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Night and the City

Gerald Kersh,

Paul Duncan (Editor)

4.08 · Rating details · 211 ratings · 27 reviews

Harry Fabian has a dream to become the top wrestling promoter in London, but he has a problem: he needs money. Not too much -- only one hundred quid -- but it might as well be a million because he needs the money by the end of the week. What's more, it is the height of the 1930s Depression, he lives in London's Soho, he makes money from selling his girlfriend to men, and t ...more

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Paperback, 382 pages

Published November 1st 2001 by iBooks (first published 1938)

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Sep 01, 2020 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1940s, hardboiled, mysteries

”Every film he had ever seen, and every book he had ever read, rushed together in his brain to form one blazing and magnificent composite, in which he, Fabian, fantastically enlarged, fantastically dressed, leaned backwards in a wild photomontage of champagne bubbles, limousines, diamonds, galloping horses, baize tables, and beautiful women; all whirling and weaving in a deluge of white and yellow chips, and large bank notes; an eternal reduplication of breasts and legs and every conceivable sha ...more

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Aug 13, 2015 Franky rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: noir

“Many commercial gentlemen are called ‘businessmen’ until they are found out; then they are described as ‘crooks.’”

Look up chump—or for that matter, mug-- in the dictionary and you might see Harry Fabian’s face. A man with a plan, you might call him. Always has something up his sleeve. Wrestling racket? A means to get ahead, staying in front of the other mugs…A hustler on the move…

Within this novel, even the title takes on a bit of symbolism and significance. Night is the time when deals are ma “Many commercial gentlemen are called ‘businessmen’ until they are found out; then they are described as ‘crooks.’”

Look up chump—or for that matter, mug-- in the dictionary and you might see Harry Fabian’s face. A man with a plan, you might call him. Always has something up his sleeve. Wrestling racket? A means to get ahead, staying in front of the other mugs…A hustler on the move…

Within this novel, even the title takes on a bit of symbolism and significance. Night is the time when deals are made, when the big shots make money, when the seediness of London’s underground comes into full view….The innocent need to beware: the city itself is unforgiving, moving on without remorse…

Gerald Kersh has apt and spot on prose, delving into who these characters are under the surface, especially aforementioned Harry, an unsympathetic weasel-like con man of sorts: “…he was like a sinister figure in a somber morality play: a creature of the gutters…” There is one scene where Harry relentlessly follows an older man, only to eventually blackmail him with false bravado and conniving methods. Harry may remind you of the used car salesman who invents a false story to get you to buy that lemon of a car.

I can see why Night and the City is listed on many noir reads. It seems to be dripping in depravity: characters, setting, plot all add to an element of this vibe. Kersh is spot on with many poetic descriptions of time and place, creating an atmosphere typical of noir. There is a level of bleakness that personifies and typifies much of the plot, as scams and deals and rackets are done for profit. Harry himself perhaps personifies this philosophy the best, remarking “If you’re not trying to make a buck, any way possible, you’re a mug.” In many ways The Silver Fox, the club where many of the locals go, is a microcosm of this seediness.

Night and the City would not have felt complete if at least some characters attempted to break from the bleakness and depravity, and we do see this in the novel’s second half. Without conflict, what can we hope for against all this? One minor character, Adam, attempts to break from this vicious cycle, tries to save another soul from the grasp of the “Night.”

In all fairness, Kersh’s novel did take awhile to become fully invested in, with much of the first part being exposition of defining who Harry Fabian is and who those around him are. There is something a bit circular about some point in the plot, but the second half comes around nicely.

A really fine and effective noir read is Night and the City. There is also a film with Night and the City, starring Richard Widmark as Harry. While the film is great in many aspects, as usual with book vs. film, they are really two different animals (although Widmark does personify Fabian effectively). Check out the novel, then the film, and see what you think.

