Colin MacInnesReviews

Ted Justice, new to the vice squad crosses paths with Frankie Love, new to his profession as a ponce. The novel culminates in a trial. This is the third in the trilogy of MacInnes' London Novels.

"I hit on a plan to weave a story around two contemporary characters that everyone is interested in i.e. the teenagers and the debs... To meet clandestinely in selected spots about the capital... and... comprise a stark revealing portrait of the contemporary scene." The second book in the London Trilogy, this centres on the rise of the teenager in 1950s London. Much more coherent than the film, a very streetwise narrator tours his haunts around London, has many friends and associates, a love of Jazz, a love of Suzette, and a hatred for racism which boils up during the summer he turns 19 years old.

Published shortly after Sam Selvon's The Lonely Londoners, I was surprised how similar the two books are. Whereas Selvon's concentrated on the West Indian immigrants in post-World War II London, Colin MacInnes focuses on the arrival of a Nigerian immigrant. I love the accents portrayed in the writing, the differing characters and their relationships, the descriptions of the changing attitudes, and methods of survival.

That was fairly good. It starts off well, told from the point of view of two main characters, a nigerian student in london for a year of study and a newly appointed colonial welfare officer.
The coloured community of 1950s london is a pretty unique setting. As well as nigerians you have gambians, people from trinidad and other caribbean islands, and a number of americans usually visitors, GIs or showbiz types.

However after the initial setup things become a bit episodic or sporadic might be a better descriptor. With its variety of characters it reminds me a lot of [a:Evelyn Waugh|11315|Evelyn Waugh|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1357463949p2/11315.jpg], except not funny, then again i don't usually find his stuff all that funny either :P .
Like Waughs novels, by the end there arn't really any likable characters or over-arcing plot, its more just a series of incidents.
The main nigerian character probably comes off the worst until you remember he's 18, which pretty conclusively explains if not entirely excuses his actions ;) .
The book is about race but not really racism. Its surprisingly light on the racism for 1950s but mostly because there are only a few white characters and they're mostly of the very liberal type.

By the end the whole thing just feels a bit slight. Fun and interesting enough but a bit thin.

Energetic and well-written account of youthful mucking-about in London of the 1950s. London then, like any big city any time, offers freedom from conformism and constraints, a stage for self-expression and self-discovery, and a crew of charismatic chancers. This time also has milk bars and music, beatniks with their now-weird cool slang, and some, thankfully also now dated, race riots, as indeed did occur in 1958 in Notting Hill, then still solidly working class. Echoes of James Dean and somehow of Dean Moriarty.

A bit of just not quite stream of conscious as we follow the just turning 19 year old aspiring photographer and jazz lover around 1959 London. It is a bit of a critique of the people and a paean to the city as it should aspire to be. The mixed maturity level of the main character isn't quite realistic, but does convey what a liberal of the time hope he would be. It's a fun trip.

In these novels MacInnes strikes me as an aspiring anthropologist, impressing us with his observations of British blacks, prostitutes and pimps, and postwar British teenagers. Plots are razor-thin, and when they are not enough to display his insider information, his characters have unlikely discussions about British immigration policy, the relative merits of appearing before a magistrate and a judge, how police entrap gay men in bathrooms, and even the Wolfenden report. On the plus side, MacInnes has a gift for visual description, and an ear for the many dialects of London. Characters' names are particularly inventive. The nerdy narrator of Absolute Beginners is not a very convincing working class teenager, but his celebration of London is always engaging. I assume that the high critical regard in which these novels are held reflects their value as records of a vanished London. The account of the Brixton Riots which closes Absolute Beginners is probably a unique contemporary record of its type.

Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes is a book that has gained cult status with it’s precise, yet slangy language, and it’s sharp look at the youth culture in London in the late 1950’s. The novel unfolds through the words and thoughts of a teenage freelance photographer who rubs shoulders with a varied amount of people from debutantes to drug addicts. He is obsessed by fashion and jazz music but over all is driven by his love for his ex-girlfriend Crepe Suzette.

The story is told in four parts, each part covers one day in the four months of the summer of 1958. This was a summer of simmering racial tensions that the narrator observes, he also learns of his father’s illness and his promiscuous ex-girlfriend’s decision to enter a sexless marriage with her much older, gay fashion designer boss. With it’s coffee bars, modern jazz, rock n’roll, trendy clothes and life style this is obviously a chronicle of the emergence of upcoming mod culture.

