindelerregende Höhen stieg und immer mehr konnten den Verlockungen des schnöden Mammons nicht widerstehen und verkauften ihr Anwesen zu einem Höchstpreis von mehreren Millionen Pfund. Die neuen Bewohner der Strasse verändern das Gesellschaftsbild nach und nach aber auch ihr Leben ist nicht frei von Sorgen obwohl sie dieses Gefühl durch eine strahlende Fassade gerne vermitteln möchten.

Der rote Handlungsfaden durch die Geschichten sind die mysteriösen Karten mit Fotos der Haustüren oder Häusern der Pepys Road und der Nachricht "Wir wollen was ihr habt" die allen Bewohnern anonym zugestellt werden. Was hat es damit auf sich? Seltsam! Die Karten gehen sowohl an eine alte Witwe wie auch an ihre Nachbarn gegenüber die Familie eines smarten Bankers, das hoffnungsvolle Fussballtalent aus dem Senegal und seinen umtriebiger Manager, die Besitzer des Kiosks/kleinen Lebensmittelladens der Strasse und einen Künstler. Eine Asylbewerberin aus Afrika die als Politesse ihren Dienst tut und polnische Handwerker die Bau- und Umbauarbeiten vornehmen sowie ein Kindermädchen spielen, zwar nicht als direkte Bewohner aber als regelmässig Anwesende, eine zentrale Rolle. Mit jedem Kapitel wechseln sich die Schauplätze ab und manche beginnen sich zu verbinden. Zu Beginn war alles rund um den Banker der interessanteste Handlungsstrang aber nach und nach treten die anderen in den Vordergrund und weckten mein Interesse mehr und mehr.

Der Stil wie alles geschrieben und erzählt ist vermag mich zu überzeugen. An und für sich recht leicht und flüssig lesbar entwickelte sich in mir ein Bedürfnis stets weiterlesen zu wollen und die rund 680 Seiten waren in kurzer Zeit weggeschmökert. Der Autor streut laufend eine Prise Ironie und feinen Spott mit ein aber insgesamt geht er doch recht human um nicht zu sagen sanft mit seinen Figuren um. Dieses Buch ist nicht der grosse englische Gesellschaftsroman der Land und Leute porträtiert und eine sinngebende Moral und eine konkrete Aussage ist nicht zu erkennen ausser das Geld allein nicht glücklich macht. Zu bunt zusammengewürfelt sind die Figuren und es wirkt manchmal etwas gewollt und sie bedienen das ein oder andere Vorurteil aber schlussendlich dient und erhöht es den Unterhaltungswert.

Geht doch mal spazieren und betrachtet die vielen unterschiedlichen Eingangtüren an den Häusern an denen ihr vorbeilauft und sinniert darüber wer wohl dahinter wohnen könnte, was für ein Leben sie führen und welche Freuden oder auch Sorgen sie im Moment bewegen. Für mich ein gutes bis sehr gutes Buch dessen Geschichten einen enorm hohen Lesespass bereiten.(less)

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Apr 15, 2013 Fiona Bullock rated it 4 of 5 stars

Capital looks at the lives of many of the people living on or involved with a single street in London. The thread that ties them together is that the inhabitants are receiving a string of strange postcards from a single sender. What John Lanchester does very successfully is to portray the vibrant multi-culturalism of London and the vastly different lives of people living within close proximity. The book is set just before the recent financial crash and is also very interesting on the relationshi...more

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Apr 09, 2013 Margaret Cooney rated it 4 of 5 stars

I do wonder whether this had been cleverly informed by his brilliant non fiction layman's guide to the global financial crisis 'Whoops'. If it was, the research paid off as Lanchester has managed to create a compelling fictional account of how the crisis might have affected the lives of a diverse group Londoners with a focus on one South London street. At first I thought it was merely a set of predictable London stereotypes and felt it was all just a Beeb blockbuster autumn drama TV script in wa...more

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Apr 06, 2013 David Cheshire rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a bang up-to-date book written in an old fashioned way. Each chapter about half a dozen pages; each focuses on one of a cast of characters living in or linked to a single London street where houses have reached the million pound mark, even more with the extensive renovations done by the more prosperous. So we meet a lawyer, a footballer, a banker, a dying woman, her daughter, an asylum seeker, an immigrant Polish builder, a conceptual artist... As a "state of the nation" novel it sounds...more

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Apr 02, 2013 Jules rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: beach-reading, britain, british-fiction, contemporary-fiction, fiction, london, modern-day-fiction

I must say, first and foremost, that I loved this book and, as a reader and lover of contemporary fiction, this book played straight into my hands. I know that many a reviewer on here has compared the book to Sebastian Faulks ‘A Week in December’ (a book I also love!) and I can most definitely see the parallels. This though, by my own reckoning, is even more intelligent, deeper and proved an even more substantial read for me.

‘Capital’ deals with London lives (hence the title as a centre point of...more I must say, first and foremost, that I loved this book and, as a reader and lover of contemporary fiction, this book played straight into my hands. I know that many a reviewer on here has compared the book to Sebastian Faulks ‘A Week in December’ (a book I also love!) and I can most definitely see the parallels. This though, by my own reckoning, is even more intelligent, deeper and proved an even more substantial read for me.

