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A review by jmatkinson1
Capital by John Lanchester
5.0
Pepys Road is a microcosm of London society in the 2000s, a south London street which is becoming gentrified and desirable. Rich bankers and football players live cheek by jowl with older, original residents and the corner shop is run by a family of Pakistani immigrants. The traffic warden is an African asylum-seeker, the builders are Polish and the nannies speak English as a foreign language. Pepys Road hides secrets as all streets do but someone starts sending postcards and DVDs the the residents, all saying the same thing - We Want What you Have.
Every character in this book is a cliche, from the shocking conceptual artist who is nice middle class boy from Essex to the pompous immigration judge who is more concerned with people working illegally than with human rights, but that is what makes it such a great read. Each individual has their own story and each story is believable as it resonates with tales told in the media. The prose is fizzy and whole thing is both a parody and a parable - like Dickens de nous jours
Every character in this book is a cliche, from the shocking conceptual artist who is nice middle class boy from Essex to the pompous immigration judge who is more concerned with people working illegally than with human rights, but that is what makes it such a great read. Each individual has their own story and each story is believable as it resonates with tales told in the media. The prose is fizzy and whole thing is both a parody and a parable - like Dickens de nous jours