Letters from London by C.L.R.James

Letters from London Reviews

• 
  Andrea

  Of interest as a glancing view of London in the 30s from someone visiting from Trinidad, a man of culture and of dark skin. So disappointing if you were expecting great things because this is C.L.R. James, who you admire immensely. These letters offers a nice glimpse of the openness and excitement of Bloomsbury intellectual life, a taste of the realities of race prejudice, some interesting observations and gossip about figures like Edith Sitwell...there is nothing deep here though, or particularly thoughtful sadly. Well worth a read if you know London, for you will smile, and some great quotes. Of course, most of which can be found in the very nice introduction by Kenneth Ramchand, who must have struggled a bit to find the insights given by these pieces written for the Port of Spain Gazette on an intellectual or even very personal level. Because these are sorely lacking. I most enjoyed the descriptions of English boarding rooms and architecture, I would have enjoyed those late night talks...and the most remarkable quote in the whole of it, even with the constant digs at surly and boring English men, is this:
  
  '...and it is a peculiar thing to which I shall refer later but may mention in passing, how little the average middle-class English person seems to drink.' (46)
• 
  Apphia Barton

  "Let no one who wishes to write, believe that all I have described is life. In one important sense it is not life at all. It is a highly artificial form of living and I would not be surprised if a great deal of what modern, work suffers from is not to be traced to that very cause" ❤️
  
  As a writer, this is one of those books to get you back on track with journaling if you've fell off. - Write what you observe. I had a similar experience with Talk Stories by Jamaica Kincaid. The conversational tone, simple and unadorned language made this an easy read. A look into his mind pre-Beyond a Boundary. James mentions in more than one "letter" that he intends to write in depth about the root and stem of colour-prejudice; what I believe to be the inception of The Black Jacobins.
  
  This book could definitely be read in a matter of hours if you're fortunate enough to have the uninterrupted time.
• 
  Aine

  Short and fast-past, Letters From London is a worthwhile read for anyone with an interest in the intellectual history of the time. Written in James’ first few weeks in England, the seven articles show us his thoughts on art (“But in the Art Museum he will see the statue of the man walking. It will be to him as it is to me. It cannot grow old. It cannot go out of date. It is timeless, made materially of bronze, but actually, as has been said of great literature, the precious life-blood of a master spirit.”), Bloomsbury (“Anyone who lives in this place for any length of time and remains dull need not worry himself. Nothing he will ever do will help him. He was born that way.” But also “Let no one who wishes to write believe that all I have described is life. In one important sense it is not life at all. It is a highly artificial form of living and I would not be surprised if a great deal of what modern work suffers from is not to be traced to that very cause.”), housing (“I now have quite a tolerable idea of what it must feel life to be in goal.”) , English men (“For the English native is so dull and glum and generally boorish in his manners, that these girls turn with relief from these dreadful Englishmen to the smiling and good-natured West Indians”) and English women (“That is what I admired in her chiefly, her independence, her ease, her total lack of constraint. They have a lot of freedom, these girls.”), and forgiving England “all he vulgarity and all the depressing disappointment of London for the magnificent spirit of these country working people”.
  
  As anti-imperialist thought was not particularly developed at this point in time among the majority of the English left, it is interesting to see how James portrays racial prejudice.
• 
  Sophie

  This was assigned for my modernism class, and I loved it. I read the whole book all in one sitting. I really like the way James writes, especially when he is talking about the things that inspire writers in his essay ‘Bloomsbury Again’. I haven’t written much in a while and it’s inspired me to start making time to write again:
  
  ‘When you lie in bed in the early morning and have not slept and know that you will not sleep because of something you have to do the next day or someone you have to meet; or wish that you would never get up but go to sleep for ever; or think over your present position and feel how fine it is and wish that it would continue as it is: these things are the basis of life and of great writing and of great art in any part of the world’ (53).
  
  I also thought the essay ‘The Houses’ was written is such a cool way. James starts by describing the outside of the properties on a street and then leads the reader inside, and the effect is so much more poignant than just an analysis of how people in London lived in the 1930s.
  
  
• 
  Celine

  — “When you lie in bed in the early morning and have not slept and know that you will not sleep because of something you have to do the next day or someone you have to meet; or wish that you would never get up but go to sleep and sleep for ever; or think over your present position and feel how fine it is and wish that it would continue as it is: these things are the basis of life and of great writing and of great art in any part of the world. You get into contact with them by emotional relationships with people and with things and by communion with your own soul. They are the essentials.”
• 
  Kirsten Meek

  It’s so interesting to see England through the eyes of someone not born and raised there. His commentary on English culture and lifestyle was insightful, raw, and honest. The writing style feels intimate due to the epistolary nature, and it did feel like I was reading the updates of a friend from nearly 100 years ago. James’s deep love for intellect and education is inspiring, and I would recommend this collection of letters to anyone that wants an insight into London life from a visitor’s perspective
• 
  Jade

  'The fact remains that a man in this country can make himself a highly cultured person by merely providing himself with a thick pair of boots to walk from place to place. Free. Free. Free. Everything free' (11).
• 
  Owen Hatherley

  Juvenilia really but in some places very sharp and wise accounts of '30s London and, at the end, Nelson, Lancashire.
• 
  fowzia.

  read most of this on the train to and from brighton.. interesting but not really anything remarkable. i liked the end about the cinema strike in a small english town it warmed my heart
• 
  Darryl

  C.L.R. James (1901-1989) was a famous historian, Marxist, and postcolonial theorist, as well as an avid cricket enthusiast. He was born and educated in Trinidad, and worked as a teacher, journalist, and writer. He traveled to England in 1932 on the request of a good friend, the Trinidadian cricketeer Learie Constantine, and initially spent several weeks living in Bloomsbury in London. He wrote nine essays for the Port of Spain Guardian about his visit to the capital; seven of these essays are contained in Letters from London.
  
  James has a classical English education and a great love of literature, and he fits in with Bloomsbury life "as naturally as a pencil fits into a sharpener." He is befriended by English, Indian and West Indian students, intellectuals and writers, including the poet Edith Sitwell, and he fondly describes these meetings in two of the essays. Other pieces describe his visits to the Victoria and Albert and the Science Museums, the Bohemian life of those who live in Bloomsbury, the cramped yet cozy living conditions of his rooming house, and his interactions with the young, educated, independent and open-minded London women that he meets. The essays provide a vivid insight into Bloomsbury life and 1930s London, and this book was a quick and pleasurable read.
• 
  Michael

  Whether I will ever end up reading this is questionable, but had it been published just a little bit earlier I'm sure it would've shed some interesting light on my undergrad thesis, which was in part an intellectual history of The Black Jacobins, a book published in the period from which these letters are drawn. What can you do.