stargazer

A Bookish Ode To London

Sometimes you only realise how lucky you are, when the good stuff is taken away from you (or you are taken away from it). After three weeks of rough camping for example, small things such as showers, a bed, clean clothes and proper coffee seem like the greatest luxuries in the world.

When I first came to London, I spent a lot of time exploring and my life felt like one big adventure. After a while I got used to it and started to take it for granted. All that changed last year, when London shut down completely during the various lockdowns. Suddenly, there was nothing charming about living in a big city anymore.

Now things seem to be returning to normal and I am enjoying London life more than ever. So I thought it would be appropriate to do a bookish ode to my favourite city.

The Buzz

Occasionally, when I walk around London, I find myself smiling. The atmosphere, the buzz, the people… It all makes me so happy. When turning a corner you never know what to expect; a fun street performance, a new exiting restaurant, a group of full-size elephant figures. One day my bus didn’t go all the way to where I live, because Tour de France!! was passing by. Another time I was overtaken on my Sunday run by the participants in the world championship in race walking (not my proudest moment). I also remember sitting on my roof terrasse, when a lot of cheering and yelling could be heard from the street. My friend got up and looked down. “Oh, there is large group of naked cyclists passing by”. Then she sat down again as if that was the most natural thing in the world. That is London for you…

Virginia Woolf explains all of this so much better in Mrs Dalloway and I think that is one of the reasons, I love this book so much.

The Diversity

London is one of the most international cities in the world with a high degree of diversity. No matter where in the world you are from or however eccentric your appearance is, odds are you won’t stick out. Growing up in a place where everyone more or less looked and dressed the same, I really appreciate this. In Girl, Woman, Other Bernardine Evaristo highlights the diversity with a group of amazing characters.

The Culture

The cultural life in London is superb: Art, theatre, movies, opera, dance performances, literature. Also the spectrum is so wide; from weird underground performances, with only 30 of you in the audience to blockbuster plays with Judi Dench or Ian McKellen; from Picasso exhibitions on Tate Modern to unknown artists in tiny, obscure galleries. The Summer Exhibition which is described in The Doll Factory is one of the highlights of the year with huge amounts of people gathering to spot upcoming talent in the art world.

The Traditions

London has all the modern characteristics of a metropole, but side by side with the edgy galleries, experimental restaurants and urban street culture, you will find afternoon tea at the Ritz, The Royal Horse Guard and Westminster Abbey. I am not particularly fond of sugary cakes or white finger sandwiches, which taste of nothing, but still I love the concept of afternoon tea, which just screams old-school Britain. At Bertram’s Hotel describes this experience so well and reading it made me long for scones, muffins and even cucumber sandwiches served on proper china with a pianist playing in the background.

The Magic

There is no denying it, London is magic! And nobody brings this magic forward better than Ben Aaronovitch in his urban fantasy series, Rivers of London. Some readers may think that police constable Peter Grant is the protagonist, but no, the protagonist is London itself. Each book is concentrated around a specific area of London, shown on the cover. The first two books take place in my neighbourhood and I loved being able to recognise every street, location, coffee shop and restaurant mentioned.

The author captures the spirit of London perfectly and to me these books are the literary manifestation of what it’s like living here: Completely crazy, unexpected, fun, challenging, dramatic, stimulating and first and foremost FULL-ON FANTASTIC.

51 comments

  1. What an absolutely brilliant post, Stargazer💜 Your fused love of London and books screams through.

    I had the blessed fortune of visiting London many years ago when my husband was on assignment in Oxford for three months. I joined him for two weeks and spent a couple of days in London on my own. I never knew what all the fuss was about when afternoon tea was referenced…until I joined one. It was fabulous! I actually took my work team to the Ritz for afternoon tea when I returned to the US.

    Thanks for showing me your London!

    • Thanks Jonetta, I had fun writing this post!

      Wonderful, that you had the opportunity to visit London. And I love that you took your team out to afternoon tea, when you returned. I hope they enjoyed it. My friends from back home have all been to London many times, but I still take them out to afternoon tea when they visit. It really is a great experience.

    • Yay for London! It took me a few visits before I came to love it. The first couple of times, it was just very confusing! 😆

  6. A lovely celebration of London, a city I also love, though living there might test that to breaking point. You’ve reminded me that I have the Aaronovitch sitting on my shelves. Unread, because I don’t do fantasy, at all. But you encourage me at least to give it a try.

    • I would guess, Aaronovitch isn’t for you. On the other hands, I’ve been surprised how readers with very different taste and demography have enjoyed his books. So who knows… Are you familiar with books such as The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or Good Omens? If you’ve enjoyed these, you may like Rivers of London as well.

  7. I love this! Such a clever paean to your adopted city. I miss London, living across the country as I do. I was only an occasional visitor but I loved the buzz and vibrancy. Recently I’ve been thinking we might have a mini break in London. You’ve made a strong case for it!

    • I am glad, you enjoyed it! A mini break in London isn’t bad at all. I know many people who love London, but prefer it in small doses at a time! 😁

    • Thanks Rose. Did you get a new avatar photo? I like the flowers, although the previous one was nice as well (very glamorous!)

      I know, the naked cyclists were fun! I’ve had so many of these small moments, which I still remember years after they happened.

