| Title | : | Housing Lark: A Novel |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0894106031 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780894106033 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 155 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1965 |
Housing Lark: A Novel Reviews
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First published in 1965, The Housing Lark is a quick witted and spirited short read with a serious undertone.
The narrator does a great job at making each unique character come alive. -
London house prices are notoriously expensive. Many young professionals today have little hope of getting onto the property ladder without outside assistance. So it's fascinating to read Sam Selvon's novel set in the 1960s about of group of working class individuals of Caribbean descent who are fed up with their cramped, crumbling rented rooms in Brixton and hatch an ambitious plan to pool their money together and buy a house of their own. It's a good idea but this particular group of men struggle to concentrate and cooperate given their propensity for drinking, smoking and chasing women (or “birds” as they're often called in the novel.) They also often fail to support each other at crucial moments such as when one group member lands in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Selvon dramatises this tension well while creating a story that is so funny and witty that I felt totally engrossed by his characters' rambunctious conversations and farcical excursions. It's an invaluable portrait of a community in London at this time which was previously under-represented in fiction and it's no wonder that the writer Caryl Phillips commented “Selvon's meticulously observed narratives of displaced Londoners' lives created a template for how to write about migrant, and postmigrant, London for countless writers who have followed in his wake, including Hanif Kureishi and Zadie Smith.”
Read my full
review of The Housing Lark by Sam Selvon on LonesomeReader -
So really speaking, if it have fellars who seem to be breezing through life without a care, you have to say good luck to them. If a fellar could afford to laugh, skiff-skiff at something what making you cry, how you could blame him?
This summarises the philosophy of this novel beautifully as Selvon follows the lives of a group of recent young Caribbean immigrants to London in, I presume, the 1950s. The characters take centre stage as the charming but rascally Bat comes up with a lark for them to club together to put down a deposit on a house thus activating the dreams of his sister and their friends.
Selvon breezes through the story not avoiding issues of racism, of Harry Banjo being falsely arrested by the police and thrown into prison, and the distinctively masculinised view of the young narrator and most of the characters who throw a lustful male gaze over all women, slangily known as 'things'...
All the same, this is vibrant and comic, astute on 1950s immigrant life, on the cultural differences between, say, Trinidadians and Jamaicans who all get lumped together by Britons, and full of irreverent wit. Hugely enjoyable and with a tender eye on flawed characters and their relentless optimism and enthusiasm in the face of what is hardly a warm welcome.
Oh, and the day trip by coach from Brixton to 'Hamdon Court' that Bat organises as a money-making scheme is pure comic genius!
Many thanks to Penguin for an ARC via NetGalley. -
Prior to
The Housing Lark (1965) I had only read one other book by
Sam Selvon, and that was the wonderful
The Lonely Londoners (1956) which is a really interesting, enjoyable and important book. Despite being rooted in the 1950s it contains universal truths for all people who seek a new life in a new and alien place.
The Housing Lark takes place in the mid-1960s and, once again, contains a motley band of disparate characters. Ten years after the homesickness which characterised
The Lonely Londoners this group are more streetwise and aspire to escape the tyranny of unscrupulous landlords by buying their own property. Sadly, their leader Battersby (aka Bat) sees this as an opportunity to scam his friends and pocket a bit of extra spending money.
Needless to say
The Housing Lark is another exuberant read from
Sam Selvon and one which captures the 1960s West Indian immigrant experience in London in all its warts-and-all glory.
The excursion to Hampton Court is worth the price of admission alone, as is the denouement when it is the women who take control of the chaotic scheme to buy a property.
Another splendid Sam Selvon read. The sooner all his work is back in print the better.
4/5
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This tragicomic novel of a group of West Indian immigrants in 1960's London who "on a lark" decide to save money to buy a house. They live in squalid rental flats and houses and are eager to claim their share of the good life by investing in property. Mayhem ensues as the person responsible for collecting the money gambles it away and tries to hide it from the rest of the gang. This very slim volume is packed with action as they try to redeem the situation and secure their place in England. The story feels so true to life and had me both laughing and crying as they pursue their lark. Outstanding! Makes me want to look for more of from this author.
We learn in the introduction, that Selvon made a conscious decision to write the entire book in the patois of the Islands departing from the more common approach of using it for just dialogue. I think this is a big part of what made it feel so real.
Why I'm reading this: A recent article in the New York Review of Books "NY Daily",
A Lark in West Indian London, highlighting the recent reissue of this book caught my eye. I had not heard of
Sam Selvon before, but evidently he is a well-regarded author of Caribbean, black British, post-war literature. In explaining why this book is often overlooked in academic courses on this subject, I was sold by . . . "it seems that required reading lists often can't accommodate humor". -
The Housing Lark is definitely a lark as it’s full of humorous episodes and laugh out loud character studies of Battersby’s house mates and friends. However, behind the humour, what the book does so well is to shed light on more serious issues: whether that’s the Anglo-centric nature of the history syllabus, the overt raciscm faced by immigrants or the lack of access to decent housing.