‘Capital’ deals with London lives (hence the title as a centre point of Britain) but the book is also about money, meaning, the trite and the trivial – eventually a common ground of explanation is found between these main themes. The main characters in ‘Capital’ are also residents in Pepys Road but although these people are neighbours sharing similarities (whether they like it or not!) their lives hardly ever cross apart from them sharing a postcode and a few resident issues. This is an implicit issue and problem in the book and with his deliberate omission of ‘community’, the author Lanchester implies that many things can be wrong with our modern idea of society. Surely it’s wrong that an elderly resident’s death by a brain tumour is not lamented by other residents? Surely it’s sad that an Asian family don’t receive any reported human support when one of their sons is (falsely) suspected of planning a terrorist plot? Surely it’s sad that a Polish immigrant enjoys being an outsider rather than ingratiating himself fully with British life? To the same ends, I found it less sad when an investment banker suffered a job loss due to a paranoid industry banking structure, feeling a sense of joy when the robot-human banker-man Roger experienced a chance to re-think his life and eventually escape to the country.

The characterisation in this book is very clever and lends itself to clearly contrasted chapters where different sets of characters are dealt with in isolation. In a near-on 600 page book, this proved an organisational godsend for me!

Lanchester’s writing style and turn of phrase impressed me greatly. As a writer, he demonstrates a good understanding of modern characters and of how our modern society is made up of angelic and demonic personalities with fifty-five shades of grey between. His critiques of modern life, modern Britain and even a microcosm of a London street all ring very true for me and I cannot fault what he has tried to do with the story by presenting these many slices of life via many layers.

Put simply, it’s an easy five star review for me here. If I am honest, the long length of the read could have compromised the fifth star if the quality of the read had not been so darn good. It was and the stars lucked out – every shining one of them.

Impressive, compulsive, highly-readable and very highly-recommended!
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Apr 01, 2013 JS Found rated it 5 of 5 stars

We are in modern London, in one street with many houses where many types and classes of people live and/or work. We hunker down to get to know these people--a rich banker, an old widow, a Pakistani shop keeping family, a Polish contractor, and others. Through their representative but quotidian lives, a portrait of not only modern London but of the modern, busy, capitalist and political world emerges.The time is the beginning of the year of the Great Recession.

Let me be subjective for a moment, a...more We are in modern London, in one street with many houses where many types and classes of people live and/or work. We hunker down to get to know these people--a rich banker, an old widow, a Pakistani shop keeping family, a Polish contractor, and others. Through their representative but quotidian lives, a portrait of not only modern London but of the modern, busy, capitalist and political world emerges.The time is the beginning of the year of the Great Recession.

Let me be subjective for a moment, and remark that the social realist novel is my favorite form of the novel as art. Because there are no genre conventions and tropes to tick of, characters in such novels act organically--they do not have to be molded into pre-existing types. They can be free to make good or bad choices, depending on who they are and what they want. The social realist novel itself isn't meant to be entertainment. It is that, of course, but it's more: it sets itself lofty goals to capture a time and place in the real world. It wants to comment on our world and how we live. So that not only do we get a true portrait of such but also that we can recognize our problems and work to alleviate them. The social novel isn't didactic and doesn't give away answers. It merely represents us as we are, so that in our rush of lives, the slow time spent reading it, reading anything will deliver a shock to our collective system--is this truly how I am? I had no idea--that can in the end and with our own intensive labor we can become better humans and create better societies.

So if they care to pick this book up--the very rich man will see himself in the role of the crass, alpha male banker; the unemotional sex seeker will recognize all the tricks he uses to not get tangled up in serious relationships; the shopaholic will know herself to be frivolous; the happy-go-lucky guy will who abstains from responsibility will see himself for who he is. It's not that this novel is a teaching manual. No, it's highly entertaining and very well written from the vantage point of prose. It's rather minute in how all of these characters think and observe, but that is in the best sense: these are fully alive people who have many many thoughts during a single day or hour or event, and we are privy to all of them. And by book's end, some of them change while some of them don"t. But modern life in a modern city never ceases to march on. No, it's just that when you are writing about real life and trying to invent characters as close to real people as you can, the book will hit some readers hard. It's easy to ignore genre fiction and stock characters as something other and not related to you. But it's harder when the people and the events, situations described can actually happen. Such is the effect of the social realist novel--it aims to bare the world in its beauty and ugliness, so that people can change it. (less)

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Mar 12, 2013 Robert E. Kennedy Library rated it 3 of 5 stars

This wrist-breaker is hard to do justice to. Centering on one block of well-to-do Pepys Road in London, it has so many characters that more than once I had to stop and flip some pages: “Wait. WHO is this again?” It’s not that any character in this book is minor; they’re all completely drawn, and every one of them is important to the plot. It’s just that there are so many of them! A clueless banker and his spendthrift wife, the Polish carpenter remodeling their house, their Hungarian nanny, the P...more This wrist-breaker is hard to do justice to. Centering on one block of well-to-do Pepys Road in London, it has so many characters that more than once I had to stop and flip some pages: “Wait. WHO is this again?” It’s not that any character in this book is minor; they’re all completely drawn, and every one of them is important to the plot. It’s just that there are so many of them! A clueless banker and his spendthrift wife, the Polish carpenter remodeling their house, their Hungarian nanny, the Pakistani shopkeepers at the end of the street, a graffiti artist who carefully guards his identity, his feckless assistant, a Senegalese football player… this is by no means the whole list, but gives you an idea of the range and number of moving parts that Lanchester keeps chugging away, and meshing in unexpected ways.