...more

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May 12, 2019 K.J. Charles added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1930s, dodgy-geezer, london

A spectacularly bleak and misanthropic novel of London low life just before WW2 (pimps, prostitutes, wheeler dealers, scammers, blackmailers) set among nightclubs and the wrestling world, both of which the author knew personally. Compellingly horrible---grubs writhing in an immense night, as Rupert Brooke said of Webster, with very little offered in the way of hope for the species, just human selfishness, self-delusion, self-harm and self-indulgence on full sordid display in all their grime. A g ...more

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Dec 24, 2008 David rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: noir, deserves-a-comeback

This terrific noir of 1930’s London was a revelation, even though I had seen the fine 1950 movie w/ Richard Widmark, I knew that things would be more vicious and degenerate than the movie. But the real splendor of the novel is the prose, or should I say the dialogue – this would make a fabulous audiobook for a skilled actor or troupe. The prose is a clamor of London voices, high and low, and at the middle of this Dickensian hubbub is one of the most magnificent scoundrels ever written, the grand This terrific noir of 1930’s London was a revelation, even though I had seen the fine 1950 movie w/ Richard Widmark, I knew that things would be more vicious and degenerate than the movie. But the real splendor of the novel is the prose, or should I say the dialogue – this would make a fabulous audiobook for a skilled actor or troupe. The prose is a clamor of London voices, high and low, and at the middle of this Dickensian hubbub is one of the most magnificent scoundrels ever written, the grandiloquent low-life pimp and would-be wrestling promoter Harry Fabian, who boasts, brags, scams, dreams and lies his way through the pages of this book with awesome gusto. A great trickster figure, Fabian is not entirely without scruple; he’s no sociopath. For instance, he does think twice about selling his girl into white slavery to raise capital. Yet his dreams are so grand and vertiginous that he is driven to the darkest depths to reach them, and there are hulking men w/ straight razors waiting for him down there. Aside from the banter and bluster, there’s are some delicious sequences of street poetry here, such as an interlude with a yowling cat, and a terribly physical wrestling sequence (there’s a good one of those in the movie, too), all tending to expose the human animal and his irrepressible and ultimately insane urges, the hungers that burn in us even in the midst of plenty. In fine, this is a gorgeous testament to longing and folly, something like Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock after a magnum of champagne (or a line of cocaine?)

Here's a small taste: "Every film he had ever seen, and every book he had ever read, rushed together in his brain to form one blazing and magnificent composite, in which he, Fabian, fantastically enlarged, fantastically dressed, leaned backwards in a wild photomontage of champagne bubbles, limousines, diamonds, galloping horses, baize tables, and beautiful women; all whirling and weaving in a deluge of white and yellow chips, and large bank notes; an eternal reduplication of breasts and legs of every conceivable shape, size, and color. That, he said to himself, is what I'm going to do.... Plunger Fabian, the playboy who broke the bank at Monte Carlo. Afterwards, I can buy plenty dames." ...more

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Feb 10, 2017 Peter rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews, 1930s

“The darkness...seeped down between the street lamps, poured into basements, and lay deep and stagnant under the porches and the arches of the back streets...Night closed down upon the city.”

And here’s Harry Fabian, a ponce on the prowl in “the shifting frontier between the slough of small business and the quagmire of the underworld.” Harry is a no-hoper, a fantasist who makes out that he’s a wide boy but isn’t. Things are going to end badly for Harry...but that’s par for the course in Kersh’s s “The darkness...seeped down between the street lamps, poured into basements, and lay deep and stagnant under the porches and the arches of the back streets...Night closed down upon the city.”

And here’s Harry Fabian, a ponce on the prowl in “the shifting frontier between the slough of small business and the quagmire of the underworld.” Harry is a no-hoper, a fantasist who makes out that he’s a wide boy but isn’t. Things are going to end badly for Harry...but that’s par for the course in Kersh’s shabby pre-war London. The book is full of nocturnal characters trying to make ends meet on the borderlines – club-hostessing, wrestling, doing doubtful deals – each with their dreams, but all of them losers.

If you like seedy, then Kersh’s locales and their inhabitants are just the ticket. There’s a wonderful description of the International Political Club which is a respectable backstreet establishment whose “staid atmosphere was spoiled only by the face of the proprietress. This woman had something about her that was indescribably terrifying. Imagine the death-mask of Julius Caesar, plastered with rouge, and stuck with a pair of eyes as small, as flat, and as bright as newly-cut cross-sections of .38 calibre bullets...She painted her lips bright carmine, but had a habit of pressing them together so firmly that lipstick was smeared over the surrounding skin. This made her look like a newly-fed ghoul that had forgotten to wipe its mouth. She never had much to say. She was supposed to be a Russian. Her name? Scarcely credible: Anna Siberia.”