      • I changed my avatar because although I loved the glamourous designer dress it was so completely opposite to me that I got sick of the joke! The new photo is wattle, so I’ve gone Australian.
        You must still smile about the naked cyclists 🙂

  9. Loved your post! I’ve never been to London, but the picture you painted was so wonderfully vivid and whimsical… I wish to visit it some day and experience the city myself!

    • Aw thanks! I hope you get to visit one day, it really is such a wonderful place and there is always a lot of things going on. Just walking around in the streets and observing is great fun!

  10. This was such a lovely post, I always think of Mrs Dalloway as ‘the’ London novel but I haven’t read Girl,Women, Other yet and the River series is new to me!

    • Yes, I agree, in many ways Mrs Dalloway is the ultimate London novel, but it doesn’t depict London of today. Rivers of London, on the other hand, includes so many places and events, which I am familiar with and that adds an extra dimension to the reading experience. The two key characters meet for the first time in a sushi place, where I used to go all the time and most of the locations, which are mentioned (especially in the first books) are locations which I know very well.

  11. I loved this post – and the books you mentioned to represent many of the city’s facets. I have only been to other parts of the UK and not to London itself, but I have a HUGE list of museums I want to visit and things I’d like to see. My DH occasionally gets there for work and we’re hoping the stars will align at some point that we can do a trip together.

    • I am glad you loved it, I had so much fun writing it! Ah yes, there are so many museums in London, which are worth visiting. I loved how you (pre-Covid) could just wander into a museum by impulse and have a quick look around, whenever you wanted to. Nowadays, you have to pre-book tickets, even for exhibitions which are free. I hope you will get a chance to visit some time!

  12. What a great post! 🙂 I do love Mrs Dalloway. Being overtaken by race walkers isn’t to be ashamed about, some of them are ridiculously fast.

    • Thanks! 😀 Good to hear you love Mrs Dalloway as well. Yeah, it felt like they were going ridiculously fast for walkers, but I still felt bad! 😆

  13. I really like visiting London for a week or two, but can’t imagine myself living there permanently. You’re right, though, it’s a unique city and deserves a lot of the hype 😀

    • Yeah, I guess in my heart, I was always a Londoner. Or to quote Mr. London himself (Moon Over Soho): “My Dad says that being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you’re born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go through immigration waving any kind of passport, hop on the tube and by the time the train’s pulled into Piccadilly Circus they’ve become a Londoner.”

  14. Great post! It was the poached eggs in Bertram’s Hotel that made me drool. In fact they inspired me to learn how to properly poach eggs myself and it’s now my speciality! (You can tell I’m not much of a cook, eh? 😉 )

    • Thanks FF! I’ve never attempted poached eggs and not sure I would succeed. I’m definitely not much of a cook. On the other hand, I am very skilled at ordering take-away! 😉

    • Thanks! I hope you get to visit London again soon. It certainly feels more normal now, with a lot more visitors both in the tourist areas and the office areas. I can’t even get a seat on the tube anymore, which up until recently was quite easy.

  17. What a terrific post! I’m envious of your life in London. It’s a wonderful city … I have only visited it once in 2018 … but I’d love to go back someday. I used to live in a big city … Wash, D.C. and it had so much there – culturally etc. but now I’m in a pretty small city far away in the bumpkins ….

    • Thanks Susan, it really is wonderful city! Washington DC must have been an interesting place as well. I’ve only been there once for a long weekend, but I remember there was so much to do and see. Haha, I think you may appreciate the joys of a big city more, when you live in the bumpkins, because you don’t have them everyday! 😀

  18. What a beautiful, heartfelt post, stargazer! I loved it! You make me wanna visit London even more! Gahhh….I’m just hoping and praying that traveling will be much safer soon! And thank you for sharing the books that resonated with you too, which made this post even more meaningful. Bravo, my friend!

    • Thanks Jee, I really hope you get the opportunity to visit London at some point. It is quite a unique place and there is so much to do and to see. Yeah, I guess traveling is still a bit uncertain, especially long distance traveling. But hopefully it will continue to improve as more people get vaccinated.

  19. Ahh, yes! I love this post so much, Stargazer! I’ll never forget the true magic of riding into the city of London for the first time, my eyes wide with anticipation as a 22 year old. So many of those images will stay with me forever. You are so fortunate to live in that place! Well-done!

    • I am glad you enjoyed it, I had so much fun writing it. Strangely enough, it wasn’t love at first sight between London and me, it took a few visits before I really started to enjoy its charm. But now I do indeed feel very lucky! Thanks!

  20. I confess that I couldn’t read this whole blog BECAUSE, I’m currently broke, live in Florida and I KNOW I have to see London before I croak. I have a strong intuition that I wouldn’t return home. Btw, I’m very familiar with the naked cyclists. I lived in Portland, Oregon for seven years (dearly miss it) and there’s been a naked bike ride there every year for like twenty years. I think COVID did it in last year.

    • Oh, I am sorry that you can’t travel, but Florida doesn’t sound like a bad place to live. I would love to visit one day. Also, I hope you will get the chance to see London sooner or later, there is a lot to see and explore. Yes, I know the naked cyclist thing is global. I first saw it in Barcelona, where it caused a lot more uproar than in London.

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