This isn’t one of those character-driven novels where nothing happens, either. The plot is carried forward by a mystery: everyone on the street receives unsigned postcards, picturing their own doorways, with the phrase “We Want What You Have” written on the back:

At first light on a late summer morning, a man in a hooded sweatshirt moved softly and slowly along an ordinary-looking street in South London. He was doing something, though a bystander would have been hard put to guess what. Sometimes he crept closer to houses, sometimes he backed further away. Sometimes he looked down, sometimes he looked up. At close range, that bystander would have been able to tell that the young man was carrying a small high-definition video camera — except that there was no bystander, so there was no one to notice. Apart from the young man, the street was empty. Even the earliest risers weren’t up yet, and it wasn’t a day for milk delivery or rubbish collection. Maybe he knew that, and the fact that he was filming the houses then was no coincidence.
The mystery escalates; some of the Pepys Road residents are convinced that they know who the culprit is, but for various reasons, can’t make the accusation, or prove it.

The story is huge, multi-threaded, as good on the small details of life as on its biggest questions. Sometimes tragic, often hilarious, I thought it was an entertaining and memorable read.

Find this book at Kennedy Library
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Mar 11, 2013 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

In the late 1980s I went to an exhibition of the work of three of the great British architects of the twentieth century--Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and James Stirling. I think it was Rogers who was quoted as saying that cities exist for one reason only--as a place for people to meet. I've never forgotten that.

Capital is a book not so much about a city as about its people. Its epicentre is a south London street, Pepys Road--Everystreet, in all but name. Its dramatis personae are the street's r...more In the late 1980s I went to an exhibition of the work of three of the great British architects of the twentieth century--Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and James Stirling. I think it was Rogers who was quoted as saying that cities exist for one reason only--as a place for people to meet. I've never forgotten that.

Capital is a book not so much about a city as about its people. Its epicentre is a south London street, Pepys Road--Everystreet, in all but name. Its dramatis personae are the street's residents: the banker and his wife and children, the Pakistani family who own the corner shop, the widow living out her final years in the house where she was born, the up-and-coming football star, the immigrants both legal and illegal, the tradesmen and traffic wardens, the artists and artisans, the sons and the lovers. Added to this is the slightly menacing presence of the houses of Pepys Road, every one of them a tyrannical god demanding constant tribute, whose market value bestows arbitrary blessings or curses on its owner.

This is a "slice of life" novel portraying the people of Pepys Road through the course of a year, from December 2007 to November 2008--the year that saw the collapse of the merchant banks, the beginning of the credit crunch, against a backdrop of commuter journeys and low-level antisocial behaviour and the constant rumble of the threat of terrorism. All play a role in the drama of the residents of Pepys Road.

The story is told at the personal level, switching from one character to another, showing for the most part lives that intersect by accident rather than a homogeneous community. It is a story of the everyday grind rather than of heroism or achievement: most of the characters are simply getting on with their lives, some more competently or more successfully than others; only one or two of them are drawn with out-and-out contempt.

There is no single narrative thread, no grand conclusion, but by the end of the novel every character has seen some kind of resolution in his or her life. In many ways these are not characters to inspire or enthuse; one is more likely to spot an unflattering or self-destructive character trait, and check in the mirror to see that one has not developed it oneself. This makes it all the more satisfying to encounter the few surprising moments of personal strength and dignity and courage, amid the everyday successes and failures and the lives of quiet desperation.

It's a good read, with some moments of real humour and surprise, and a good many characters whom you wish well at the end. (OK, and one you don't...)

And what of London itself? The capital is a constant presence, perhaps the least palatable character, an unforgiving and all-devouring deity to many of its citizens. To every one of Lanchester's characters the city has held out some lure or other--wealth, fame, security, justice, notoriety, fairness, fulfilment in all its forms. Every one of these promises is tested to the limit in the course of the book; nearly all are found wanting.

Not quite all, though. But it is telling that the characters who emerge stronger at the end, more fulfilled and better equipped to cope, are those who do not bow down and worship the golden calves of the Capital, but treat it in Lord Rogers' words as a place for people to meet; those who turn their backs on London's gaudy promises, and find what they need inside themselves and their fellow man.
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Jan 05, 2013 Jen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: english

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Dec 09, 2012 Sandra rated it 3 of 5 stars

Capital: a town considered the governmental center, a serious offense, an asset, slang for "first rate", related to death or the death penalty. All of these are covered or, at least, referenced in John Lanchester's broad and detailed examination of the several stories set in London. The main setting is Pepys Road, that has now become attractive to "new money" folk who want a fashionable location.

Roger and Arabella Yount are the rich high-flyers who are clearly destined for a financial meltdown....more Capital: a town considered the governmental center, a serious offense, an asset, slang for "first rate", related to death or the death penalty. All of these are covered or, at least, referenced in John Lanchester's broad and detailed examination of the several stories set in London. The main setting is Pepys Road, that has now become attractive to "new money" folk who want a fashionable location.

