The Housing Lark in Around the World in 80 Books

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Aug 30, 2020 Tony rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: setting-england-london, novels

In the years following World War II, England experienced a labor shortage and thus encouraged the migration of Commonwealth citizens to "Mother" England. Trinidad native and Royal Navy veteran Selvon wrote a number of books about this generation of a quarter-million migrants, focusing on those from the Caribbean who came to London (the most famous of which is The Lonely Londoners).

In this slim book, we meet a small circle of West Indian friends in Brixton who are perpetually hustling to meet th In the years following World War II, England experienced a labor shortage and thus encouraged the migration of Commonwealth citizens to "Mother" England. Trinidad native and Royal Navy veteran Selvon wrote a number of books about this generation of a quarter-million migrants, focusing on those from the Caribbean who came to London (the most famous of which is The Lonely Londoners).

In this slim book, we meet a small circle of West Indian friends in Brixton who are perpetually hustling to meet the weekly rent for their ramshackle shared rooms. As was typical of the times, housing for West Indian immigrants was in short supply, as many landlords refused to rent to them, and those that would, often didn't provide even the most basic of upkeep. They hit upon the "lark" of pooling savings to purchase a house they can own together, and that aim is the loose thread binding the book together.

The book unfolds in a series of episodes, centering on the Trinidadian Battersby ("Bat") and his new roommate, a Jamacian calypso player named Harry. Upstairs lives Bat's sister Jean, who works as a prostitute in Hyde Park, and her shop assistant roommate Matilda. The men in their rummy-playing, beer-drinking, tale-telling circle include the skirt-chasing Fitz, reefer-merchant Poor, mournful Gallows, who spends his days searching a a 5 pound note he dropped years ago, and Syl, an Indian from Trinidad who can't keep his room in a boarding house for "real" Indians because he doesn't know anything about subcontinental Indian culture, Alfy, and the henpecked Nobby.

There's not much of a plot per se, and the titular scheme never comes to the fore. Instead, it's an intimate glimpse at the social structures formed by these men, and the practical women who are more or less the only ones with the maturity to actually get anything useful done. It's written in a loose creolized English that unfurls in its own cadence as the stories collage into a portrait of community, culminating in a memorable group excursion to Hampton Court. ...more

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Around the World in 80 Books