London Lit: The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

Early nineteenth century literature revisited and reinterpreted is a popular theme with authors these days. Well, revisiting and reinterpreting Pride and Prejudice is a popular theme with authors these days. I heard Waterstones was considering introducing a new shelving category headed “Books In Which Modern Women Fantasise About Mr Darcy (N.B. You Know He Doesn’t Take His Shirt Off In The Book, Don’t You).” In a shocking display of defiance against convention, Peter Ackroyd’s reimagining focuses on an obscure 19th century work known as Frankenstein, written by Mary something.

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein is a bit of an oddity. I suppose you could call it a parody of the original, in which Victor Frankenstein and his experiments are dropped into the real world of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his social circle. Frankenstein himself is a contemporary of Shelley, and conducts his experiments in darkest Limehouse (shades of Fu Manchu and The Picture of Dorian Gray). Fact and fiction intermingle as Victor’s attempts to defy death are overlaid on top of Shelley’s life and work. Indeed, there are several points at which things get dangerously metafictional – most notably, Frankenstein accompanies the Shelleys, Byron and Polidori on the trip to Geneva that would inspire Mary Shelley to write the original novel. The death of Bysshe’s first wife is here given a distinctly more gruesome motive. And, bizarrely, the body of a consumptive young man named “Jack Keat” is donated to Frankenstein’s experiments – though it’s not clear how far we’re meant to take this allusion, as few of the character’s biographical details match those of the real John Keats.

"I hope I didn't do anything stupid last night. Oh no, I've created a blasphemous parody of life. The wife's gonna kill me."

The novel as a whole appears to be a tribute of sorts to the Gothic genre – I’ve mentioned that there are echoes of The Picture of Dorian Gray, but Ackroyd also alludes to Dracula and The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde at various points. The ending and the final explanation of just what the hell has been going on all this time leaves a lot of questions unanswered, not to mention the fact that it doesn’t really stand up to close scrutiny. To be honest, I found it something of a disappointment as twist endings go, but perhaps Ackroyd is playing with the tendency of the Gothic novel to be ambiguous on supernatural matters.

A major theme, and one that particularly grabbed my interest, was Ackroyd’s exploration of early nineteenth century science. The classic image of Frankenstein is the wild-haired scientist surrounded by electrical coils, lightning flashing all around as he brings his monster to life. Although this owes more to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis than anything in the original novel (although at one point in the book, Frankenstein is inspired by the power of a lightning strike), Ackroyd runs with the idea that electricity is how things are done.

Screen cap from Metropolis in which C3PO is turned into a woman using electricity or something.

Indeed, in those days, electricity did have all sorts of strange supernatural abilities ascribed to it. One early electrocution victim reported a distinct whiff of brimstone. Luigi Galvani (from whom we get the word “galvanise”) had conducted experiments in 1786 in which, when touching the nerves of a dissected frog’s leg with metal during a thunderstorm, the muscles would contract. From this, he concluded that electricity was the source of all life. We now know this to be a lot of hooey, but it was taken very seriously at the time, and Ackroyd goes with the idea that Galvani’s assumption was correct. The Shelleys were themselves rather interested in the possibilities of this hypothesis, and had discussed the possibility that it might function as a means of resurrection.

The morality or lack thereof of science is, as per many adaptations of Frankenstein, discussed. Although Mary Shelley never really made it clear how Victor creates his monster, Ackroyd uses the time-honoured “bits of dead people” explanation. This allows him to bring in the Resurrection Men, one of the grottier trades of the era. Long story short, surgeons and doctors needed bodies to carry out their experiments, and the Resurrection Men supplied them. Although hanging victims were the most legit source (apparently it was not unknown for friends of the condemned to have to fight the Resurrection Men off following the execution), bodies might also be sourced from mortuaries, graveyards or even – as per the case of Burke and Hare in Edinburgh - by cutting out the middleman and killing people yourself. Older cemeteries often have a watch house as a reminder of the scale of the problem. But the sad reality was, bodies were needed – were it not for the horrible trade in corpses, many of the medical discoveries of the nineteenth century might never have been made. Frankenstein’s use of such men, and the dodginess of their methods, crops up repeatedly and comes to have an important bearing on the story.