Roger and Arabella Yount are the rich high-flyers who are clearly destined for a financial meltdown. The other protagonists are less well-off: the older woman dying of cancer, the corner shop-owning Pakistan family, the Younts' Hungarian maid, the Polish builder working for the Younts, given another name by Arabella who thinks it's a lark, the illegal political refugee who works as a parking meter maid, the Senegalese teen soccer genius.

Lanchester plunges the reader into the sensory self of London along with the gentrification attempts that exist, as with many cities, alongside the run-down neighborhoods. There's the obsession with money and real estate and the sense of entitlement that comes with those who have both. Then there are the obsessions of those who don't have either. Regardless of milieu, Lanchester treats his main protagonists, even the wealthy Younts, with compassion.

His most successful characters are Roger Yount, Zbigniew, the Polish builder, Matya the Hungarian maid, and Petunia the older woman who has cancer. I also liked the resolution of Quentina's story (the meter maid) and found it credible and sympathetic. Lanchester has been compared to Dickens but I feel that's unfair. Lanchester provides dimension for his characters in a way that Dickens often didn't -- especially his woman characters.

Speaking of which ... Of the two Younts, Roger is treated more gently and dimensionally than his wife, Arabella, who has no redeeming qualities. She is only interested in spending money, even when Roger's career starts to falter. The implication is that the habit of thoughtless spending doesn't change merely because your finances do. Lanchester's compassion falters with Arabella.

Also, the dynamics among the Pakistani family are predictable. Initially, I thought this would be a Satiyajit Ray moment, where the camera keeps panning back to reveal more of the story, and more perspective. But the whole family struggles to escape their particular stereotypes, and a late-book catastrophe doesn't rectify this.

The money, class, character theme appears frequently in literature. Some authors do it better than others, such as Balzac, to whom Lanchester refers in an interview (NY Times 6-13-12). But in this book, even the addition of immigrant perspective doesn't make Capital exceptional. I wanted to jump into this world and relish meeting the entire cast. However, I was constantly aware of authorial intent. Even so, this is a rollicking good read, a bit like a financial version of A Suitable Boy.
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Dec 07, 2012 Helena Halme rated it 3 of 5 stars

Capital is set in a tree-lined residential street somewhere in an affluent part of London. It starts with an unknown person taking pictures of people's doors on the street, in the small hours of the morning. Later that same day the pictures with a caption 'We Want What You Have' turn up on the doormats of an affluent banker; an African newly discovered Premier league footballer; a Pakistani family who own the corner shop at the end of the street and an old woman who bought her house when the pri...more

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Nov 28, 2012 Breakingviews rated it 2 of 5 stars

Review by Peter Thal Larsen

Banking is fiction’s hidden profession. Despite decades of financial expansion, novelists and playwrights have struggled to imagine a contemporary Shylock or Augustus Melmotte, the shadowy star of Anthony Trollope’s “The Way We Live Now”. A quarter of a century has passed since Tom Wolfe dreamt up Sherman McCoy, the bond trader who personified the arrogance and greed of an earlier boom in “The Bonfire of the Vanities”. With the crisis wreckage still smouldering, the ch...more Review by Peter Thal Larsen

Banking is fiction’s hidden profession. Despite decades of financial expansion, novelists and playwrights have struggled to imagine a contemporary Shylock or Augustus Melmotte, the shadowy star of Anthony Trollope’s “The Way We Live Now”. A quarter of a century has passed since Tom Wolfe dreamt up Sherman McCoy, the bond trader who personified the arrogance and greed of an earlier boom in “The Bonfire of the Vanities”. With the crisis wreckage still smouldering, the characters in most contemporary novels are more likely to be found robbing a bank than working for one.

Roger Yount, the anti-hero of John Lanchester’s “Capital”, is therefore a rare breed. As head of the currency trading department at a mid-sized City of London investment bank in late 2007, he is well-placed to anticipate the imminent market storm. Except that Yount, who has a tenuous grasp of the complex strategies used by his traders, doesn’t see it coming. Instead, he sits at his desk trying to calculate the size of his bonus. Then he lists the expenditure – mortgages, private schools, nannies, second homes, skiing holidays, taxis – that will consume his cash. Sherman McCoy complained he was “going broke on a million dollars a year”. Yount’s lifestyle requires the same figure - in sterling.

Lanchester, whose previous book, “Whoops!”, was an entertaining explanation of the crisis, does a good job of capturing the atmosphere inside a modern investment bank with its multinational collection of (mostly) men, engaged in the meritocratic pursuit of wealth. Privately educated, well-mannered, and British, Yount epitomises the entitled, Land Rover-driving breed that colonised London’s more desirable residential areas in the last decade, making them all but unaffordable for everyone else.

Lanchester shares the modern Londoner’s obsession with property values. The book opens with a detailed description of the homes in Pepys Road, the “ordinary street in the capital” where Yount lives with his wife, Arabella, and two young children. Built by the Victorians for the lower middle classes, the terraced houses have been so pumped up by cheap credit that they are now worth millions: “Having a house in Pepys Road was like being in a casino in which you were guaranteed to be a winner”.

