Reading the 20th Century discussion

Our second group read theme is the 1950s. In December 2017 we nominated 7 possible books to read and discuss. The winner of the subsequent group poll was:



Adrift in Soho by Colin Wilson

Adrift in Soho is set in 1950s London, and is beautifully written, very easy to read, and contains a wonderful array of charming characters most of whom want to retain a sense of personal freedom by avoiding the tyranny and grind of daily work. Early bohemians, the lot of them, and writing the guide to alternative living years before Swinging London popularised a similar lifestyle.

Harry Preston says goodbye to the provinces and comes to London looking for life and adventure. It is the mid-50s and he soon finds himself in the impoverished and slightly seedy world of the emerging Beat Generation.

As he progresses through the ranks of would-be artists and deluded romantics of Soho and Notting Hill, he begins to make sense of the world and his role in it.

Colin Wilson’s second, and most autobiographical novel.

We will unlock this discussion on 1 February 2018 - see you then


Here's to a wonderful Reading The Twentieth Century group reads discussion

In the meantime there's a bit of preliminary discussion going on over at the original nominations thread....

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Let the discourse commence....

I will admit that I struggled with this in the beginning. However, I think that I was won over by the middle and I began to really enjoy Colin Wilson's 'voice.' So much so, in fact, that I have now embarked on The Angry Years: A Literary Chronicle.

I felt the book came alive when Harry got involved with Doreen. That part of the novel felt very autobiographical to me. I also enjoyed this more than, "Room at the Top," possibly as I felt Harry had a more realistic relationship with the other characters in the novel.

Susan wrote: "I began to really enjoy Colin Wilson's 'voice.' So much so, in fact, that I have now embarked on The Angry Years: A Literary Chronicle."

I agree about Colin Wilson's voice. I think he's a very interesting writer.

My first introduction to Colin Wilson was his autobiography Dreaming To Some Purpose which I also heartily recommend. A wonderful journey from his early literary fame, achieved with limited formal education, and as one of the so called "angry young men" through to a prolific writing career that embraced UFOs, serial killers, literature, sex, psychology, the occult and a host of other wide and varied topics.

In May 2017 I went to see Gary Lachman give a talk about Colin Wilson when he was promoting his biography of the great man. It was very interesting.

Here's some more information about Gary Lachman's book...

Colin Wilson burst on the literary scene in 1956 with his first book The Outsider, a study of creativity, alienation, and extreme mental states. From then until his death in 2013, Wilson produced an enormous body of work, exploring existentialism, crime, sex, literature, philosophy, psychology, the occult, mysticism and more in his quest for the ‘peak experience,’ a moment of supreme affirmation and insight.

Gary Lachman’s talk will focus on the essence of this extraordinary writer’s existential search and is based on his new biography, Beyond the Robot: The Life and Work of Colin Wilson.

Gary Lachman is the author of many books on consciousness, culture, and the western esoteric tradition, including The Secret Teachers of the Western World and Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius. A founding member of the rock group Blondie, in 2006 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He lectures frequently in the UK, US, and Europe and his books have been translated into many languages.

I loved this and found it a very seductive read - hard to put it down and do something else. Despite all the criticism of society and working life, it didn't really strike me as angry. It's much more laid-back and humorous than Room at the Top, with a strong flavour of student life.

I found James hilarious but sometimes longed to get away from him - I imagine him a bit like Richard E Grant as Withnail in the film Withnail and I! For me he is probably the standout character of the book, but I also liked the equally eccentric artist, Ricky Prelati. The female characters seem a little colourless by comparison with these two larger-than-life creations.

Just found this interesting article about Adrift in Soho - it explains how the original of James was an actor called Charles Belchier, and how various names etc were changed for publication:

https://www.londonfictions.com/colin-...

Interesting, Judy. I really thought James was annoying. I thought Doreen brought more warmth and common sense to the book. Harry himself seemed quite clueless until she came along.

I can't remember the detail of the different characters, however do not recall finding any of them particularly annoying - though I know some of them were, perhaps, a bit full of themselves, but such is the confidence of youth.