And as the night wears on, there’s worse. Bagrag’s Club is well within the outer circles of hell. “It used to be a coal-cellar. Daylight has never penetrated to this place since it was built, three hundred years ago. Picture it now, at two o’clock in the morning...Half-exhausted people throw up spasms of febrile energy: they rise in groups without purpose, move round, then sink back again, like stirred-up filth on the bottom of a pond...gulping the wine of madness from questionable glasses, against a damp-raddled background of gangrenous yellow distemper.”

Good stuff - and when Kersh is on form, he's very good indeed. Night and the City has been called "the epitome of London noir" - but it's not so easily pigeon-holed. It has a distinct voice and a distinct atmosphere that transcend any genre and are happily unclassifiable. ...more

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May 08, 2018 Jean-marcel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Blimey, this was good!

My acquaintance with Gerald Kersh's writing began a few years ago, when I read a few short stories in some 1960s fantasy anthologies. I also got a recommendation for Fowler's End, but wasn't really in the mood to read it at the time. Finally, I got a short story anthology as well as the novel Prelude to a Certain Midnight, both of which I thought were absolutely great, and the novel in particular I devoured and reviewed rather enthusiastically last year. Then I went and got Blimey, this was good!

My acquaintance with Gerald Kersh's writing began a few years ago, when I read a few short stories in some 1960s fantasy anthologies. I also got a recommendation for Fowler's End, but wasn't really in the mood to read it at the time. Finally, I got a short story anthology as well as the novel Prelude to a Certain Midnight, both of which I thought were absolutely great, and the novel in particular I devoured and reviewed rather enthusiastically last year. Then I went and got the Night and the City film from 1950 starring Richard Widmark, knowing that it was based on a kersh novel. I loved the film, and just now finally got round to reading the book, and I can definitely say that kersh was right when he said of the film that they took "everything that was me" out of the story.

Indeed, this is not really the same story as that which we see in the film. The movie pretty much invented whole new characters, or made up relationships between people that don't even exist in the novel. I still think the film is great, but now have to acknowledge that this is because of elements separate from the screen-play: a superb cast, excellent direction and, of course, that wicked wrestling scene.

You might not prefer the novel, though. I mean, although it generally has better drawn characters than the film does, it's also, I think, a good deal more cynical. Mind you, it's not true that the book is crammed full of utterly hateful people. I think Kersh's favourite people (as in the characters he genuinely likes best) in the book are Adam the artist, who seems much like how I imagine Kersh himself to have been, and Ali the "Terrible Turk", whom I think is the sort of sheer obstinate physical force that Kersh probably admired in real life. Everyone else though? Let's just say, prepare for seediness and squallor.

This book is really candid and up-front about certain things, which is something I also noticed about Prelude. Reading this, one gets the impression that Gerald Kersh had been "round the block" a lot, seen a lot of things and done a lot of things. He pulls no punches about the things he doesn't like, and don't suppose for a moment that because this is a book from the 1930s, he's going to shy away from showing you the dirty, depraved underbelly of things. Indeed, while there weren't as many drugs around back then, I kind of got the idea from reading this that nightlife in late '30s London was a rather sordid and dangerous thing. All ill-lit underground clubs, stuff being done under the table, prostitution hiding barely beneath the surface, and club owners doing their best to make all customers as "tight" as possible so they will part with their cash. And that's not even getting into the grotesque physical descriptions of these places and their denizens that Kersh seems to delight in giving us. The man is a master of the debilitating pharse and brutal verbal take-down.

Now, all this is interesting to me, because I can see that Kersh is down on nightlife in general and that he, through the voice of his mouthpiece character (I think) Adam, tries to get to the bottom of what exactly is wrong and how it twists, and even infects, the people who navigate the dark corridors of the urban landscape in those tawdry hours before dawn. Speaking from my 21st century, thirty-something perspective, I've always thought of myself as a rather nocturnal person; one who doesn't necessarily get enough sunlight and who thrives in the atmosphere of the late-night rock 'n' roll gig, if not the illicit after-hours club. I can see where Kersh is coming from, but can't help but think that it's really not that bad and that there's no need for such blanket condemnation. But then, this was 1938; times were different then, and I'm not going to doubt his experience: a lot of what he described here probably was just as crooked as he described it. And I don't have to agree with him wholeheartedly to be disappointed (along with Kersh himself, no doubt) in how the character of Helen, who started out sympathetic and identifiable, allowed herself to become "infected", and let the greed of the nightclub pusher take over. It was sad seeing her mind go down these pathways and leading her astray, even if Adam wasn't really the man for her. I like that Kersh doesn't sugar-coat, and doesn't offer any beds of roses for his characters. This is another big difference between the book and the film.