For example, although it has the serious issue of discrimination at its heart, one of my favourite stories concerns Sylvester. In order to find a room to rent, he is forced to convince the landlord he is from India rather than from Trinidad (the former being more acceptable seemingly than the latter.) He succeeds but has to keep up the part despite knowing little about India. Entering Sylvester’s room one day to find him standing on his head, the landlord asks what he is doing. Sylvester replies, “I am practising my yoghourt”. There are many more episodes of that kind.
One of Battersby’s moneymaking schemes to help raise the deposit for a house is to organise a coach excursion. The destination chosen is “Hamdon Court” and much hilarity ensues from the very start. “And the food and drink – well, it look like they setting off for an expedition to the North Pole or something.” When they finally get going, “like if fete start up right away. Fellars begin beating bottle and spoon and singing calypso…three bottles of rum start to make rounds…a woman open up a pot of pilau and start dishing out food.”
On arrival at their destination, most of the men choose not to tour the palace, opting instead for the delights of the rum bottle and showing off their (supposed) knowledge of history. All English history, of course.
“Nights of the round table and Richard with the lion heart and them fellars“, offers one. “Don’t forget Robin Hood and the Merry Men. And what about the fellar who was watching a spider and make the cakes burn?“, says another.
The book challenges the notion that people from the Caribbean region are a homogenous group. “To introduce you to all these characters would take you into different worlds, don’t mind all of them is the same colour.” It would be nice to think we can all deny the following accusation: “All you interested in is that he black – to English people, every black man look the same. And to tell you he come from Trinidad and not Jamaica – them two places a thousand miles apart – won’t matter to you, because to Englishers the West Indies is the West Indies, and if a man say he come from Tobago or St. Lucia or Grenada, you none the wiser.” As someone who has been lucky enough to visit several Caribbean islands over the years, I confess I was initially guilty of some of this thinking, imagining that the people from one island would frequently “pop over” to a neighbouring one. Of course, as I learned, they all have entirely different cultures, histories and, in some cases, languages.
The book demonstrates that, just as the British struggle to understand some of the immigrants’ customs, the newcomers are equally confused by what they find. For example, Battersby is perplexed by the UK’s changeable weather, so different from his homeland of Trinidad. “Funny thing in this country, you could never tell what sort of day waiting to pounce on you.” He also finds it hard to comprehend the British fixation with trying to forecast the weather. For instance, he marvels that on the television “they have this big map spread out, and a fellar come with a stick like a school master” who seems to have the power to determine the weather by moving symbols to different places.
I confess I struggled a little with some of the male characters’ attitude to women, especially the use of what seemed to me demeaning terms for them and a fixation with making sexual conquests. However, I’ll freely admit that this may be my own cultural prejudices and all the author is doing is faithfully recording the attitudes of the period.
The female characters come across as far more sensible than their male counterparts. For example, Battersby’s sister, Jean, does her best to keep him on the straight and narrow and ensure he looks respectable. This also extends to contributing to his rent, even though that means she has to work as, what she euphemistically describes, a kind of receptionist, explaining “I have to entertain the customers, and make sure they satisfy“.
As Battersby eventually realises, the idea of buying a house might be a lark to some of them but to women like Teena, struggling to bring up a family in cramped accommodation, it’s anything but. As she says, “Shame, shame and sorrows, is what scalliwags and scoundrels like the set of you bring on the heads of. Everything is a skylark and a fete and a bacchanal.” The omniscient narrator seems to agree. “You say this whole plan to buy a house was doom to turn old mask from the very beginning. Look at all these dreamers, and imagine that characters like these could get serious.”
In a recent online article recommending books about the Windrush generation, including Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners, Sara Collins (author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton) writes, “Selvon said that he was the first Caribbean writer to employ dialect in a full-length novel for narrative and dialogue. The result is musical, addictive, unparalleled prose.” I think you can see the evidence of this from the quotes I’ve included – the rhythmic speech, the colloquialisms and use of dialect. At one point the word ‘buttards’ is used and the narrator notes, “That’s a good word, but you won’t find it in the dictionary…. It ain’t have no word in the English language to mean that, so make it up.”
The Housing Lark is a fascinating insight into the experiences of immigrants to Britain in the 1960s. It’s also a huge amount of fun. -
Okay, this was hilarious - review to come!
Thank you, Penguin Classics, for my copy in exchange for an honest review! -
My third novel I've completed for the #2BooksUnder50Reviews Challenge.
A comic novel set in 1960s London that will give plenty of laughs to any reader who gives it a chance.