The juxtaposition of the scientist Frankenstein and the poet Shelley raises another factor concerning science of the era. Namely, the fact that science, politics and art were closely intertwined. This was perhaps best illustrated by the friendship of political writer Thomas Paine and steam engine pioneer James Watt, or Benjamin Franklin’s dual role as scientist and politician. The new inventions and discoveries of the era seemed fantastical, and raised certain questions concerning society. What did it mean for the class system if we could have engines to do our work? Meanwhile, the Romantics saw their own restlessness and discontent mirrored in the march of technology, which seemed Faustian or even Promethean. Indeed, the sub-title of Frankenstein was The Modern Prometheus. In short, this was an age when everything seemed to be pushing forward, and all fields of endeavour seemed to mirror each other.

Overall, it seems that Ackroyd’s aim here is to use the basic structure of Shelley’s original novel to offer a commentary on the world of the Romantics, both in fact and fiction. If I’m going to be quite frank (har har), I don’t think it’s his best novel, but it’s fairly enjoyable if you have an interest in that world. Otherwise, you may prefer the Mel Brooks version, which has Marty Feldman in it.

Canal Penetration

I do not appear to understand the concept of a short walk. This fact was brought home to me on Sunday. Having attended a wedding on Wednesday, I was feeling somewhat guilty at the Elvis-level calorie intake I had managed that day, and therefore had resolved to behave myself with a little more restraint. Sunday, I thought, would be an ideal day to get a little exercise. I thought it might be nice to do some more of the Regent’s Canal.

The Regent’s Canal, if you’re not familiar with it (though you may have some passing acquaintance with it if you’re a regular reader of this blog), is a waterway running from the Thames at Limehouse to the Grand Junction Canal at Paddington. The canal was opened in two sections – from Paddington to Camden in 1816 and Camden to Limehouse in 1820. In those days, before decent roads and railways, canals were the arteries of industry. The Grand Junction Canal was the quickest means of transporting goods in quantity from the industrial Midlands to London. The Regent’s Canal therefore served an important economic purpose, as it formed the final link between the Midlands and the Port of London and therefore the rest of the world. It survived the coming of the railways and the roads, but by the 1930s was largely obsolete.

Today, although there is a small amount of cargo, it’s primarily used for pleasure craft. The warehouses and factories that once lined its route have either been demolished or repurposed (most notably, one major interchange between rail and canal is now Camden Lock Market and the Stables). The towpath is a popular route with cyclists, walkers and idiots (yo).

My original intention was to only walk a short section of the canal, say Camden to King’s Cross or Islington. But I have this tendency, once I start walking, to keep on going far longer than is perhaps wise. As a result, I ended up walking all the way to Limehouse Basin. As I had previously walked from Camden to Paddington (hence the photos you have been seeing so far), I can now say that I have walked the full length of the canal.

From a psychogeographical point of view, what’s interesting about this walk is that it let me see familiar places from a different point of view. Of course, I’d seen the canal at Paddington, Regent’s Park, Camden, King’s Cross, St Pancras, Caledonian Road, Islington, Hackney and Limehouse before. Indeed, I’ve written about it in at least two of those locations in this very blog. But it had just been a landmark then, with no sort of context. I had some vague awareness that this stretch of canal was the same as that stretch of canal, but only as a theoretical thing. To experience the whole thing from a boat’s eye view, as it were, was rather novel. I think I’ve been enlightened in some way.

Anyway, I’ve waffled on for far too long already, given that this was supposed to be a photo-ey entry. I shall keep the prattle to a minimum from here on in, and instead continue to present my (usual crappy) photographs in geographical order from Paddington to Limehouse. Camden Lock is a notable omission here,  due to the fact that on neither of the walks presented here did I actually intend to document the entire canal.