The film, by the way, on reflection, was probably too interested in its stars; namely Richard Widmark, and, laughably, Joan Tierney, who is only actually in the damn thing for a couple of scenes but still somehow manages to come off as something of a saintly martyr. The book makes no bones about her being a prostitute, and Harry Fabian (Widmark's character in the film) is her pimp. This is usually said to be Harry Fabian's story, and that's definitely true of the film, but I think the book encompasses a lot more, and so there's a lot more to ponder on in Kersh's text than Fabian alone. Fabian himself, by the way, is total scum. I'm trying to ease off on these book/film comparisons here, but again, i think the film stopped short of making Fabian a truly despicable piece of shit, whereas kersh sees the reality of Harry and has no qualms. This guy, Fabian, is utterly ridiculous. He's a poseur, a fake, a schemer, cheater, thief -- his whole persona is based on a dozen different lies, and he doesn't even think twice about using and stepping all over everyone to make it appear that he's a "man in the money". Oddly though, it's still sort of possible to feel a bit sorry for harry, because he manages to sabotage his own ambition at every turn. Seriously, just get a load of this guy! Every time he gets his hands on some money, he squanders it away through drinking, gambling or simply showing off. As Bert says in the last scene, he could have made something of himself, even if his footholds would have been gained illicitly. But no, some hungry, needy, lazy, instant-gratification-wish-fulfilment part of him always stops him from getting ahead, because he needs the immediate attention, the praise, the babes, the lavish excess, right-here-right-now-all-the-time! Just look at that scene where he's imagining all the glory that will come to him once he "breaks the bank at Monte Carlo". Just a huge onslaught of champagne and money and sports cars and stallions and titties. It's like the mad dreams of a dimented twelve-year-old. And the funniest thing is that despite his sick and useless nature being known, he has a couple of guys around him that will look out for him, guys like Bert and Figler who will warn him when he's getting in too deep or about to make a terrible mistake. Unbelievable! But of course, he always tells them to "go to hell!"

Can i just say right now that the writing here is superb? There are passages that plumb the depths of depravity, but also some startlingly beautiful prose moments. Someone on here likened bits of this book to "street poetry", and I can definitely hear it. There's a whole interlude in the book dedicated to cats mating! I'm not kidding. Kersh manages to make this poignant, funny as hell but also relevant to the "big picture" in some startling, eye-opening ways. Theres' a bit where a roaring drunk Harry starts raving rhythmically about boys with guns waiting in the street to answer his call and bump off anyone he chooses, and I swear he's "free-styling". There's perspective and sympathy and harshness, and it's all thrown together into this huge, rambling but totally coherent picture. I don't know how he does it, but I hail the man Kersh for managing to pull this off with such style and confidence.

There's loads of humour to be milked here, too, even if it's usually at someone's expense (often Harry's, and he often doesn't realise it). The scene in the Turkish bathhouse where Harry tries to get information out of a guy he intends to blackmail had me in stitches, as did Harry's entire drunken escapade at Phil Nosseros's nightclub. There's a bit of sexism (but not, I hasten to add, any trace of misogyny that I could see), and some casual racism (out of the mouths of his highly questionable characters, mind you), and hey, it was 1938, and yes, times were different, and I want to hand it to Kersh for being rather forward and unrestrained for his times, talking openly and candidly about sex and sexuality, and even subtly bringing race and class issues to the fore. By the way, I think the class thing here is quite interesting. Everyone of a certain social stratum seems to know exactly what Harry's about, and why he's no good. But people like Helen, whom despite her new-found openness to nightlife and such, comes from an educated background and a "good" family, are ripe, so to speak, and can easily be taken in by him and all his ruses and false promises. Kersh could have gone a lot further with all this, but he chose to stop the train before Harry could really drag helen or anyone else down with him. An interesting choice, for sure, and one which perhaps belies his cynicism. I'd say that maybe The Strangler should have done Harry in with that razor in the end, but it's ok. Maybe this was for the best: harry carted off by the police, his "poncery" found out and exposed for all, his brother shaking his head sadly, and all the while screaming "It's a frame-up!" This is the journey; the story of how we got to this point. Strap in, and let this wise writer, who always manages to temper his occasional cantankerousness with thoughtfulness and a kind of ecstatic music, take you down to the underground. You might want a shower when you're done. You might not be sure if you want to grin and laugh or be terminally sad. I think that's the beauty of it. ...more