I found Absolute Beginners to be a small window on a London that was soon to evolve into the epicentre of the “Swingin’ 60s” On the one hand it was a joyful celebration of being young but ingeniously contrasted by dark descriptions of junkies, prostitutes, race wars, and selling out in life. With it’s stylized language, colourful characters and pop culture atmosphere, this was an engaging read.

This book, written by Colin MacInnes, is set in the late 50s and covers a new creation, teenager. The war is over and kids no longer go from being children to being part of the work force. Our narrator, is an anonymous teenage who is a loyal London city boy but this is a hot summer and the outbreak of London's worst race riots. This brought home what was going on in the South of the US and also South Africa.

The author was born in 1914 and died in 1976. He was a journalist and a novelist and while he used derogatory slang in this book. Spade for blacks, you have the sense that he is not prejudiced and I think he used the word to capture the spirit of the Jazz age. The book was set in the Notting Hill area which was essentially poor and racially mixed. The author was openly bisexual, and wrote about such things as wrote about subjects including urban squalor, racial issues, bisexuality, and drugs. In the book, I liked the quote, "I don't understand my own country any more.....In the history books, they tell us the English race has spread itself all over the world: gone and settled everywhere, and that's one of the great, splendid English things. No one invited us, and we didn't ask anyone's permission, I suppose. Yet when a few hundred thousand come and settle among our fifty millions, we just can't take it." This makes this book timely, immigration being an issue in the fifties and is currently an issue.

The book uses a lot of slang. What I take to be teenager slang. Perhaps teens don't use slang anymore but it was a big thing in the 50s, 60s and 70s. The characters are only seen though our narrators eyes and in many ways they are stereotyped but they are fun and they represent that fringe society. The book was readable. Even though full of slang it wasn't hard to follow. It should be a fairly quick read for most people.

While it didn't win any awards, it is on both the 1001 Books You Must Read and the Guardian 1000 list. There is a political statement, a cultural statement and there is some derogatory slang and swear words but overall not a bad read and if this is the worst race riot for England, they can still hold their head up when compared to the US and South Africa.½

"City of Spades" follows the lives and struggles of Montgomery Pew, a civil servant with the Immigration department and Johnny Fortune a recent migrant from Africa. Set in the mid-late 50s in London, and through the developing friendship between Fortune and Pew, the book exams the post war migration of people from the colonies, to the UK. Without fear or favour it looks at their difficulties fitting in to London culture, and the difficulties the British have adapting to them. MacInnes artfully switches between the point of view of Pew and Fortune, examining issues of racism, relationships, mixed race romance, mixed race children, differences between migrants from the African countries and the West Indies, and dealings with the law. The likeable and believable characters and scenarios make this a great read.

"City of Spades" by Colin MacInnes is one of cult classic London Trilogy series; the other two books being "Absolute Beginners" and "Mr Love and Justice". They are three separate, unrelated stories and can be read in any order. I loved everything about this book, and "City of Spades" has now risen to my favourite among the three.

A mix of essays and articles on various topics. Some more interesting than others, some more dated than others, all giving a snapshot of the 50s as Colin MacInnes saw it. I love this cover with its Peter Blake illustration too.

Colin MacInnes's 1959 novel, Absolute Beginners, is a coming-of-age masterpiece. Highly nuanced and perceptive, it follows the 18-year-old narrator, who is a photographer and jazz aficionado, through the chaotic summer on the cusp of entering his last year as a teen, on the final approach to adulthood. Though MacInnes was 44 when it was published, he was remarkably attuned to the budding but shadowy world of late 1950's London teenage culture, its vibrancy still resonating within the book nearly sixty years later. It all rings true: the dialogue, the characters, the angst, the confusion, love and loss, disillusion and hope.

Against the backdrop of London's class distinctions and racial unrest, which MacInnes confronts unflinchingly with pointed social commentary, the novel places the reader right in the center of these tensions, and then zeroes in on the emotional strains at the personal level involving the narrator's relationships with family, girlfriend, friends and acquaintances. The descriptions of London are truly evocative, from the loving take on the Thames embankment to the frightful dissection of the dismal and dangerous Napoli/Notting Hill neighborhood. This is an essential work in the Bildungsroman genre: passionate, smart, honest, and insightful.

"Mr Love and Justice" is the final volume of MacInnes' London series set in the post-war re-build of the late 50's- early 60's. The story focuses on the worlds of Mr Frankie Love, an unemployed seaman who's been roped into the world of pouncing, and Mr Edward Justice, a recently promoted Police officer, who's struggling with his obligations to the force and to his girlfriend, daughter of a criminal. "Mr Love and Justice" resides in the blurry line between between law and the sex industry, falling into the shaded grey area of London life. An enjoyable read, but I don't feel that it has the 'punch' of the other two books in the series.