Yet in its attempt to look behind all the doors of Pepys Road, the novel loses its way. Lanchester introduces us to a bewildering cross-section of characters: the Pakistani family who run the local newsagent’s, the Polish builder, the African Premier League footballer, the illegal immigrant working as a traffic warden, the old woman dying of a brain tumour, and the Banksy-style artist whose main selling point is his anonymity.

It’s a valiant attempt to capture the diversity of life in the capital. However, Lanchester struggles to manage the different story lines. His solution is to carve up the book into many small sections - its 600 pages are divided into 106 chapters - and jump between characters. Unfortunately, these snapshots reduce most of the players to two-dimensional stereotypes. Moreover, despite their physical proximity, they barely interact. This, presumably, is Lanchester’s point, but it hardly makes for a coherent narrative.

In the confusion, Yount gets less attention than he deserves. Though he ambles through situations rich with potential for exploring the anthropology of London investment bankers - a shooting weekend in Norfolk, a team-building poker night, a charity dinner - the scenes feel half-finished, as if Lanchester is too impatient to move on to the next section. Even Yount’s downfall, when it inevitably arrives, proves something of an anticlimax.

Parts of “Capital” will resonate with anyone who has lived or worked in London over the past decade. Whether it will appeal to readers without direct, recent experience of the city - and the City - is less clear. Either way, Roger Yount is unlikely to join the thinly-populated pantheon of famous fictional financiers. Perhaps that will only be expanded when the rubble of the crisis has finally been cleared.(less)

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Nov 07, 2012 Ian Mapp rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read Mr Phillips a long time ago... couldn't remember if I liked it or not. This book was getting good press and ideally suited for my tastes. London. State of the Nation. Comedy.

Lets give it a go.

It's a lengthy book in very short chapters and an incredibly simple premise. The inhabitants of a South London Street are receiving sinister, anonymous "we want what you have messages". Like that film where the owners are left videos of their house on the doorstep. I forget the name.

This allows us t...more

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Oct 30, 2012 A.L. Means rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you’ve ever been on a lengthy, traffic-bound journey on public transportation – a London double decker for instance – you will probably have an idea of what to expect from John Lanchester’s novel, Capital.
You will know that sense of passing interest as fellow passengers come and go. There are the solitary ones who invite speculation, and the couples and groups that virtually broadcast their life histories without a by-your-leave.
In the case of Capital, a single London street substitutes for...more If you’ve ever been on a lengthy, traffic-bound journey on public transportation – a London double decker for instance – you will probably have an idea of what to expect from John Lanchester’s novel, Capital.
You will know that sense of passing interest as fellow passengers come and go. There are the solitary ones who invite speculation, and the couples and groups that virtually broadcast their life histories without a by-your-leave.
In the case of Capital, a single London street substitutes for the double decker. Its residents and visitors claim Lanchester’s brief and pellucid chapters as if they were empty seats. Just as quickly they make way for new occupants, only to return a few chapters later to resume their journeys.
It’s a slice-of-life structure that has been used many times of course. Not without justification has this story, with its quasi sociological approach to contemporary living in the British capital, been described as Dickensian. The nouveau affluent street has its old timers and its newbies, its cosmopolitan mix familiar probably to big city dwellers the world over.
They are held together by tenuous threads, one of which began as a campaign to unsettle residents with menacing postcards. The who-dunnit aspects of the tale are relatively ungripping however.
The risk of such a panoramic chronicle of a community parallels the experience of many a bus journey in that the connection with all those fellow travelers is so ephemeral. No sooner are they out of their seats than they are out of mind. What’s in store for that African man who looks vaguely familiar from action replays from the Premier League? Wasn’t that Pakistani family in news clips about terrorism recently? And that city slicker trying to keep his balance at the stops, is he down on his luck or what? But do any of them leave a lasting impression?
Occasionally Lanchester hits a deeper nerve. He’s particularly good on emptiness. The emotional vacuum after the death of an elderly mother, for instance, or the gloom in vacating a home. The title suggests a more lingering theme too, for the story is tied to materialism and to the contrast between haves and have-nots as much as to the city itself. As the so-called developed world has witnessed in recent years, wealth can be an illusion. It’s sometimes transitory and often elusive, and perhaps the same can be said for the appeal of Capital. In short, this is a book for people who enjoy sagas and don’t require lasting philosophical pay-offs.
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Oct 22, 2012 Jillwilson rated it 3 of 5 stars

‘Who’s been sleeping in my house’ is an Australian TV show that I quite liked – it explored the mysteries inside a specific house by exploring the history of its inhabitants. ‘Capital’ reminded me a little of this series – because of its focus on the houses in Pepys St in middle class London. This street is the centralising focus for the narrative which is about the commodification of modern life, the impact of the GFC and the consequent winners and losers. Here is an extract from the opening ch...more ‘Who’s been sleeping in my house’ is an Australian TV show that I quite liked – it explored the mysteries inside a specific house by exploring the history of its inhabitants. ‘Capital’ reminded me a little of this series – because of its focus on the houses in Pepys St in middle class London. This street is the centralising focus for the narrative which is about the commodification of modern life, the impact of the GFC and the consequent winners and losers. Here is an extract from the opening chapter – which promises quite a lot.
“As the houses had got more expensive, it was as if they had become alive and had wishes and needs of their own. Vans from Berry Brothers and Rudd brought wine,; there were two or three different vans of dog-walkers; there were florists, Amazon parcels, personal trainers, cleaners, plumbers, yoga teachers, and all day long, all of them going up to the houses like supplicants and then being swallowed up by them. There was laundry, there was dry-cleaning, there were dog beds, printer ribbons, garden chairs, vintage film posters, same-day DVD purchases, eBay coups, eBay whims and impulse buys, mail-order bicycles.”