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Feb 21, 2009 Rob rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is a novel well worth reading, for its strengths are immense, as Kersh delves not so much into the underworld, as the book cover would have had me believe, as the depths of the minds and souls of hustlers, specifically Harry Fabian, who is the fully realized and totally repugnant star of this story. Harry is a delusional fool who abuses the trust of others, including that of the woman he purportedly loves, and his ambition drives the story. But he's obviously a loser from the start, and it' This is a novel well worth reading, for its strengths are immense, as Kersh delves not so much into the underworld, as the book cover would have had me believe, as the depths of the minds and souls of hustlers, specifically Harry Fabian, who is the fully realized and totally repugnant star of this story. Harry is a delusional fool who abuses the trust of others, including that of the woman he purportedly loves, and his ambition drives the story. But he's obviously a loser from the start, and it's only a question of how he will lose and who he will take down with him. What's of greater interest than Harry's fate is that of the peripheral characters who often seem no better than Harry, just less ambitious or more efficient.

Kersh doesn't have much in the hope for any of the characters but one, whose story gets abandoned toward the end, and he seems to like only one other, who he kills off late in the book. I don't have a problem with that, but there isn't enough impact to any of this. For the most part the book is about losers, and there isn't much doubt that they're going to lose. The worst scenes in the book are when the young couple he sets as lovers engage in dialogue - it's horrific set crap written at a beginner's level well beneath anything else in the book. Whatever the cause, lovers talking is presented as something that Kersh simply can't write; maybe if they were conducting some sleazy amoral activity instead of talking about love he'd handle it better.

The thing is, for all my criticism, Harry Fabian is a damned interesting character, and the other characterizations in the book are also well done, so that nearly every scene is interesting. The ending is a disappointment, and I think it's because Kersh doesn't go far enough. Obviously Harry isn't going to succeed, but with all his ambition he might take more people down with him. Some of this, intentionally or otherwise, comes across as a critique of the British police system, arresting those who project a poor image of the kingdom rather than arresting those who are dangerous, but to the author's credit that's a position taken by his characters.

Kersh's politics are not imposed here. He presents his characters as they are without giving his opinion, and that's where the book succeeds. An underground segment of London society is given to us, and it's given to us to decide what we think of these people. We see those in bad situations who are unlikely to get out, those who have found a way to succeed within this underground, and of course the interesting ones are those who see the situation and are choosing whether to succeed within it or to somehow escape it. And that's where this book really works. Kersh knows his characters and writes exceedingly well about them. I wish he'd gone farther; perhaps he saw nothing beyond what he presents here, but it's in that beyond that greatness lies. ...more

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Jan 13, 2018 Joshua rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

An absolutely astonishing foray into the seedy underbelly of pre-war London. Elevated miles beyond the average pulp noir fair by the elegant prose stylings of Gerald Kersh that somehow manage to come off as far more poetic than purple.

It is to my detriment that I'd never picked up this novel before. I wish I'd been reading it for years. The film version of the book, excellent in its own right, distills much of the gritty feel into a cogent, brisk plot. The novel itself is quite a different expe ...more

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Aug 10, 2010 Tosh rated it really liked it · review of another edition

"Night and the City" is pretty amazing on different levels. On one end I don't think its a great novel, but as a portrait of a time, place, and a certain type of character its totally ace. Written in 1938 and mostly taking place in Soho London it is a snapshot of a group of hustlers trying to stay above the water-line of sorts.

The main character is Harry Fabian, who for god knows, should be a major iconic fiction figure. But alas, what we have here is a pimp who lives his life in a certain amou ...more

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Sep 25, 2014 Paul Brazill rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Gerald Kersh’s brilliant 1938 novel Night and the City is ‘a book I wish I’d written’, Rich and darkly beautiful. Cruel and funny. There’s a tidy introduction from John King in this edition, too.