There may well have been some fabulous satire to this novel of teenagers and advertising and race riots, but I'm afraid that at this great remove what I recall is the movie soundtrack. Which is awesome.

This was one of those books that I was told I just had to read and so I did. After I finished it, I could appreciate why I'd been told to do so, but not sure it has held up over the years. I do think MacInnes broke new ground with the novel and thought he captured some of the language perfectly.

Colin MacInnes was a successful British author from a literary family, who published several well-known novels such as To the Victors the Spoils and Absolute Beginners.

During the 1950s, MacInnes wrote a number of novels situated in the milieu of black immigrants. These novels bear relations with the novels of Sam Selvon, for instance The Lonely Londoners (1956), and the early work of V.S. Naipaul, with whom MacInnes was acquainted. McacInnes "London trilogy, comprising of the three novels City of Spades (1957), Absolute Beginners (1959) and Mr Love & Justice (1960) was published during this period, at a time when racial discrimination and bisexuality were still largely tabu. MacInnes attraction to writing about these groups stemmed from his homosexual or bisexual orientation. As he was attracted to black men en women, he came into contact with their issues, including subjects such as urban poverty, matters of race, drugs, anarchy, and "decadence".

In City of Spades, Nigerian immigrant Johnny finds himself caught up in the new ethnic subculture in 50s London. The novel is very well written, and introduces many topics and issues now commonly associated with poor, immigrant populations. There is a brooding sense of homosexuality, as the white employee of the government office cannot really explain his interest in these black men he seeks friendship with, but the matter is settled as he enters into a sexual relationship with some of the black girls.

Current literary scholarship favours the prose of ethnic minority writers over the work of Britsih authors, regarding ethnic issues as more authentic. However, it seems Colin MacInnes' work should not be overlooked.½

I am sorry I didn't like this book at all I finished it though.
The main character who takes photos (you dont know his name) is so un appealing, the way the book is written bore me aswell.
I wanted to enjoy this book as its about a long lost London.
The only good bit was the way this book described the Racial tension of the late 1950s

2014: I re-read this book after many years as a result of reading The Year of Reading Dangerously and was delighted to find it was still great. It's so immediate and exciting and seedy, but also captures teenage naivety and idealism in a really lovely way. It also covers race issues and the 50s riots, and has a few fantastic passages on tolerance, racism and colonialism which probably really helped shape my views as a teenager. Sure sometimes it feels dated both in terms of language and ways of thinking, but it has it's heart in the right place and is well worth reading.

2016: And another re-read of this in the wake of the Brexit vote, still relevant, and I was also reminded of how evocative some of the descriptions of London in the 50s are.

published-1959, london, lifestyles-deathstyles, britain-england, winter-20132014, racism, radio-4, fradio, cults-societies-brotherhoods, music, recreational-drugs, art-forms, prostitution, gangsters, glbt, under-500-ratings, young-adult, casual-violence, period-piece, bullies
Read from January 12 to 19, 2014

BABT

Colin MacInnes's cult classic about teenagers, style and racial tension in 1950s London.

Description: London, 1958. "I swore by Elvis and all the saints that this last teenage year of mine was going to be a real rave." The eighteen-year-old narrator of Colin MacInnes' cult classic is determined to declare his independence from earlier generations, as he roams the city with his camera and a sharp eye for the stylish and the subversive. In the smoky jazz clubs of Soho, the coffee bars of Notting Hill and the cheap rooms of Pimlico the young and the restless - the absolute beginners - are revolutionising youth culture and forging a new carefree lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Meanwhile the Teddy Boy gangs are staging internecine battles, and a generation of Black immigrants is struggling to make a life in a hostile city. The definitive account of London life in the 1950s and what it means to be a teenager, this account of a young man's coming of age captures the spirit of a generation and the changing face of London in the era of the first race riots and the lead up to the swinging Sixties.

Read by Joel MacCormack Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.

Theme tune: Laurie London - He's Got The Whole World In His Hands - 1958

1. Last year as a teenage for our protagonist, and in Notting Hill too.

2. Mr Cool reports trouble brewing on the streets, the Fabulous Hoplite brings news of a party at Dido Lament's, and Suzette won't be persuaded out of her impending marriage.

3. The teenage narrator of Colin MacInnes's cult classic sets about making some serious money in an attempt to win back the love of his life, and there's a worrying visit from Mr Cool.

