On Ackroyd, Cities and the Unknown

Although I currently live in a city, I would not describe myself as a natural city-dweller. I am sure that this is due, in no small part, to the fact that one would be forgiven for thinking that this particular city is simply a large town. Forgiven, that is, by all but the local inhabitants who are fiercely proud of the status of their home. For instance, I will never forget arriving in the city for my first year at university and being sternly warned never to ask a bus driver for a ticket in to "town". Whilst I highly doubt that anyone would actually be refused travel for such an assertion, the fact that a warning was deemed necessary, even if only in jest, is a testament to the pride that people attach to the designation of city status. Nevertheless, regardless of size and population, I simply don't share the same affinities with city-living as friends who have been raised in, or enthusiastically adopted, a city as home. That is not to suggest that I am some kind of "ruralite". On the contrary, I spent my entire childhood and the majority of my adolescence growing up in a suburban neighborhood ten minutes from the centre of a wealthy East Anglian town. However, it seems to me that the difference lies in the escalation of anonymity; it is simply easier to "know" a town as opposed to a city. And it is for this reason that I find Peter Ackroyd's London Under such an oddly compelling read, for although he manages to shed a wealth of information about the very specific history of London as revealed under the ground, the book still manages to end with an unnerving sense of the unknown.

For the sake of context, it seems pertinent to mention that I have been tentatively exploring the notion of psychogeography in recent weeks, from Guy Debord's original and oft-repeated definition ("The study of the specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.") to the more recent revival amongst contemporary writers; any mention of which never fails to include Peter Ackroyd's name. Having not read any of his work before and with the weight of expectation resting firmly in my palms, delving in to Ackroyd's latest work on the cultural history of London was something of a leap of faith. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to find a style of writing that is very reminiscent of Sebald's prose in The Rings of Saturn, which I just so happened to write about in a recent post. That is to say that, like Sebald, Ackroyd defies genre expectations by blending historical fact with an almost poetical rhetoric; the effect of which goes some way towards revitalising both the past lives of those he speaks about and, indeed, the life of the City of London itself. Furthermore, Ackroyd presents history with the same sense of fluidity that is the structural hallmark of The Rings of Saturn. Thus, although the book is divided in to clearly delineated topics, each chapter sends the reader backwards and forwards in time, from the Bronze Age to the present day and seemingly every period in between. This gives a sense not only of the vast differences between London at separate periods in it's existence, but also of the profound similarities. And as a direct result of this loose and associative portrayal of history, the city seems to emerge as a kind of living organism in and of itself; one that grows and evolves hap-hazardously in accordance with the ever-changing conditions of humanity above the ground.

To the return to my original premise, although London Under attempts to understand the history of London under the ground, and in spite of the enormous quantity of information and research utilized to this end, Ackroyd ultimately acknowledges that he is essentially trying to map the unmappable; to know the unknowable. Indeed, at the very end of the book, he writes:

"The underworld moves the imagination to awe and to horror. It is in part a human world, made from the activities of many generations, but it is also primeval and inhuman. It repels clarity and thought. It may offer safety to some, but it does not offer solace. London is built upon darkness."

It seems to me that this is the curse of the city, for, aside from all else, it is a constant burial ground. I suppose this means, therefore, that we are the gravediggers.