The blurb: Harry Fabian is a ponce, a Flash Harry in an expensive suit, a cockney wide boy who adopts American tones and talks big, yet will never make it to the top. He operates in the Soho of the 1930s, a metropolitan tangle of dodgy geezers, prostitutes, spivs and strong-arm men. Twice filmed, Night a ...more

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Nov 15, 2009 Andrew Vachss rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Gerald Kersh, who found the flowers in Hell.

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Jan 10, 2021 Luke rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2021

Gerald Kersh is someone I'd wanted to read for a while. Harlan Ellison and Michael Moorcock were and are both fans, and the author seems to be one of those, like Poe or Dickens, who managed a hack's volume, but also kept a remarkable quality.

He also looked natty as fuck, let's face it.

Night and the City is a 1938 novel that spawned a classic noir film, which is now likely better known than its source material. Broadly, it concerns a spiv, Harry Fabian who dreams big and is in eternal pursuit o ...more

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Aug 18, 2018 Williwaw rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Quite some time ago, I saw a movie with the same title, starring Richard Widmark, and it's considered a "noir" classic. Some quick and dirty internet searches divulge that the movie didn't follow the book very closely, and that the director never read the book.

My memory of the film is dim now. But I can say that both the book and the film feature a low-life weasel named Harry Fabian, who is desperate for money so that he can become a wrestling promoter in 1930's London. In the book, Fabian is l Quite some time ago, I saw a movie with the same title, starring Richard Widmark, and it's considered a "noir" classic. Some quick and dirty internet searches divulge that the movie didn't follow the book very closely, and that the director never read the book.

My memory of the film is dim now. But I can say that both the book and the film feature a low-life weasel named Harry Fabian, who is desperate for money so that he can become a wrestling promoter in 1930's London. In the book, Fabian is living off his girlfriend, who is a prostitute. Fabian is repeatedly described by his neighbors and acquaintances (I don't think he has any friends) as a "ponce," which is Cockney for a pimp.

The climactic scene of the book is a bloody wrestling match between a fat, 70-year-old champion named Ali the Turk and a much younger and more fit Cypriot wrestler. It's very well-written and I won't say who "wins" (but if you've seen the movie, you already know what happens).

There are many well-depicted characters and occasionally some very lush interludes (where the author seems to be waxing philosophical and stepping outside the characters' thoughts and actions -- clearly a "no-no" by today's standards. Nevertheless, I liked these passages.)

Most of the characters are desperate and hopeless. The exceptions are: Adam, a young man who temporarily stoops to be a waiter at a night club so he can earn enough money to coast for a year and try his hand at the art of sculpture; and Helen, his girlfriend, who has more practical ambitions. She'd like to open her own nightclub, but Adam is completely uninterested. And that causes some tension between them, to say the least. The names Kersh chose for the positive characters (Adam and Helen) strike me as very suggestive. Fodder for some literary analysis, no doubt.

I sent a copy of the book to a friend of mine, who said that he couldn't read it because it was too "ugly." That intrigued me, so I decided to try it out for myself. I found it beautifully ugly, and got through it within a week. Despite the ugliness of the characters, the story sustained my interest. Furthermore, the book ends on a hopeful note, so it isn't unredeemably ugly.

This book is regarded by many as an underground classic. I'd say that it's not up there with the greatest books of all time, but it's still a very good book. Kersh was quite popular for a time, but from what I've read he ultimately sank into obscurity and died in poverty in upstate New York. One final, interesting note is that Harlan Ellison always said that Kersh was his favorite writer. If you are an Ellison fan, that's a pretty significant statement. ...more

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Dec 30, 2010 Moloch rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommended to Moloch by: Articolo Corsera

Shelves: narrativa, narrativa_britannica_e_irlandese, noir, venduto-scambiato-regalato

Più di dieci anni: tanto ha dovuto aspettare questo libro dal momento in cui ne lessi una recensione sul Corriere della Sera (maggio 2003) a quello in cui finalmente l'ho preso dallo scaffale e letto (ottobre 2013). Al punto che ormai questa edizione che ho è fuori commercio.