One last point I would like to make is the range of contrast as you go along the river, from affluent Regent’s Park and Little Venice to the post-industrial landscape of the Docklands. I’ll shut up now. For now.

Sorry, me again. At this point on the walk, the canal cut through the hill at Islington, and I had to leave the towpath. Some explanation may be needed for the following photos.

I snapped this because I had walked along this road once before, a couple of years ago, desperately hungover. I was leaving the Barnsbury flat of a friend we shall simply call The Monster early one Sunday morning. I attracted disapproving looks from pious souls. Anyway, to end up here again was rather surprising.

I eventually reached Angel – you may recall that my first paid acting gig was near here. Despite my familiarity with the area, I wasn’t entirely sure how to get to the canal. Fortunately, this sign guided me. It may also explain some of the stranger sights coming up.

Isn’t this just the dearest little owl?

Spitalfields already? God be damned.

And Shoreditch! How we are honoured!

This is a nice thing to do with a block of council flats. Photographic portraits of local folk. It’s like Eastenders, only without the death and unimaginable horror.

Hackney. If you feel a chill down your spine, that is because we are but a stone’s throw from the Last Tuesday Society’s sinister museum.

A dilapidated narrowboat advocating the cleaning up of canals. This would be that famous bargees’ humour I’ve heard so much about.

Some sort of junction. Further investigation is required, I feel – especially as there’s something familiar about this canal here.

Lo the Isle of Dogs!

Herons are basically the easiest birds in the world to photograph. How I managed to make this one blurry enough to shame the most avid Bigfoot enthusiast is therefore beyond me.

I feel this toy boat has a story to tell.

We are so close, me hearties, I can practically taste that lime!

Is that not the viaduct of the London and Blackwall Railway?

It is! Limehouse! We made it! Long live, long live!

I say “we” made it, but mostly you just looked at photos. I didn’t want to make a big thing of this.

The Thames as the sun begins to set.

The Docklands Light Railway at Westferry. Everyone wants to get on the seats at the front of the train, but for a novel experience I recommend the seats at the back as you enter the tunnel for Bank. It’s like disappearing down a giant oesophagus.

 

Further Reading:

http://londonparticulars.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/talk-about-burning-your-bridges/ - An earlier entry focusing on a particular part of the Regent’s Canal.

Give me some names

It’s been a pretty eventful weekend for Yr. Humble Chronicler. Long story short, on Saturday I done some politics, on Sunday I done some research. It’s now nearly bedtime, so I’m afraid today’s entry may be rather short. Don’t worry, there is much to speak of in the near future.

So, for now, just to make sure you don’t go away disappointed (I’m sure you were just aching for an entry on an amateurish blog to make your weekend complete), I’m going to answer a question that was put to me a little over a week ago. Namely, what’s with the names of the stations on the Docklands Light Railway?

The persons asking me this question were curious as to why the stations on the DLR have such bizarre names. Mudchute, Limehouse, Island Gardens, Cutty Sark, East India, Blackwall, Pudding Mill Lane, All Saints. Some of them are fairly obvious (Cutty Sark being named after the clipper Cutty Sark which is berthed there, London City Airport being named after London City Airport). Some not so much. One of the people asking the question was not from around here (being Icelandic) and so was at a particular disadvantage.

The reality is that, actually, most of the names are not that bizarre. They make perfect sense if you know the history of the area. Unlike many place names in London (Holborn, Islington, Euston) these “weird” ones are usually in plain, modern-day English, not commemorating some obscure aristo or long-vanished place.

The key to understanding many of these names is the fact that these are the Docklands – that is to say, the 19th century Port of London. The more exotic-sounding places are often so-called because, when the Docklands were still worthy of the name, they were served by vessels from that area. This accounts of East India, West India Quay, Cyprus and Canary Wharf (the Canary Islands, you see).

