Yes, what will London be 500 years on? One of Shelley's friends, Horace Smith wrote a poem to compete against Shelley's "Ozymandias" in a 'friendly competition'. Smith was a stockbroker who became very rich, lived to a ripe old age in the bosom of his family in Tunbridge Wells, and who wrote ca. 20 novels, etc. I like his poem better than Shelley's, imagining London in the far off future as a wilderness:
WB Shelley (whose wife created the Frankenstein story):
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
Interesting, I hadn't seen Smith's version before. I found a degree of solace in Richard Jefferies' post-apocalyptic novel, After London (1885), in which he tries to imagine what the city will be like after the collapse of civilisation. The first paragraph contains the words: “It became green everywhere in the first spring, after London ended.”
Thanks, I had not heard of Jefferies novel - very interesting to compare it with other Future topias, like Erewhon, Tmie Machine, and more recent 'sci-fi
I'm a little behind on my reading. The place Guy Debord ending up living was in Middle-Of-Nowhere-Auvergne. I think it is not far from the schoolhouse in "Avoir et Etre". The schoolteacher sued the director. Is this psychogeography?
Hahaha! Yes! I get sick of my fellow American women who love to drag out Cohen's Hallelujah as though it were some masterpiece. I knew he covered up his Japanese master's sexual abuse of women, due to a blogger who wrote about it, but didn't know he worked for the CIA!
So good to read your thoughts on this man! I'm really living a similar experience as well. I've been reading a book about the history of Romney Marsh (where I grew up) & many sections exactly describe dreams I had as a child. They were usually anxiety dreams about being stranded in vast open water in a thin wall of land. This has, apparently been a common theme for the history of the people on the marsh for millenia as the sea has risen and retreated many times. Often in catastrophic storms or floods that destroyed sea walls. It's as if the memory of the entire marsh was present in the dreams. I am integrated psychically into the land and it's past people in an eternal way. The structure of our language seems to separate us from our environment in such a way we see to forget this. Thanks for the I inspiration Luke ! ❤️
Beautiful piece, Luke, and I am able to get a sense of the land spirits there from your writing.
London is Chicagoing itself. The Chicago my parents grew up in was safe, prosperous, and friendly. You also had many people far more willing to house entire families of six in a two-bedroom, one bathroom bungalow. Nowadays it is a shooting gallery/slum despite guns technically being illegal in the city.
Yes, what will London be 500 years on? One of Shelley's friends, Horace Smith wrote a poem to compete against Shelley's "Ozymandias" in a 'friendly competition'. Smith was a stockbroker who became very rich, lived to a ripe old age in the bosom of his family in Tunbridge Wells, and who wrote ca. 20 novels, etc. I like his poem better than Shelley's, imagining London in the far off future as a wilderness:
WB Shelley (whose wife created the Frankenstein story):
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear"
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Horace Smith wrote this:
In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the desert knows:-
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King Of Kings; this mighty City shows
The wonders of my hand." - The City's gone,-
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder, - and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
Interesting, I hadn't seen Smith's version before. I found a degree of solace in Richard Jefferies' post-apocalyptic novel, After London (1885), in which he tries to imagine what the city will be like after the collapse of civilisation. The first paragraph contains the words: “It became green everywhere in the first spring, after London ended.”
Thanks, I had not heard of Jefferies novel - very interesting to compare it with other Future topias, like Erewhon, Tmie Machine, and more recent 'sci-fi
I remember Toby was keen on Richard Jeffries's After London.
My effing memory is shot!
I'm a little behind on my reading. The place Guy Debord ending up living was in Middle-Of-Nowhere-Auvergne. I think it is not far from the schoolhouse in "Avoir et Etre". The schoolteacher sued the director. Is this psychogeography?
Hahaha! Yes! I get sick of my fellow American women who love to drag out Cohen's Hallelujah as though it were some masterpiece. I knew he covered up his Japanese master's sexual abuse of women, due to a blogger who wrote about it, but didn't know he worked for the CIA!
Reading that Sinclair quote gave me a brain hemorrhage.
So good to read your thoughts on this man! I'm really living a similar experience as well. I've been reading a book about the history of Romney Marsh (where I grew up) & many sections exactly describe dreams I had as a child. They were usually anxiety dreams about being stranded in vast open water in a thin wall of land. This has, apparently been a common theme for the history of the people on the marsh for millenia as the sea has risen and retreated many times. Often in catastrophic storms or floods that destroyed sea walls. It's as if the memory of the entire marsh was present in the dreams. I am integrated psychically into the land and it's past people in an eternal way. The structure of our language seems to separate us from our environment in such a way we see to forget this. Thanks for the I inspiration Luke ! ❤️
Fascinating! Psychogeography in its purest form. Look forward to catching up this weekend!
Beautiful piece, Luke, and I am able to get a sense of the land spirits there from your writing.
London is Chicagoing itself. The Chicago my parents grew up in was safe, prosperous, and friendly. You also had many people far more willing to house entire families of six in a two-bedroom, one bathroom bungalow. Nowadays it is a shooting gallery/slum despite guns technically being illegal in the city.
Wonderful reflections, despite the immense tragedy of it all. As most former inhabitants tend to say nowadays: 'The Londoners have left London!'
Thanks! From one escaped Londoner to another ;)