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A review by jenn756
Capital by John Lanchester
4.0
I can imagine John Lanchester sitting in a café watching the world go by, and wondering about the lives of everyone he sees. You do it sometimes if your terrace faces a busy street and it is warm enough to sit out without being uncomfortable. Well now Lanchester has written down all these musings in book format. It is an attempt at a snapshot of a city in motion and a pretty good one on the whole, light-hearted and gentle without being sentimental. Timely too, for London is changing rapidly – I know it’s always changed rapidly but it’s on warp speed now.
He has a huge cast of characters, a sort of Dickensian cast, obviously not the range of Dickens but even Dickens was not above the odd stereotype. They mainly live on one street – Pepys Street. So there is the posh city banker and his spendthrift wife; their Nanny; a Polish builder; an elderly woman dying of a brain tumour; the Nigerian dissident working as a traffic warden and the Asian family working the family shop. All the characters are sympathetic, even the spendthrift wife has her moments. I have the feeling Lanchester is a kind-hearted man. There is a definite two tier society – the wealthy house owners and people who service them (mainly foreign). It is interesting to note at one point the banker character, Roger Yount, realises he has never walked down his own street before. The story of the elderly lady touched a cord with me, having been in a similar situation as Mary, her daughter. Very sensitively done I thought.
I know it is has acquired mixed reviews but all I can say is I thoroughly enjoyed Capital. A sort of pool-side book, when you don’t want something too taxing.
He has a huge cast of characters, a sort of Dickensian cast, obviously not the range of Dickens but even Dickens was not above the odd stereotype. They mainly live on one street – Pepys Street. So there is the posh city banker and his spendthrift wife; their Nanny; a Polish builder; an elderly woman dying of a brain tumour; the Nigerian dissident working as a traffic warden and the Asian family working the family shop. All the characters are sympathetic, even the spendthrift wife has her moments. I have the feeling Lanchester is a kind-hearted man. There is a definite two tier society – the wealthy house owners and people who service them (mainly foreign). It is interesting to note at one point the banker character, Roger Yount, realises he has never walked down his own street before. The story of the elderly lady touched a cord with me, having been in a similar situation as Mary, her daughter. Very sensitively done I thought.
I know it is has acquired mixed reviews but all I can say is I thoroughly enjoyed Capital. A sort of pool-side book, when you don’t want something too taxing.