Adrift in Soho is beautifully written, very easy to read, and - according to the review I wrote at the time - contains a wonderful array of charming characters most of whom want to retain a sense of personal freedom by avoiding the tyranny and grind of daily work. Early bohemians, the lot of them, and writing the guide to alternative living years before Swinging London popularised a similar lifestyle.

I found Doreen colourless and James annoying.
I wondered whether James might be delivering little packages around London when I was reading about him. He is always going off somewhere, sometimes has money from undisclosed sources and the people in the house always seem to have 'tea' after one of his visits.
Harry is inconsistent, sometimes young and naive and sometimes much wiser and more experienced. That may be because Colin Wilson was using a mixture of his early experiences when he first came to London and later ones, but so was John Braine and he managed to separate them effectively.

I liked Wilson's writing style and I did like the book more once he'd moved into the house/squat? I also appreciated the characters realisation that all this adventure was better from a distance and that the reality was quite uncomfortable!

The book as a whole was more enjoyable than its parts I thought, but I would find it difficult to define what made it so.
It is not an advertisement for the counter-culture, perhaps all the swinging Londoners who enjoyed the lifestyle had independent incomes.

I've just started The Angry Years: A Literary Chronicle by Colin Wilson which we are doing as a buddy read this month. I am hoping it might give me a few insights into this book too.

Annoyingly just as I started it I received two review books which I feel I should prioritise, so will have to put The Angry Years: A Literary Chronicle for however long it takes me to read the other books (Butterfly on a Wheel: The Great Rolling Stones Drugs Bust and Berlin 1936: Sixteen Days in August).

Val wrote: "It is not an advertisement for the counter-culture, perhaps all the swinging Londoners who enjoyed the lifestyle had independent incomes."

It predates the counterculture - Adrift in Soho is mid 1950s. The same repressive era that is evoked in A Fine Day for a Hanging: The Real Ruth Ellis Story. Carol Ann Lee asserts that there was a strong swing back to traditional values straight after the war as it was desire for a return to normalcy. This meant a strong sense of conformism.

Colin Wilson was an outlier. In his biography he describes living in a tent to save money. He was clearly fairly unconventional, His girlfriend's dad turned up to threaten him with horsewhipping as they were so appalled by him. He still married her - and they remained happily married for the rest of his life. He died a few years back.

Part of the magic of Colin Wilson's style is that he weaves philosophy into the fabric of the narrative, in a way that remains both provocative and accessible. This was something of a preoccupation for him.

In this instance, Adrift in Soho works both as a simple story of a young person's arrival from Nottingham to an unfamiliar London; and more broadly, as a search for meaning aligned to an attempt to transcend the day-to-day tedium of the wage-slave.

Of course there is also loads of late 1950s London period detail, and it is very well written.

I recommend Adrift in Soho to anyone interested in youth culture; London, and specifically Soho; bohemians; philosophy; and post-war English literature.

I thought his future father in law wanted to horsewhip him because of incorrect newspaper reports about his personal/sexual behaviour, or did I get that wrong?

So far as I remember, the father read his daughter's diaries and came to the conclusion that Colin Wilson was a sadistic homosexual. Both parents thought Joy would ruin her life - they didn't approve of Colin Wilson anyway, and before she met him she was engaged to someone her parents thought far more suitable. Colin Wilson was quite famous by this time and the press got hold of the story. Colin Wilson reckons the media were determined to take him down a peg or two anyway as he was working class. That's how I remember it but I daresay it comes up in The Angry Years: A Literary Chronicle so will return to this point when I get there.

I am reading The Angry Years and there is mention that the press, having built up the idea of the Angry Young Men, now want to knock them down. I guess that is quite typical of the press, especially in the UK.

What an interesting decussion! I didn't know anything about this author. Just started reading the book.

Just finished this, I didn't enjoy it at first, but it grew on me once Harry stopped handing out money and started thinking about whether this was really freedom. He seemed to be growing up.

I thought Ricky was the most interesting character, and probably also the most genuine.

Ricky had talent and artistic integrity. He is perhaps a bit precious about it, but it should be up to the artist whether he shows his work, when he does and which works he puts in any exhibition.

