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Review [published February 2001]
Peter Ackroyd: London: The Biography
Chris Hall
Those who have read Peter Ackroyd’s Dan Leno and
The Limehouse Golem will recall that the word golem
comes from the medieval Jewish for an artificial human
being brought to life by supernatural means, a “thing
without form”. Ackroyd’s latest book, London: The
Biography, has itself managed to breathe life into a
seemingly formless city – a tangible sense of London
as a living organism permeates this remarkable work.
Indeed, even the endpapers show “seven phases in
the evolution of Old London Bridge, 1209-1831”, perhaps
a subtle reinforcement of his idea that London is
a living organism, that it has a “human shape”, echoing
the seven stages of man.
He has a strong faith in London as a palimpsest:
“London has always been an ugly city… It has always
been rebuilt, and demolished, and vandalised … one
of the characteristics of London planners and builders,
over the centuries, has been the recklessness with
which they have destroyed the city’s past.”
There is a fascination with London as a built environment
(after all, he does say that London is made
“half of stone half of flesh”), of what London does to its
BUY Peter Ackroyd books online from and
citizens. There is the novelist’s sensibility here, looking
for form: “The emphasis upon finance is sustained by
the enquiry of the late 20th-century prostitute, ‘Do you
want any business?’”
London: The Biography rings with the city’s peculiar
echoic quality which Ackroyd is always attuned to. He
writes that the London Eye has its precursor in the 17th
century at Bartholomew’s Fair, and that following the
GLC’s abolition in 1986 “in effect London resumed
its ancient life, with the separate boroughs affirming
distinct and different identities”.
For Ackroyd, it is this historical imperative that
shapes London. “Whenever the opportunity and location
are offered, it replicates its identity. It is a blind
force in that sense, not susceptible to the blandishments
of planners or politicians…”
Temporal simultaneity to Ackroyd is as real as the
Thames, flowing through time as well as space. He is
quick to point out that “contemporary theorists have
suggested that linear time is itself a figment of the
human imagination”. Indeed, his book itself moves
“quixotically through time” forming a labyrinth, and
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