Others are named after features of the docks – this accounts for Pontoon Dock (named after a bridge rather than a pontoon, “pontoon” being derived from the French pont) and Custom House. Mudchute was simply a heap of mud, a dumping ground for the muck dredged out of the docks. Westferry was a ferry in the west (relatively speaking). Heron Quays were quays where herons might be seen. If you can’t work South Quay out then you have no business here.

The more regal names come from the fact that docks were often named after royalty. This accounts for King George V, Prince Regent, Royal Albert and Royal Victoria.

Bow Church and All Saints are both churches. Shadwell has a similarly holy name, being a contraction of “Saint Chad’s Well.”

Some are named in commemoration of local industrialists. Beck, Canning and Silver gave their names to Beckton, Canning Town and Silvertown respectively.

Some are derived from industrial practices no longer carried out there. Limehouse, that well-known den of vice and subversion, was once home to a number of lime kilns. One of the strangest names on the DLR is Pudding Mill Lane. However, it becomes saner once you realise that “pudding” was a term for offal (which survives, incidentally, in the term “black pudding”). A pudding mill was simply a place where said offal was processed. Woolwich Arsenal, of course, comes from the armaments factories that don’t exist any more – at least part of them is now a rather pricey-looking residential development. Woolwich’s arsenal, of course, had a football team that went pro and is now simply known as Arsenal.

Crossharbour is a modern name for a local development, as is London City Airport.

Poplar’s origins are not known for sure, but it’s suggested that there might once have been a poplar tree here that functioned as a local landmark.

Island Gardens is a Victorian pleasure garden on the Isle of Dogs. Hence, it does exactly what it says on the tin, as the kids say.

Cutty Sark, naturally, is named after the ship. The ship itself is named after a character in Burns’ poem Tam o’ Shanter, who in turn is named after her distinctive clothing. Cutty Sark, simply translated, means “short underwear.” There’s a puerile part of me that finds it amusing that there is a station commemorating a poor choice of undies.

Brilliant, Chang!

More than once on this blog, I’ve talked about real-life people upon whom fictional characters have been based. Today we’re going to go in the other direction – a real-life individual who was, in a manner of speaking, based on a fictional character. Sort of.

In the first half of the twentieth century, starting in 1912, there was a series of books by a gentleman named Sax Rohmer about a Chinese character called Fu Manchu. You may well have heard of him. The character was a supervillain of sorts, using elaborate deathtraps and exotic henchmen to commit terrible and dastardly acts of criminality from his East End base. He was, in short, the archetypal “Yellow Peril.” Not the first such character, nor the last by a long shot, but the best-known and most influential.

The stories, as you might have already guessed, are incredibly racist. Not only is Fu Manchu a negative stereotype, but there’s a simple way of telling whether a character is evil in a Fu Manchu novel. Are they Chinese? Then they’re evil. A mixed-race priest in the second book is described as being “not entirely innocent of Asian blood,” which I think says it all. Oh yes, and the priest turns out to be evil.  Rohmer himself argued that the books weren’t racist, because it was well known that the Chinese were a bunch of criminals anyway. Cough.

So when a real life Chinese criminal mastermind appeared in London, the newspapers thought it was Christmas. The gentleman in question is pictured on the right and went by the name of Brilliant Chang. Born Chan Nan, he came to the attention of the media in the early 1920s. He operated a restaurant on Regent Street, meanwhile selling drugs from a room upstairs. Newspapers of the day tend to mysteriously talk about “vices of the Orient” and suchlike, but cocaine seems to have been the main moneyspinner, bringing in over a million pounds over the years.