4. The teenage narrator is still shocked by Suzette's marriage to Henley. Determined to try and woo her back, he takes the opportunity of a boat trip up the Thames to pay her a visit.

5. The teenage narrator finds himself caught up along with his friends in the violence that erupts on the streets of his home patch in Notting Hill.

Unsuprisingly, because of the parentage, MacInnes is at home with his subject matter and the writing is accomplished.

Earlier this year at the London Picture Gallery I saw a photography exhibition of the photographer Ida Kar who took pictures of bohemian London during the 1950s. Amongst all the black and white images was a photograph of a tall lean man lying on a bed in a spartan flat in Soho. Another image was of an attractive young couple, sitting on the floor, reading the papers with an toddler jumping all over them. The captions said that the first was the author of this book, Colin MacInnes. The couple in the second picture apparently inspired two characters in this book. Thinking that it would be fun to read the book with the two images in my head, I got hold of a copy through the library.

I got a lot more that I anticipated. A very clever book. The author manages to take us on a journey through London of the 1950s moving from one scene to another and giving us a humorous commentary on society and (low) life in London as he saw it.

Just the fond descriptions of London alone, made reading this book worthwhile for me.

A classic and rightly so. It's in the same league as the Catcher in the Rye and similar too in many ways. Yes the characters are transient but so are people in real life- friends are transient and the people that we know, we pick apart and examine through our own eyes and mind. The main character here has some shrewd observations on the development of London, generational differences, the economy and the disappearance of British culture and in a sense reason. Yes it is a look through the some might say naive eyes of a teenager but then the clue is in the title.
This book brings a town alive in a very real sense. Every encounter we read about has something to show us about its people or nature and the book never outstays its welcome. An excruciatingly engaging read!

An unnamed male teenage narrator describes summer in London in 1958. In the earlier parts, his main concerns are his love for ex-girlfriend Crepe Suzette, his misgivings about his family, and spending time with his various friends. However, as the novel progresses, he describes the rising racial tensions of the time, which inevitably spill over into violence.

The narrator lives in a poorer part of London which he refers to as Napoli, and whose population is very multi-cultural, and also houses a lot of people on the fringes of society at the time, such as homosexuals and drug addicts. A new youth culture is just emerging and so is the popularity of jazz music in Britain.

I enjoyed this book, on the whole, although I found the narrator hard to engage with, despite the fact that we were seeing events through his eyes. He seems to have more acquaintances than actual friends, and many of those are fairly transient characters, who seem to serve as a sounding board for the narrator's thoughts and beliefs.

Things do become more heated at the close of the book, and with it, the maturing narrator also starts to care about bigger issues. However, although he has strong feelings about the events that take place, I found little emotion in his telling of such events.

I wasn't around to experience the era or the location of the times described, but the telling of the story does seem to have an air of authenticity about it, and described London as a vibrant and exciting place to be, but with an air of underlying tension.

I usually prefer character driven books, but in this novel, the characters take second place to the city of London itself, which is really the biggest character of all.

Overall, an enjoyable read, and much better than the film adaptation!½

'City of Spades' is a compliment to 'Absolute Beginners', the first Colin MacInnes novel I read, but a mesmerising story in its own right. I love and admire how the author can create such vivid and personable characters from two different perspectives, and present a balanced and objective potrayal of racial tension in 1950s London, delivered in a witty and natural style (and in first person, too - one of only a few writers who know how to utilise this honest yet deceptive narrative voice). The chapters switch back and forth between Montgomery Pew, a sensitive yet ineffective young Londoner (the 'white man'), and Johnny Fortune, a student from Lagos who quickly learns the reality of life in the city, but their voices are so distinct that there is rarely any confusion between the two 'I's. The character names are also creative and fitting, from Mr Fortune to Billy Whispers and Peter Pay Paul!

The third book in this trilogy is 'Mr Love and Justice', but the more conventional omniscient narrator isn't as engaging, nor the two central characters, Frankie Love and Ed Justice.

A subtle, wry contemporary take on late 1950s London. The unnamed narrator casually observes life around him for most of the book, until the political, social and personal reality of the time and place hit him - and the reader - in the last chapters. MacInnes has an unnerving knack of covering light and dark in the same mocking, objective voice, so that the emotions behind events are all the more powerful when unravelled from the narrator's point of view; I was nearly brought to tears at one point, and the racial tension is staggering. A smart, thoughtful snapshot of twentieth century England, that still applies today, and I particularly have to agree with the psychology of drivers ...

Mod novel set amidst the Notting Hill Riots of 1958 – interestingly early articulation of depoliticisation of consumer society.