I read the 'Canal' by Lee Rourke with mounting interest. One of the main reasons for this is that the majority of the story unfolds at the end of my road in Islington, North London, on a bench, overlooking the canal. The unnamed narrator i fails to turn up for work but instead of returning in the days following he decides to try and embrace the true meaning of boredom, fighting against his inherent will to do anything. So each day he returns to the same bench and one day a young woman joins him. The next day when he returns again so does she.
From their vantage point of the bench, since removed, in the rebuilding of the Packington Estate, the pair of them watch the occupants of the glass fronted block opposite, office workers on the lower floors, loft dwellers above. It is soon apparent that the girl has serious problems and these are related to someone working in the office. I found it to be an enjoyable book, the sort that will no doubt appeal to slightly serious young to middle age men prone to wondering up and down canals whilst contemplating the meaning of existence, having what they imagine are deeply profound thoughts, whilst nervously eyeing up the approaching geese with suspicion; in fact just the sort of men contemplating writing a novel themselves one day.
In reviews it has been described as a philosophical novel, an investigation into the nature of boredom and that's all fair enough but then after reading Iris Murdoch's 'Black prince' I realised that that could also be described in reviews as a 'philosophical' novel but the Black Prince is also, first and foremost, a riveting read, the sort that makes you feel like your mainlining the very essence of life itself as you digest every word of it.
Whilst the 'Canal' is an enjoyable read I was more concerned if I recognised anybody in it. It is a bench that, when this book was set a couple of years before (novels take time to write and edit after all), I would often walk passed twice a day and at the same time when the two characters in this novel meet. The view inside these offices from where they sat on the canal I am as familiar with as of the interiors of many of my friend's houses. When a gang of rogue youth appear in the narrative, one with ginger hair, from the notorious Packington Estate, later that same day who should be outside the off-office but what appears to be the same gang (down to one with ginger hair), a couple of years older, all of us eying each other with distrust.
I'm moving house at the moment. After one too many walks along the canal thinking curious thoughts, I have decided I want to get away, far away, to be free to write.
I've been getting rid of everything that I own which led me to post my copy of the 'The Canal' through the letterbox of _____ , a few doors along, who is magazine editor. You will have to take my word for it that I live on the same street as a debonair magazine editor with (I imagine) a glamorous social life is because of the generosity of my landlady. She has a soft spot for struggling writers who also share my name. The sort of struggling writers who like to wonder up and down canals, just the sort of person that 'The Canal' might appeal to in fact. This being London, if I had to live where I could afford in relation to what I earn I would be sleeping on the street or, even worse, not in London, but Burnley.
The bench on the canal had been removed by the time _____ moved in. Still, the few times I have had the pleasure of bumping into him I know to judge from our conversations that he is fascinated by London and enjoys to explore it on foot. That's why I knew he'd be curious too about Lee Rourke's book. I think it's safe to say that, as different as we might be, I think we also share some of the same opinions. As, I assume, we might also with Lee Rourke. Like that the cyclists speeding along the canal from Hackney into town (and back again eight hours later), incessantly ringing their bells as they snap, like the dogs on the estates, at your heels, are asking to be knocked into the canal by their dreaded enemies, the teenagers from the same estates.
To judge from sales of literature, whilst Islington was once synonymous with writers, I suspect that today Lee Rourke lives closer to Hackney, maybe even Homerton. But not for moment do I doubt, to judge from his crystal clear observations of the small wonders to be found along the canal's route, that he has spent as many hours as, if not more than, me wondering up and down it's length.
Still I hazard a (prejudiced) guess that Rourke would be less familiar with the walk that takes me from where my mother resides in East Manchester, through what was once Ancoats, one of Manchester's most run down areas and which, in a move of urban remixing has been re-branded as New Islington.
The difference between the two Islington's, as I make my way during the first week of January, is stark in contrast. Whilst the walk is roughly the same in length, I don't encounter a single other soul on my way.
Back in London, along the canal, there are cafes that will fix your bike (for a nice price) and pubs welcoming families. On a Summer's day people can be observed all along its route enjoying the pleasure of being close to the water; reading, fishing, drinking or simply enjoying the warmth of the sun, it's light reflected in water. Even the geese, more used to being around people, seem more friendly than their relatives in New Islington. Walking along the canal into Manchester I contemplate the knowledge of having strong affinities with both canals. One of them running through one of London's most sought after postcodes, the other, through one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Manchester. The former residents of Ancoats would have had little reason to visit London's Islington and, likewise, those in Islington today would have little reason to visit the former Ancoats.
Islington has played host to a lengthy list of distinguished figures throughout history including George Orwell, Kenneth Williams, Penelope Lively, Charles Lamb, Edward Lear and Joe Orton. In more recent years though it has more commonly been associated with names more recognisably familiar to those who can stomach the national palette, names such as Lily Allen, Jon Ronson, Angus Deyton, Boris Johnson and the one man who's name conjures up images of New Islington more than any other, Tony Blair.
As for the promised new residents that will form New Islington, three, four, five years since the development began, most of it's modern style properties that border my walk along the canal, all sleek angles and panoramic views of other people with waterside views, post credit crunch mortgage slump, remain empty and much of New Islington seems, when compared to the airbrushed bill boards, surrounding the building sites, depicting this future utopia, only half-built. The upmarket Norwegian furniture shop that opened in anticipation of furnishing these new lifestyles has closed it doors for the last time, leaving, on this cold damp morning, only a skeleton crew of workmen to oversee its slow progress.
For any sense of history you have to look beyond the new canal side urban developments to the ghost of Ancoats which a hundred years before, provided the backdrop for Isabella Banks' novel, 'The Manchester Man'. Ann Coates is also credited as one of the backing singers on The Smith's 'Big Mouth Strikes Again'. Maybe less impressively, comedian Bernard Manning was born in Ancoats but will be forever associated with the equally downtrodden Moston which is where his 'World Famous Embassy club' is.
Yet I would like to draw this to a close on a positive note. Islington, London is an expensive postcode and any struggling writers or artists, unless they have sympathetic landladies, or rich parents, are largely not welcome here. Maybe, I wonder, we could all move to New Islington and create a truly new Islington?
There is a postscript to this tale:
As I turned right out of ____ gate a woman, coming out of another house, stopped me.
"Are you _____?"
There was a time when I watched ____ magazine grow from issue to issue to whilst I struggled to finish the second issue of my fanzine, that maybe I wished I was a bit more like him (especially when I saw pictures of him stepping out at cool parties) and because of this I viewed him, for a long time, with cool disinterest. These days I have a better outlook as far as success goes, or lack of, my own, other peoples and appreciating the good fortune I've been granted to be able to write this much. I welcomed him to the neighbourhood and when I move I know that I will miss our occasional meetings in the street. The irony of being mistook for him that morning was lost on me until much later.
Instead I corrected her. " No I live a few doors along, but I do know him, I was just putting something through his letter box. It's a book about the canal at the end of this road."
For a more detailed overview of Manchester's new architecture, by someone who has definitely wondered down the length of both canals, please read Owen Hathererley's fabulous new book 'A Guide To The New ruins Of Great Britain' and in particularly the chapter 'Manchester So Much to Answer for' (Published by Verso 2011). 'The Canal' by Lee Rourke (published by Melville House Publishing).