Great news Roisin - I look forward to your thoughts and reactions soon


I'm glad to learn that you warmed to the book Pamela - thanks for sharing your thoughts

Ricky was indeed an interesting character - good points about an artist's role in curating her/his own work Val

I wondered if there was an original of Ricky, but, looking at the detailed London Fictions page about the book, there isn't one mentioned there. It would be interesting to know which artists Wilson was thinking of - I find it quite hard to picture Ricky's paintings in my mind, so was hoping for a few artistic names to conjure with!

The page also mentions that the section centred on Ricky wasn't based on Belchier's memoirs, which Wilson reworked for the first part of the book, but drawn from Wilson's play, The Metal Flower Blossom.

https://www.londonfictions.com/colin-...

I finished reading this yesterday. The opening brought back memories for me of when I moved to London at the end of the 1970's. I rented a room in a flat in Earls Court and I used to spend Saturdays in the Reference Library of Kensington Public Library studying. Soho also still had some small cafes, book and record shops along with its more seedier offerings.

I enjoyed the writing and I felt drawn into the Soho of the 1950's. I liked the range of characters, especially those living in the house Harry and Doreen moved into.

Great stuff Andrew


I used to work in Soho in 1978/9 as a messenger for a film company so often used to wander the streets - Wardour St, Dean St, Soho Square, Broadwick St, Berwick St etc.

It used to a wonderful area and I remain fascinated by it especially the 1940s through to the 1980s.

Have you read 'Memoirs of the Forties' by Julian Maclaren-Ross? Julian Maclaren-Ross recollects his memories of Soho in the 1940s (and throws in half a dozen short stories at the end).

I'd previously read his novel 'Of Love and Hunger' and, prior to that, Paul Willetts's biography 'Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia'. His was a hand to mouth existence, and - for anyone interested in the 1940s, and literary London - this biography is well worth reading.

This is probably not the ideal entry point. I'd recommend 'Of Love and Hunger' first, and then Paul Willetts' biography, by which time you'll be hooked and quite possibly do what I did, which is go online and buy every title you can lay your hands on. Alas, there's precious few of them.


Judy wrote: "The page also mentions that the section centred on Ricky wasn't based on Belchier's memoirs, which Wilson reworked for the first part of the book, but drawn from Wilson's play, The Metal Flower Blossom."

That article is very helpful in understanding the book better Judy. I've finally read it properly!

https://www.londonfictions.com/colin-...

I think the quote in the article from Nicolas Tredell in his study The Novels Of Colin Wilson (1982) is absolutely spot on:

Adrift in Soho, for all its lightness, manages to be many things. A Bildungsroman; a picaresque tale; a documentary; a period piece; a fairy story; an investigation of freedom. After Ritual in the Dark, worked over many times, brooded-on obsessively by Wilson, it is a kind of release, a burst of light-heartedness. It also teaches a lesson relevant to Wilson’s future development as a novelist: that an apparently light-weight form could deal with serious themes.

This is partly what I was driving at when I said in message 15 (above)...

Part of the magic of Colin Wilson's style is that he weaves philosophy into the fabric of the narrative, in a way that remains both provocative and accessible. This was something of a preoccupation for him.

In this instance, Adrift in Soho works both as a simple story of a young person's arrival from Nottingham to an unfamiliar London; and more broadly, as a search for meaning aligned to an attempt to transcend the day-to-day tedium of the wage-slave.

Back to the article, I think this section is particularly instructive...

Unconvinced of the soundness of Beat philosophy, he wrote: 'I give the whole craze another three years.' The article itself caused some concern and was discussed in the House of Lords. A piece in 'The Times' on February 8th, 1961 reported that Lord Amulree thought the references to marijuana and preludin in the article might be deemed an incitement to commit an offence. Earl Bathurst, Lord in Waiting, replied that the article had been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions who, fortunately for Wilson, felt there was insufficient grounds for prosecution. It was probably here that Wilson drew his inspiration for the scene at the end of Part One where Harry smokes marijuana and finds 'the kind of muzzy happiness it created was the enemy of incisive thought or feeling' (155). Despite the ‘swinging sixties’, Wilson maintained this stance, against the use of drugs to induce higher states of consciousness, preferring more intellectually-based methods.