Londra, 1938. Harry Fabian è un delinquentello di mezza tacca, sempre alla ricerca di modi per far soldi che poi puntualmente scialacqua subito in alcol, scommesse, bei vestiti e spesucce varie, vive sfruttando i guadagni de Più di dieci anni: tanto ha dovuto aspettare questo libro dal momento in cui ne lessi una recensione sul Corriere della Sera (maggio 2003) a quello in cui finalmente l'ho preso dallo scaffale e letto (ottobre 2013). Al punto che ormai questa edizione che ho è fuori commercio.

Londra, 1938. Harry Fabian è un delinquentello di mezza tacca, sempre alla ricerca di modi per far soldi che poi puntualmente scialacqua subito in alcol, scommesse, bei vestiti e spesucce varie, vive sfruttando i guadagni della fidanzata-prostituta Zoë, si atteggia a "duro" sul modello dei gangster americani, ma in realtà chi lo conosce bene ride di queste pose alle sue spalle. Sembra che il suo moto perpetuo, le sue chiacchiere incessanti e la sua ostentata spavalderia servano più che altro a lui stesso per impedirsi di contemplare la disperazione della sua esistenza. L'ultima sua trovata è aprire una sala per combattimenti di lotta libera, per cui serve trovare un socio, mettere insieme un capitale, rimediare un campione sul viale del tramonto che si occupi di allenare i lottatori... Accanto a questa vicenda principale si collocano anche altre figure che entrano in contatto col nostro protagonista.

Non è stata però una lettura che mi ha coinvolto molto (un altro libro che mi aveva attirato anni e anni fa e che poi delude: come, ma meno clamorosamente, Gli Schwartz ): interessanti il protagonista, Harry Fabian, e gli squarci sui tanti espedienti che i vari personaggi, dal trafficone Joe Figler dalle mille risorse alle entraîneuse che spillano soldi ai clienti ubriachi nei pub, mettono in atto per tirare a campare, suggestivo anche il capitolo sul combattimento sul ring, ma molti dei personaggi secondari (Adam, Helen, Vi) non avevano altrettanta capacità di tenere desta l'attenzione, a tratti le loro vicende suonavano quasi come un riempitivo o una distrazione dalla trama principale, o apparivano troppo scopertamente moraleggianti (specie le "tirate" dell'aspirante scultore Adam). L'epopea dei "perdenti" e di coloro che popolano la Londra più buia, sporca e meno "rispettabile" è senz'altro interessante, e questa ambientazione non è usuale, ma lo svolgimento mi è sembrato privo di mordente e un po' dispersivo.

Oltre tutto, ho l'impressione che questo romanzo nella traduzione abbia perso parecchio: se una delle caratteristiche del protagonista era atteggiarsi a gangster americano, probabilmente ciò si sarà riflesso anche in un suo uso esagerato e parodistico di slang ed espressioni diverse rispetto agli altri personaggi londinesi, cosa impossibile da rendere in modo adeguato in italiano (me lo fa pensare il fatto che spesso Fabian dica "O-kappa" al posto di OK). Purtroppo temo che questo libro, che ha atteso per tanti anni "il suo momento", sarà invece dimenticato in fretta.

2,5/5

http://moloch981.wordpress.com/2013/1... ...more

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Dec 06, 2007 David rated it really liked it

Shelves: deserves-a-comeback, noir

This terrific noir of 1930’s London was a revelation, even though I had seen the fine 1950 movie w/ Richard Widmark, I knew that things would be more vicious and degenerate than the movie. But the real splendor of the novel is the prose, or should I say the dialogue – this would make a fabulous audiobook for a skilled actor or troupe. The prose is a clamor of London voices, high and low, and at the middle of this Dickensian hubbub is one of the most magnificent scoundrels ever written, the grand This terrific noir of 1930’s London was a revelation, even though I had seen the fine 1950 movie w/ Richard Widmark, I knew that things would be more vicious and degenerate than the movie. But the real splendor of the novel is the prose, or should I say the dialogue – this would make a fabulous audiobook for a skilled actor or troupe. The prose is a clamor of London voices, high and low, and at the middle of this Dickensian hubbub is one of the most magnificent scoundrels ever written, the grandiloquent, megalomaniacal low-life pimp and would-be wrestling promoter Harry Fabian, who boasts, brags, scams, dreams and lies his way through the pages of this book with awesome gusto. A great trickster figure, Fabian is not entirely without scruple; he’s no sociopath. For instance, he does think twice about selling his girl into white slavery to raise capital. Yet his dreams are so grand and vertiginous that he is driven to the darkest depths to reach them, and there are hulking men w/ straight razors waiting for him down there. Aside from the banter and bluster, there’s are some delicious sequences of street poetry here, such as an interlude with a yowling cat, and a terribly physical wrestling sequence (there’s a good one of those in the movie, too), all tending to expose the human animal and his irrepressible and ultimately insane urges, the hungers that burn in us even in the midst of plenty. In fine, this is a gorgeous testament to longing and folly, something like Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock after a magnum of champagne (or a line of cocaine?)

