posted on 26 Sep 2015

Capital by John Lanchester

 

This is a good meaty read with a satisfyingly varied cast of characters who all live in the same London road. I am a big fan of books with maps and family trees at the beginning as a visual aid to help the reader remember relationships, and this one would certainly benefit from this as it covers quite a complicated set of relationships. We are at least given a brief history of this ordinary street in South London, Pepys Road before the big story begins and how it has changed over time to become a very desirable address attracting people with huge incomes, part of the reason for the book's title.

I am not going to attempt an introduction to all the characters and the various subplots, some of which stand alone and others that interlink, as this would take several pages, so instead I've picked out a few examples: Unfortunately, I can't ignore the obnoxious Roger Yount, who works as a successful financier in the city. His shallow wife Arabella seems a good match for him: the epitome of consumption who spends all his money on a luxurious lifestyle. But all is not well between them as one of the early episodes shows her punishing Roger for his 'selfishness' by abandoning him to look after their two young children over Christmas while she disappears for a spa weekend. This plan backfires as he then hires an emergency nanny, Matya, who quickly proves herself to be indispensable. The problems of this family are compounded when Roger fails to be rewarded with his expected million pound bonus, eventually is fired from his job and so is forced to sell the house in Pepys Road. Please don't waste your time worrying too much about this family as they have another sumptuous property out of town. Although perhaps you might feel sorry for the unfortunate children who have to live with these monsters before being packed off to boarding school.

A different kind of family live their more modest lifestyle with far less financial capital but much more affection. Ahmed manages the local shop with the help of his two brothers, Usman and Shahid and the steady support of his good tempered wife. It is a modest but successful business overseen from a distance by the family matriarch who lives in Pakistan. As the story unfolds we share their trepidation  (bordering on fear), as they scramble to meet her in time at the airport for an extended visit when she will be expecting a full report from everybody re the business, progress of the grandchildren and potential marriages for the two younger brothers. All this normal family stuff is severely disrupted by the wrongful arrest and subsequent detention of Shahid for suspected terrorist activities. I liked this interesting family with their daily squabbles, compromises and dreams and so feel that it was a shame to burden them with a predictable and clichéd set of circumstances relating to perceived terrorism. After all, they were strong enough three dimensional characters without having to prove their ultimate worth through battling islamaphobia and the justice system.

Another house gives us a glimpse into the sad and solitary life of the elderly Petunia who has been recently widowed from what sounds like an unpleasant and domineering husband. She is finding it very hard to adjust to living alone with occasional visits from her daughter Mary and her grandson ( aka the artist known as Smitty). A diagnosis of a brain tumour means that her family begin to spend more time with her, albeit in a rather grudging way. There is no real affection here as they struggle to find common ground. The house is big but has a hollow, unloved feel which Mary plans to improve with the skills of a local Polish builder, who finds work with several of the families in the story.

A very temporary resident on the street is Freddy, the talented seventeen year old football prodigy who has travelled with his anxious but dignified policeman father, Patrick to begin his lifelong dream of playing professional football with a prestigious London club. Theirs is an unnatural and fragile life which, without spoiling the story, proves to be very tenuous. Patrick feels increasingly redundant and begins to reflect that he has left behind too much as a sacrifice for his son's glamour and fame

Quentina, an asylum seeker from Zimbabwe does not live on Pepys Street as she is in temporary accommodation in a refuge, but she plays a significant peripheral role as it is part of her regular beat as an illegally employed traffic warden. Again, I felt that these circumstances are unnecessarily complicated, bordering on the exotic. She is also arrested and transferred to a holding place while she awaits the decision on her asylum appeal. It might have been interesting to have a character with this ethnic background who was second or third generation who was perhaps a successful professional? Unfortunately, as with the other families from minority ethnic backgrounds, I am concerned that they are defined and subsequently othered by their difficulties rather than their normality.

One successful device to hold these and other characters together is the mysterious regular arrival of regular postcards at all of the houses on the street. The postcards are photographs of individual properties with the slogan: 'We want what you have'. At first, most of the residents are dismissive and suspect that they are a gimmick from a property developer. The police become involved when they acquire a more sinister feel as the tone changes to depict graffiti and other more serious incidents occur. They also play a part in helping the reader to think about the desirability of living on a road like this. Do we want what any of these people have? If we do, is it the house itself or the individual lifestyle that is most desirable? In reality, who has the most wealth or 'capital' if defined in its broadest sense?  In my view it is probably Usman and certainly not Roger.

 

Karen Argent

September 2015