If you're incredibly attentive you may have noticed that over there >> under 'what I'm reading' is listed Patrick Hamilton's Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky. And yes I am reading it, but in fact it is three novels in one, and this one is the first. Published in 1929, it is said to be the most autobiographical of all Hamilton's novels, and I can easily believe it.
Of course I have read Hamilton before -- about this time last year there was a mini-craze among the bloggers for his wonderful wartime novel, The Slaves of Solitude, which I said in my review was my book of the year so far -- and I followed it up with his much earlier Craven House, which I also enjoyed. Then I hit a bad patch because I found I couldn't get on with Hangover Square, which many people think is his best novel. But the other day I came across this one and thought I'd give it a whirl, and how glad I am that I did.
The Midnight Bell takes its name from a pub in London's West End -- not a real one, though there's a very interesting piece here which identifies not only this pub but the whole area and even some of the characters. Be that as it may, this is a terrific story, made a more poignant because the events described so closely mirror Hamilton's own experiences. This is the story of Bob, an attactive, intelligent but wholly uneducated young man who, after a period at sea, is working as a waiter in The Midnight Bell. Bob aspires to be a writer and reads a lot, drinks rather too much, but is careful with his money and has managed to save £80 (quite a lot of money in those days) towards a better future. Despite some pretty awful hangovers from time to time, he is cheerful and fancy free, and enjoys his solitary days off, walking in the park, eating in the Corner House, visiting the bookshops in Shaftesbury Avenue, and going to the pictures. But all this changes when into the pub one days comes Jenny, who is extraordinarily pretty, sweet, and almost childlike. Alas, Jenny is also a prostitute, something which Bob realises straight away.
Though Bob is neither a virgin nor a prude, he has a natural delicacy and would not normally associate with prostitutes. But this girl is so adorable and seems so innocent, and, after all, she didn't really look like one, as Bob tells himself, and will continue to tell himself over the ensuing days. Somehow, by the end of the evening, he finds himself lending her ten shillings, the first of what will become many "loans', some repaid and some not. For Bob finds he can't help seeking Jenny out, sometimes by trawling the streets where she goes to work, sometimes by ringing the seedy boarding houses where she lives. Appointments are made, and very often broken by Jenny, who is, however, always adorably apologetic afterwards. Occasionally she kisses him, which puts him in heaven. And of course Bob is madly in love with her, though one of the great delights of this novel is how slowly he realises this himself.
The approach of love is something as stealthy and imperceptible as the catching of a cold. A man of spirit never knows he has it until the last moment. He experiences a little dryness of the throat or a slight thickness in the head, but these symptoms are nothing. They have frequently visited him before without leading to anything more serious. Besides, they seem to be passing off during the day. Dozens of his friends about him have colds, but he, by some special dispensation, is going to escape....Then one night in bed, he realises that his breathing is causing him pain and that he is in something like a fever. He is no worse than he was before, but suddenly he changes his whole attitude. A minute ago he had no cold: this minute he succumbs. He has an appalling cold, and he is one of the poor devils.
So it is that Bob suddenly admits to himself that he loves Jenny. He loves her to distraction, though sometimes he also hates her: Her perfect cruelty and egoism appalled him...He would kill her. But of course he won't, because though there are times when he sees clearly how selfish and thoughtless of him she really is, he is completely in thrall to her: He decided he would really die for such beauty. I don't think I'm giving too much away when I say that this relationship is not going to have a happy ending. Bob truly does hit rock bottom when Jenny betrays him yet again, but his natural spirits start to reassert themselves and his future looks less black than at first appears.
So yes, this is a novel about infatuation, and it captures brilliantly all the terrible and wonderful aspects of that common state. But it's far more than that. The characters are created in the most beautifully subtle and perceptive way - Bob, of course, with his fine, unrealisable, aspirations and his warm heart, and beautiful, lost Jenny who, despite Bob's final verdict -- He knew he had never made any impression on her, and never would have done so -- is, I think, more complex and multi-faceted than he, in his disillusionment, gives her credit for. But the novel also gives an extraordinarily rich picture of London pub life, with a gallery of the most bizarre people, often terribly funny and tragic at the same time. Then is is dear, plain Ella, the barmaid, who loves Bob sincerely and silently, and the pub's owners, the Governor and his wife, who were as benign as they were bloated. It was pretty obvious to everybody that they might both burst at any moment. There are many many wonderful moments here, and I actually laughed aloud from time to time. Because, despite what sounds at first as if it might be a rather depressing story, this is a novel full of youth and high spirits and good humour.
The next novel in the trilogy is called The Siege of Pleasure, and it is Jenny's story. I am going to start reading it tonight and I can't wait.
, 
, I was able to bury it with 