Colin Wilson returns to this theme quite frequently in Dreaming to Some Purpose: The Autobiography of Colin Wilson - specifically seeking techniques to transcend day to day reality and achieve peak experiences as he labels them. Here he is on that very topic in 1994...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btNpJ...

Nigeyb wrote: "Great stuff Andrew


I used to work in Soho in 1978/9 as a messenger for a film company so often used to wander the streets - Wardour St, Dean St, Soho Square, Broadwick St, Berwick St etc.

I have just added Of Love and Hunger, Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia and Memoirs of the Forties to my TBR list. They all look interesting and I see that Memoirs of the Forties has also been collected in Julian MacLaren-Ross, Collected Memoirs.

I joined Goodreads to expand my reading and it certainly seems to be working.

That's wonderful Andrew. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. Please report back.


Inexplicably I have still yet to read 'Selected Stories' by Julian Maclaren-Ross, despite its reproachful presence on my shelf for the past five years.

I've got a copy of his selected stories too. I'm tempted to read it after this.

Adrift in Soho is very funny. I was hooked from the start. I think Judy's reference to Withnail is pretty spot on.

I like the crazy assortment of bohemian characters floating around London, quite cosmopolitan too. The Landlady was quite stuck up and out to make as money as she could. She was such a snob and so patronising about her black tenants.

Reminded me of some of scenes in the excellent film by Basil Dearden, Sapphire.

I worked at Kensington public library many, many years ago. By the time this book was published the library was new and would have been stunning. Been a while since I've been there though.

So glad to hear that you are enjoying it Roisin - lovely connection with Kensington Library

Funny how so many of us worked around that area. I worked in Regent Street for six years in the Eighties/early Nineties and used to walk from Embankment station through Soho every day. It was still fairly sleazy then - indeed still is when you walk through in the evening. It does have a distinctive atmosphere.

Roisin, I haven't been to Kensington public library - do you know whether it was close to Virginia Woolf's childhood home? I must go and take a look, the next time I take my children to the museum there.

Yes it did have that atmosphere back then, but it made it that more interesting. There were some interesting bookshops around there. Never felt unsafe travelling around that area in the evening. All too...cleaned up now, a bit different.

Virginia Woolf? Not sure...however, if you wander further down the other end of Kensington High Street and off the main road one will find not only Leighton House Museum, but guitarist Jimmy Paige's fabulous pile with the tower.

According wiki she was born at 22 Hyde Park Gate...

This might be of interest to you Susan...

https://londonist.com/2014/08/virgini...

Yes, I must have a look, Roisin. Monk's House is a museum now, I believe. A future trip, once I've visited Bronte Country :)

When I read the sample for this story I was completely turned off by the main character but following this thread has convinced me to get the book and give it a go. Thanks guys! : )

Hope you enjoy it, Lynaia - I thought it was a really enjoyable read, and very funny.

I also struggled at the beginning, Lynaia, but it is worth persevering with.

Started this tonight, I thought the beginning was a bit slow, but I'm really enjoying it now.
All this freedom is making me feel hungry, tired and cold. Enjoying the characters he comes across. I've just met Raoul, not sure I'd want to spend too much time with him, but I do find him an amusing character.

My accounting background is freaking out over his spending money left and right! 😱

Yes, considering he had a very limited budget (and no intention of earning more) he was very open handed, wasn't he? Mind you, I think things were different then - he probably could have got some kind of job quite easily in those days, even though he didn't want one! So, he knew that, if things got too desperate he could get something to earn some money, I suppose...

I suspect you are right Susan. The main character strikes me as being very easily lead a stray. James is such a leech!

To start off with I was worrying a bit about his money and trying to keep count of how much he had left, but somewhere along the line it stops being so much of an issue.

Oh ok. That makes sense in terms of what I have just read so far.

Still, good to know that - were we in that situation - we would all, at least, attempt to budget!

Yes! Attempt! One does try!

I rather enjoyed reading this. I'm familiar with some of the places that feature, so it was nice to see them from a different, earlier perspective.

I've been reading Art, Sex, Music by Cosey Fanni Tutti about her life. She used her diaries to write this and some of the characters that she meets are a bit similar to some of the outlandish characters in Adrift In Soho. Her story starts in the early 1950s, so a lot of the work she did creatively happened in the late 1960s onwards.