Here's a small taste: "Every film he had ever seen, and every book he had ever read, rushed together in his brain to form one blazing and magnificent composite, in which he, Fabian, fantastically enlarged, fantastically dressed, leaned backwards in a wild photomontage of champagne bubbles, limousines, diamonds, galloping horses, baize tables, and beautiful women; all whirling and weaving in a deluge of white and yellow chips, and large bank notes; an eternal reduplication of breasts and legs of every conceivable shape, size, and color. That, he said to himself, is what I'm going to do.... Plunger Fabian, the playboy who broke the bank at Monte Carlo. Afterwards, I can buy plenty dames." ...more

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Nov 01, 2017 Guy Salvidge rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This would be five stars except that Kersh doesn't actually seem to be able to construct a plot. Great characters and dialogue, but a bit interminable. The film is just about my favourite noir of them all and it manages to streamline this unruly subject matter most effectively. ...more

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Oct 18, 2019 Michael Sullivan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: weird-fiction-1940-1980

The film lock stock and two smoking barrels must have been heavily influenced by this book.

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Aug 05, 2013 Randy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A most interesting novel highlighting the underbelly of London. Set in the months before George VI's coronation(1936), we see a different sort of life> The characters here are what would be considered lower class, in the mores of the time and their actions. But some were just hard working folks trying to survive the best way they could.

Harry Fabian is the unquestioned star of the book, a little man with delusions of grandeur that had the intelligence and drive to make something of himself. If he ...more

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Aug 12, 2015 J2e rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Sometimes you have to wonder at American reviewers who claim the States produced a crop of hard boiled writers in the 1930s; compared to the British most of them were as hard boiled as an old dish cloth. Forget Richard Widmark's happy go lucky rogue in Jules Dassin's film adaptation of Kersh's novel. Fabian is utterly heartless, and I mean worse than that. If he has a redeeming feature it might be that he seems unaware of how others take advantage of him. The others include his girlfriend Zoe, w ...more

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Jan 25, 2014 Zvi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Excellent for its glimpse into the world of con men, pimps, wrestlers, escorts, club-owners, businessmen and criminals in London between the wars. Soaked with colour and life, of a particularly vile kind. Some of the asides of the author are a bit over the top but the sharp characterization and dialog is unbeatable.

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Feb 11, 2013 J.W. Allen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Good read and gives an awesome feel of what Soho was like in the 1930s. Class this as a buried treasure often lost in the celebrity pap that gets published a lot these days. If only Kersh were still alive today...

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Jan 26, 2016 Kevin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Dusty and misogynistic (even after the genre discount) London noir, set pre-WWII, but published just after. The jacket art has it all over the prose, which is pedestrian and repetitive.

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Oct 06, 2010 Robert Pereno rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Marc Glendening insists I read this book or he will section me.

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Sep 16, 2010 Michael Economy marked it as interesting · review of another edition

recommened by william gibson in his goodreads interview ...more

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Jan 10, 2014 Wayne rated it liked it · review of another edition

Excellent read, entertaining plot, fast moving. Bogs down slightly in middle section, however overall well recommended.

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Jack Mottram rated it it was ok
Aug 26, 2008

Jameshemstock rated it it was amazing
Feb 26, 2008

Gavin rated it liked it
Jun 10, 2018

Pierre rated it did not like it
Mar 17, 2014

Seamus May rated it really liked it
Jan 08, 2020

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About Gerald Kersh

Gerald Kersh

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Gerald Kersh was born in Teddington-on-Thames, near London, and, like so many writers, quit school to take on a series of jobs -- salesman, baker, fish-and-chips cook, nightclub bouncer, freelance newspaper reporter and at the same time was writing his first two novels.

In 1937, his third published novel, Night and the City, hurled him into the front ranks of young British writers. Twenty novels la ...more