I loved this image – of the houses actively swallowing goods and was keen to see where the book went. The novel has been described as belonging to “credit-crunch literature”. I suppose that one of the frontrunners of this genre would have been ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ and an article in The Guardian mentions some others: “Of course good novels do paint memorable portraits of the societies in which they're set; but they tend to work much better when they're anchored in a distinctive individual sensibility or subculture – as books as varied as American Pastoral, Trainspotting, The Line of Beauty, Money or Disgrace show. The panoramic novel, by contrast, is extremely hard to do well.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/...)

He can write – look at this lovely set of images, again in the first chapter: “Over its history, almost everything that could have happened in the street had happened. Many, many people had fallen in love and out of love; a young girl had had her first kiss, an old man had exhaled his last breath, a solicitor on his way back from the Underground after work had looked up at the sky, swept blue by the wind, and had a sudden sense of religious consolation, a feeling that this life cannot possibly be all, and that it is not possible for consciousness to end with the end of life, babies had died of diphtheria, and people had shot up heroin in bathrooms, and young mothers had cried with their overwhelming sense of fatigue and isolation, and people had planned to escape, and schemed for their big break…” Like a Philip Larkin poem (as another reviewer remarked.

The style of ‘Capital’, however, reminded me of Ben Elton more than anyone else. Something about the array of characters, the overt writerly desire to say something pointed about a particular time and place, and the construct. It doesn’t quite have the heat (sorry) of Bonfire of the Vanities or Elton’s un-nuanced pointedness. The characters are often a little two-dimensional. Michael Lewis is a better writer about the financial crisis – what he manages to say has greater impact. But it is an amiable read and I’m not sorry I had it. (less)

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Oct 18, 2012 Jon rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a very long book made up of very short chapters--107 chapters of about 5 pages each. By my count it tells the interwoven stories of 20 characters in 10 or 12 plot lines. Fortunately the author is a master of the thumbnail sketch. Unfortunately there isn't any over-all plot that could be recognized as a single action with a beginning, middle, and end. There isn't really a beginning: the stories just start. And there's only a mild sense of closure, with most of the stories continuing into...more This is a very long book made up of very short chapters--107 chapters of about 5 pages each. By my count it tells the interwoven stories of 20 characters in 10 or 12 plot lines. Fortunately the author is a master of the thumbnail sketch. Unfortunately there isn't any over-all plot that could be recognized as a single action with a beginning, middle, and end. There isn't really a beginning: the stories just start. And there's only a mild sense of closure, with most of the stories continuing into an implied future. Possibly a sequel? I expected the stories to be linked by the various meanings of the title, most importantly the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the resulting disastrous effects on all the characters directly or indirectly related to it. But that was only a very small piece. The whole experience made me think of an on-going British TV serial like Ballykissangel or Eastenders. The author has a real gift for imagining himself inside the heads of widely different kinds of people, and his seemingly off-hand observations are often very arresting. One character's elderly mother has died, and the mother, even though she was not a believer, insisted on a service in a church before her cremation. The daughter (also not a believer) reluctantly follows her wishes and finds herself thankful and glad. The church seemed to have absorbed a lingering joy from countless happy occasions--weddings, baptisms, Christmas and Easter services, which somehow moderated the sadness and loss of a funeral. She remembered her father's depressing service in a crematorium, a space where nothing joyful had ever occurred. Or another character desperately homesick for his native Senegal, wanting to recover "the sense of being known in a place you know; that you were taking up your allotted space on earth. Speaking your own language, all day--Home." Or another African, a woman who has been interned. She has been sentenced to deportation, but can not be deported because of the likelihood that she will be killed in her native Zimbabwe. So in a quirk of English law reminiscent of Dickens she must live in a horrible detention center "England, internment, statelessness, being a non-person in a non-place waiting her way through non-time." Sentences like these kept me reading to the end; but it was a very long haul, and if there is a sequel, I doubt if I'll read it.(less)

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Oct 02, 2012 Rob rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Nobody

Shelves: fiction

This book started of very promising. Set against the backdrop of a very wealthy London neighborhood just before (and during the beginning of) the financial crisis, the book explored the lives of several very different people. A banker, his selfish wife, a refugee, a soccer phenom imported from an African village, a dying woman, her daughter, a polish laborer, a family of Muslim immigrants, and a couple others.

