London Perceived

Forty-one years ago, V.S. Pritchett went looking for what makes London itself. He wrote this before McDonald's arrived, just before the Beatles and 007 put it on the world's pop map, just as cranes were setting out the beams for glass and steel skyscrapers. Much has happened in the interim, but what Pritchett found explains not only its past but its future. He makes neat work of reconciling the many ironies in a place that reinvents itself every so often without much of a plan, but which also hangs onto traditions, ways of being and a passion for order. This is a tour of neighborhoods, but also of centuries and the historical events and personages that have contributed to the city's enduring character. It moves seamlessly between the concrete image and the abstract idea. Pritchett's prose is crystalline, his insights spooky at times (he describes those new skyscrapers as having a "smashable impermanence" to them). The photographs by Evelyn Hofer are haunting. There will always be a London. This should be required reading for visitors to that city.