Smoke lingers round your fingers

[venta]

I've just been reading, on a friend's recommendation, Stoneheart, by Charlie Fletcher. Which is a children's book, and manages to be impressively dark, understated (in some regards, less so with the giant trampling statues) and extremely funny in places.

What really suckered me in was its incredibly powerful sense of place; it's set in London and written by someone who clearly loves London, and knows it well. Admittedly it's a rather odd London in many ways, which is what made it so endearing. I love flipsidecities, the places geographically recognisable but utterly distinct so that they lure you in with their familiary then delight you with their strangeness.

And, as far as I can tell, one of the best places to do that with in a story is London. There probably are many other cities with a history as rich and various, but in the world of English literature London is a clear frontrunner.

Walking round London, seeing streetnames I recognise from history lessons, I've always felt that there were a thousand other cities bubbling underneath. Bits of the past trying to poke out. Once, lost, I blundered into Trafalgar Square and knew instantly where I was - followed by realising I was still fundamentally lost, as I had no idea where I was in relation to anywhere else. London is a place I walk round, and at the same time a myth and a mystery.

From the bureaucratic magic of Jonathon Stroud to the frankly deranged writing of Ian Sinclair, I've wandered from Hawksmoor church to London Wall and loved the lot. What Philip Pullman did for Oxford was entertaining, but never quite the same (and the scene that stuck with me most from the film was a tiny snapshot of a train-that-never-was shooting over Air Street in, of course, London).

So tell me: what other cities have been made magical with a slight fraying of reality ? Years ago, spindlemere told me that Paul Magrs had tried setting magical realism in Darlington, where I grew up, but I've never quite had the courage to try it. I don't feel London should hog all the limelight, but I don't feel I've ever met anywhere else with quite the depth of... stuff to furnish so many stories.

What have I missed ?

Remember:

- You can't make an omelette, Mr Croup, without...
- Killing a few people, Mr Vandemar.

Comments

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about London; can't think of another city I've read that manages it so conclusively. However, I've played in a roleplaying game set in Cambridge, that provided a similar flipsidecities atmosphere (Vampire - with ao_lai, Leon and Anthony C-C).

I think it's difficult to accomplish because it requires the writer to know the city well (I think they more or less have to have lived there for many years), but also the reader to know it well enough to recognise what they don't know (so to speak).

[venta.livejournal.com]

but also the reader to know it well enough to recognise what they don't know

That's an important factor, even with books in real-world settings. Sometimes a passage is written in such a way that without in-depth knowledge of the relevant town, you're completely sunk. Alternatively, it's full of irrelevant detail which is nice if you like the smugness of knowing exactly which outfitters in Turl Street they're talking about, but not that interestingly written if you don't.