Apparently he was also something of a ladies’ man, with a gentlemanly way about him. The papers took this, of course, as a sign that he was hypnotising innocent flowers of English girlhood with some sort of sleazy Oriental magic. The World Pictorial News, for example, described him as essentially buying women with drugs, and when he did “the flame of passion burned more brightly within and he hugged himself with unholy glee.” I’m surprised they didn’t go the whole hog and have him twirl his moustache as well. Of course, the papers didn’t miss the opportunity to take a pop at women as well. The Daily Mail, for instance – that bastion of progressive thinking – noted that “Men do not as a rule take to drugs, unless there is a hereditary influence, but women are more temperamentally inclined.” Chang would later be directly accused of “corrupting the womanhood of this country.”

In 1924 he moved to Limehouse, which in those days (that being the Docklands) was Chinatown. The present-day West End Chinatown only appeared in the 1970s. He opened a new restaurant and, of course, started selling his more lucrative treats round the back. Unfortunately, a bust later that year would result in his arrest. Apparently there was a strong female presence at his trial – probably because they’d been corrupted by drugs or Chineseness or something. After being imprisoned for eighteen months, Chang was deported.

He was arrested again for the same crime in 1927 in Paris, but jumped bail and went missing. Thereafter, it’s not clear what became of him. Some stories have him ending his days in poverty and others have him becoming a secret drug trafficking mastermind. The former seems unlikely for a wealthy and resourceful gent such as Brilliant, but the latter, too, sounds like a sensationalist Fu Manchu-style bit of journalistic fun. Guess we’ll never know now.

I’m not entirely clear why, but drug crimes seem to have been inherently linked with race in the public mind during the twentieth century. You didn’t get people claiming that the razor gangs of the 1930s were the result of some deficiency in the Italian mind, or that prostitution was a curiously Maltese vice in the 1950s. Yet just about every report on drug dealing in the first half of the twentieth century seems to throw in something about the evil Chinese  or the monstrous West Indian and, as like as not, they’ll throw in something about how they’re seducing white women. Says a lot about society, really.

Going to the Dogs

Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! (near London Bridge)

As anyone will tell you, an expedition requires planning – it’s all very well talking about “the great unknown,” but only a madman would set out on a voyage of discovery with anything but the most rigorous preparation for anything he or she might encounter along the way. In general, deciding what you’re looking for after you’ve got on the train, as I did yesterday, is not a good idea.

What I was specifically trying to find was the launch site of Brunel’s magnificent steamship, the Great Eastern. All I knew was that it had been launched from Millwall. Had I known that I was going to look for the site, I’d probably have done a bit more research. As it was, I was exploring the Isle of Dogs with an A-Z and a series of educated guesses. It turns out the I-Love-Dogs is a complicated place to explore on foot, and not exactly congenial to the aimless wanderer.

Canary Wharf

It doesn’t help that the area consists of large, open spaces of water and huge, square tower blocks. The Canary Wharf development is as cold and windy as an 18th century slum lord (note to self: do not hit “publish” until you’ve found a better metaphor). Plus there’s the fact that you have to keep dodging around construction work.

Remnant of the Island's industrial heritage.

Every so often you’ll come across some random reminder of the Island’s industrial heritage. I, however, could find nothing whatsoever to indicate where the launch site might be. My A-Z listed something called the “Great Eastern Enterprise Centre,” but that was no help at all. You wouldn’t think it would be that difficult, the site must be seven hundred damn feet long.

Hydraulic ram ship-launching-type thing.

Anyway, after scouting around for a good couple of hours, earning suspicious looks from residents and police alike, I thought I’d call it a day and head back along the riverside. The riverside is where Millwall gets its name. Back in the day, the bank of the Thames supported seven windmills, taking advantage of the aforementioned windsweptness of the location. A wall was built to keep the ground stable, hence “mill wall.”

These concrete blocks now hold up the mill wall, hence are known as "mill wall supporters" har har.

In the nineteenth century, the area was a perfect location for the development of massive new enclosed docks that would relieve the pressure on the massively overwhelmed Pool of London and also reduce the risk of river piracy. It was also the only place in London where a ship as massive as the Great Eastern could be launched, and even then it had to go sideways.