I have to say, the first third of the book I was very into it. Plots were developing, c...more

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Sep 07, 2012 NancyKay rated it 3 of 5 stars

Wanted to love this so much, and enjoyed it, and it kept my good-will throughout, BUT. There were too many characters, many of them not finely drawn enough; it was satirical but maybe not satirical enough; and by the end it was hard to either grieve or cheer for outcomes that felt curiously flat -- some characters seemed to get away too cleanly, and the suffering of others was somehow blunted by the essential cheeriness of the writing.

The book also disappointed in that it set up an expectation,...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Nick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really loved Capital. The writing is engaging and many of the characters are compelling. The novel also falls into a genre that I particularly like: interlocking stories about characters who are a bit randomly connected with each other. In this case, they all live or work on the same road in London between 2007 and 2009. It's a big 527 pages and I read the whole thing in under 48 hours (granted, I was on vacation, and for one of those days I was also on two planes, but still). I give it four s...more

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Aug 18, 2012 Jon Gilbert rated it 3 of 5 stars

I should start by saying that I am rather a fan of John Lanchester's writing in the London Review of Books. His insights into the global financial meltdown, analysis of UK politics and general interest in our society make him almost unmissable as an observer of real note. This makes it that much more disappointing that I cannot wholeheartedly recommend his latest and much heralded novel Capital.

Capital aims to reflect multiculturalism in London at a time of social unrest, economic contraction an...more I should start by saying that I am rather a fan of John Lanchester's writing in the London Review of Books. His insights into the global financial meltdown, analysis of UK politics and general interest in our society make him almost unmissable as an observer of real note. This makes it that much more disappointing that I cannot wholeheartedly recommend his latest and much heralded novel Capital.

Capital aims to reflect multiculturalism in London at a time of social unrest, economic contraction and religious conflict. Lanchester is more than capable of explaining some of the technical aspects of the financial crisis (something he does so brilliantly in Whoops! his outstanding factual account) but too much of this novel is mired in stereotype, two dimensional characters and dialogue that seems forced, unnatural given the range of characters involved.

We have the buffoon banker and his horribly avaricious wife, the African footballing wunderkind signed up to the major London club in the area (an obvious take on Chelsea), the Polish builder, the Pakistani family who own the Newsagents, the token English old lady who has seen so much change having lived in Pepys Road the setting for this novel for nearly 50 years and so it goes on.

The trouble is we don't really get a sense of anything very sympathetic about any of them and there is nothing to make us feel enriched, informed or even angry or upset as the book progresses.

There is if anything a real feel that we are readingn the scripts of a few weeks worth of Eastenders rather than a cohesive novel with a narrative that moves us forward in how we see London or the world we live in.

As I say I am a big Lanchester fan but to my mind he is a far better writer when dealing in fact than when creating character and dialogue.

This is by no means a terrible book - because of the soap opera nature of the narrative it rattles along perfectly well and as a holiday read certainly passes the time easily enough but in truth this is a disappointment from such a talented writer.(less)

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Jul 30, 2012 Ms. Littell rated it 3 of 5 stars

Capital is broken into four parts starting with Dec. 2007 then April 2008, Aug. 2008, and finally, Nov. 2008. This covers the time when the economy began to crumble, and the novel is set on one street in London. Pepys Road was an area that had typically had working class people live but with the housing bubble, house prices increased, changing the road. There are a slew of characters; I would say too many. These are people that lived on the street, worked in the homes, or were somehow related (l...more

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Jul 25, 2012 Alan rated it 2 of 5 stars

I enjoy titles which have layers of meaning. I enjoy the cleverness and I appreciate the sign-posting they provide so I can make sure that I don't miss a thread woven into the story. As layered titles go, John Lanchester's Capital isn't particularly difficult to penetrate: there is Capital as Money, and there is Capital as London and the fact that, to Lanchester, the first defines the second adds an admirable tidiness to the layers. All in all, it's a good title. The only problem is that it's be...more I enjoy titles which have layers of meaning. I enjoy the cleverness and I appreciate the sign-posting they provide so I can make sure that I don't miss a thread woven into the story. As layered titles go, John Lanchester's Capital isn't particularly difficult to penetrate: there is Capital as Money, and there is Capital as London and the fact that, to Lanchester, the first defines the second adds an admirable tidiness to the layers. All in all, it's a good title. The only problem is that it's been given to the wrong book, for Lanchester's novel betrays both readings.

Capital is an infuriating book, superficial, glib and shallow. It mirrors prevailing opinions and prejudices, but not prevailing spirit. It is filled with stereotypes but few characters and no people. It doesn't even scratch the surface of what makes London the city it is; it records a pulse but no heartbeat.

The depiction of Finance, from Roger Yount's dashed bonus hopes to the collapse of Pinker Lloyd, is at best simplistic, at worst childish and unrealistic. The connection back to London is through a single front door - No 51 Pepys Road - behind which lives a family carefully constructed to conform with our most obvious preconceptions.

Yet, Lanchester's prologue astutely observes that there is a wider connection, a shift in the community's perceptions and values tied to the infectious heart of greed and aspiration. Sadly, the Prologue remains the best part of the book.

The microcosm device - a single street in London, Pepys Road - falls far short of its intent. Lanchester attempts to overcome the weaknesses of such an unrepresentative device by including a selection of peripheral characters who have a recurring relationship with the street: the builder, the traffic warden, the nanny and an assortment of relatives. But the links are too tenuous, too fragile. Often the link is made simply through an event rather than through the complex social connections that knit a city together. We are given the strands of wool but never the pattern.