I totally didn't notice that this bar was called 'The Heroin' when I doctored the image.

In due course, I found myself back at the West India Dock, a short walk from my starting point at Canary Wharf. Rather than accept that I’d wasted an afternoon and just going home, I thought I’d indulge in a bit of “stitching.” This is a psychogeographical term wot I am pretty sure I have invented. Basically, it’s when you explore the space between two areas that you have previously explored.

19th-century wharf, Limehouse. This is just exactly the sort of thing I've been looking for in the Docklands.

Hence, the two patches are psychologically “stitched” together, and can be related to each other. I figured that a short walk would allow me to stitch the Isle of Dogs to Limehouse. I’ve already walked from Limehouse to Shadwell, Shadwell to the City and the City to Bermondsey and London Bridge, so that’s a pretty good patchwork quilt thing I gots going on there. I also did a bit of exploring around Limehouse, because I’d only previously really covered a small area of the place.

The Grapes, part of an 18th century terrace in Narrow Street, Limehouse. Apparently The Grapes appears in Dickens' 'Our Mutual Friend', which I have never read.

Limehouse is a place that likes to make something of its history, which is fair enough. It’s a place with an interesting history and is probably vibrant, whatever that’s supposed to mean. For this reason, there are lots of signs dotted around explaining the history of what you’re looking at – hence the caption on the right. If you duck down the back streets, you can find plenty of remnants of its history, though sadly no opium dens. Having read The Picture of Dorian Gray, I was hoping to be seduced into a life of sin and licentiousness. Particularly as I had no plans last night.

Limehouse Basin. The viaduct in the background was built by the London and Blackwall Railway and is now part of the DLR.

Ramble ramble ramble. As you can see by these photos, by the time I got to the centre of Limehouse it was starting to get dark. However, being bored off my face and in an energetic mood, I decided that I’d stroll further on – into the City itself.

The end of Cable Street.

Rather than walk down the historically-significant Cable Street (you know, where the Battle of Cable Street was held), I figured I’d go via Commercial Road, which I recall as also being significant for some reason. Turns out that it just had a railway station that isn’t there any more.

Yeah, this is probably the worst photo I've ever taken.

I’ll spare you the endless psychogeographical-type photos that I took along the way. It was dark when most of them were taken anyway, so there’s not a huge amount to see. I quite like the art deco club on the right, though. It looks like it was once a cinema. Cinemas these days are just rubbish, I long for the days when cinemas actually looked a bit glamorous, like maybe you’d have an exciting night out just by stepping through the door. Hey ho.

Classic bus, Whitechapel.

In due course I arrived at what was either Whitechapel (according to the signs) or Aldgate East (according to the District Line). I suspect the station was named in the hope of filching some of the Metropolitan Railway’s traffic from a couple of hundred yards up the road, where Aldgate station is located. By the way, those of you who read this thing regularly may recall a previous expedition that took me from Embankment to Aldgate, so that’s some more stitching done. Aldgate is pretty well opposite Minories, so again, more stitching.

Leadenhall Market

Then it was a fairly short but meandering walk into the City. Well, technically anything past the site of Aldgate is the City, but I decided to make Bank my endpoint, because 1) it’s the station at the centre of the ancient city and 2) I could get a Tube straight home. I passed many interesting sights – the Lloyd’s building, Simpson’s eating house, the Jamaica Winehouse and Leadenhall Market among them. Unfortunately, most were too dark for me to take a decent photo, so sorry about that.

One last bit of stitching occurred when I reached Bank. The road you see on your right is the one I came down when I walked from Bethnal Green.

What did I learn from my walk? What pieces of enlightenment did I attain? Actually, I learnt lots of things and am a substantially better person as a result. Unfortunately, like many psychogeographers, I’m going to be all like “Oh you wouldn’t understand.” Sorry. Just what I do, dude.

(note to self: better come up with some fake wisdom or they’ll totally realise that psychogeographers are all making it up as they go along)