The drama of community lies not in its connections, but in its dependencies and the conflict between what is valued and what is believed to be valuable.

It would take far more time than I wish to spend to write in detail of all the things that frustrated and irritated me about this book: from the weak plot resolution; its disjointed, episodic structure that reads like a series of newspaper observations; the deliberate pandering to topical public opinion in place of deeper analysis; the technical flaws and the improbable and implausible plot developments.

Capital is a book that touches on many issues but fails to go to the added trouble of exploring any of them. It doesn't do London justice nor does it do justice to the profound impact that the banshees of Finance and Fear have had on us all.(less)

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Jul 23, 2012 Edmole rated it 4 of 5 stars

I wanted to read this as it is set on a fictionalised Pepys Road, a couple of stone's throws from my new home in Brockley , moving to which from Finsbury Park has knocked a year off my life.

Pepys Road is one of the many places around London built to house the Lower Middle Class in Victorian Times which have got more and more valuable in the seemingly endless post war housing bubbleboom. It's a mystery, told from the perspective of a few residents of the road - someone is gently stalking the resi...more

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Jul 02, 2012 Meera rated it 3 of 5 stars

It's not the definitive London novel, however hard it tries to be. I did enjoy reading it, but I think its pretty much a copy of the idea of Sebastian Faulks' A week in December, which does this same story better. A cross section across London society, cleverly encapsulated in the idea of people living in the same road and how their fortunes and misfortunes intertwine: the rich family in which the father works in the city, the poor pensioner who has lived in her house through the years to see it...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-british-fiction

This book is almost a pure delight. Sprawling in scope (the City, property, money, the upper-middle classes, the immigrant classes, sport, sport as business, work, love, and did I say property?), deeply insightful, and thoroughly engaging. It's set largely on the (fictionalized) Pepys Road (an inspired name), which affords Lanchester a view that is both microscopic and macroscopic:

"Over its history, almost everything that could have happened in the street had happened. Many, many people had fall...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Rob added it

Shelves: fiction2b

The residents of Pepys Road, South London, are an eclectic mix. 82 year old Petunia Howe has lived there all her life, yet most of her neighbours are incomers. Roger and Arabella Yount bought their upmarket property from the proceeds of Roger's job as an Investment Banker. Freddy Kamo is a Premiership footballer. Ahmed Kamal runs the corner shop with his wife and two brothers. Meanwhile, Zbigniew the Polish builder is putting up Arabella's shelves, whilst Quentina Mkfesi, a political refugee fro...more The residents of Pepys Road, South London, are an eclectic mix. 82 year old Petunia Howe has lived there all her life, yet most of her neighbours are incomers. Roger and Arabella Yount bought their upmarket property from the proceeds of Roger's job as an Investment Banker. Freddy Kamo is a Premiership footballer. Ahmed Kamal runs the corner shop with his wife and two brothers. Meanwhile, Zbigniew the Polish builder is putting up Arabella's shelves, whilst Quentina Mkfesi, a political refugee from Zimbabwe, is walking Pepys Road in search of parking infringements.

When the residents begin to receive postcards of their houses with the sinister message "We want what you have", the relationship between them and their material possessions are placed under the microscope. The appalling Arabella Yount has completely objectified herself in material terms. Roger needs a £1million bonus to meet his family's extravagant requirements. Freddy's father Patrick wishes that he was back in Senegal where life was poorer but simpler. Petunia's grandson Smitty is a Banksy-style artist whose anonymity is a commodity. Zbigniew monitors his share portfolio so that he can return to Poland to set up in business with his father.

Overlying the material relations are typically modern physical threats. The postcards turn nasty. The Kamal's brother is arrested as a terrorist. Freddy is injured playing football. Quentina is interned. Petunia has cancer. Roger is caught up in the banking crisis.

Yet despite these pitfalls, this is a surprisingly warm-hearted book. These tribulations are generally redemptive, underscoring the importance of family, love, friendship and respect. Only Arabella Yount is too far-gone in her materialistic cocoon to be able to contemplate the opportunities that Roger's change in lifestyle may offer, and whilst the fate of the admirable Quentina gives little to be optimistic about, she knows that Zimbabwe will not be ruled by a tyrant forever.

John Lanchester has succeeded in writing an immensely enjoyable State-of-the-Nation novel. The way in which each set of characters' lives impinge on each other only very tangentially is exactly how a modern street works. Admittedly most characters are not sketched in much depth and the novel lacks complexity - yet it is this lightness which captures the superficial freneticness and interconnectivity of modern life so well.

Taken from my blog http://roderick-random.blogspot.co.uk...(less)

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May 19, 2012 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I nearly give this book the dreaded three star review, standing for middle of the road average. An easy enough read, this is a novel about London life as it might be for a lot of Londoners. If you know the city, it certainly feels authentic, and the characters have an integrity about them that pulls you through the plot when it would have been quite easy to allow them to be either stereotypes or caricatures. It's a close run thing though, and Lanchester just gets away with some of the portrayals...more

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