More thoughts on the way! -
That laugh you need in a Caribbean story. I loved it! Watch my review here ->
https://youtu.be/z4QWFydQU_s -
An absolutely beautiful and stunning read, honest, sincere and raw truth but filled with great humour , the author deals with the experiences of homesickness, loneliness, racism, intolerance, the immigration experience in London in the 60s when this was written (although since it was written not much has changed) This is the first book I have read by Sam Selvon but I will definitely be seeking out the authors other work, as other readers suggest this isn’t even his best work. The writing style I thought was wonderful, the descriptions so good and it just pulls you into Battersy’s experience completely. Highly recommended (especially if you read Zadie Smith you will enjoy this too)
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion -
This had the same interesting and well thought out ideas that The Lonely Londoners had. The story wasn't as interesting as the previous one but i liked this for the most part. I liked how it looked at the Caribbean experience after they settled in London. I think this should be pushed as much as the Lonely Londoners are.
I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. -
I learned about Sam Selvon while reading an article by George Lamming and the way he was seeking to make a point about a categor of post-colonial texts... I found a good deal online and so I just ordered it! It’s hilarious and very insightful about life of migrant workers from the West Indies, mainly Trinidad, in London. The plot of the book, if there actually be one, is some stories of this group of people who are fed up with their jerkish landlords and rents and stuff so they get together deciding to save up and buy a big house where they can all live together and their shenanigans when trying to save money! The writing style is priceless with all the misspelled words and ungrammatical sentences; it’s amazing to see how despite the incoherence in writing, the core issues of immigration, integration and inequality still comes to surface. Gonna read more by Selvon, definitely!
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sam selvon once again didn’t miss! just like the lonely londoners this was a joy to read - snappy, vivid and witty all round!! he’s such a talent
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This is a very short book that was written in the 60's. The premise is a group of people renting a house looking to buy their own house. This is a really good book and the money making schemes are often witty especially the description of the Hampton Court trip and gives a good description of the matriarchal place in the home and out of it. The descriptions of the food often left me wanting to try or revisit some of the food I encountered in my youth. Though the racism of the time is not on every page it does "bubble away" underneath as a subtext almost of the day to day lives.
A great read that reminds us of a time in Britain that shows what life was like in 60's Brixton. -
In the years following World War II, England experienced a labor shortage and thus encouraged the migration of Commonwealth citizens to "Mother" England. Trinidad native and Royal Navy veteran Selvon wrote a number of books about this generation of a quarter-million migrants, focusing on those from the Caribbean who came to London (the most famous of which is The Lonely Londoners).
In this slim book, we meet a small circle of West Indian friends in Brixton who are perpetually hustling to meet the weekly rent for their ramshackle shared rooms. As was typical of the times, housing for West Indian immigrants was in short supply, as many landlords refused to rent to them, and those that would, often didn't provide even the most basic of upkeep. They hit upon the "lark" of pooling savings to purchase a house they can own together, and that aim is the loose thread binding the book together.
The book unfolds in a series of episodes, centering on the Trinidadian Battersby ("Bat") and his new roommate, a Jamacian calypso player named Harry. Upstairs lives Bat's sister Jean, who works as a prostitute in Hyde Park, and her shop assistant roommate Matilda. The men in their rummy-playing, beer-drinking, tale-telling circle include the skirt-chasing Fitz, reefer-merchant Poor, mournful Gallows, who spends his days searching a a 5 pound note he dropped years ago, and Syl, an Indian from Trinidad who can't keep his room in a boarding house for "real" Indians because he doesn't know anything about subcontinental Indian culture, Alfy, and the henpecked Nobby.
There's not much of a plot per se, and the titular scheme never comes to the fore. Instead, it's an intimate glimpse at the social structures formed by these men, and the practical women who are more or less the only ones with the maturity to actually get anything useful done. It's written in a loose creolized English that unfurls in its own cadence as the stories collage into a portrait of community, culminating in a memorable group excursion to Hampton Court. -
Selvon assembles a cast of characters who bear a striking resemblance to those who figured in The Lonely Londoners. West Indian men ekeing out a existence in 1950s London wit skiff skiff lifestyles and grandioise ambitions. The central characters this time are Batterby and Harry Banjo - Trinidian and Jamaican who find themselves by chance sharing a dingy basement flat in Brixton. Bat is a hustler, looking for ways to skim off some of the money that seems to circulate among his circle of firends. The housing lark becomes one of his schemes.
The backdrop is the intense racism this generation of Caribbean people had to put up with in Britain of that time, which expressed itself most harshly in the limited range or jobs on offer to them, and the even more restricted housing options. The desire for something better than the dank, overpriced places they had to ensure led many to contemplate the housing lark as an alternative.
This was an infrmal savings club between a group of friends, accumulating the cash that would be needed to pay the deposit on a home they could collectively own. Battersby extracts the lucre on a regular basis and comes up with additional money-earning schemes, like an excursion to Hampton Court Palace, to increase the fund. The story hangs around episodes in which the group get together to play cards, drink rum, and talk up their hopes and dreams. We also get a funny, touching account of the day our in Hampton Court, when the immigrant families of three generati0ns get together to momentarily recreate the culture of their home society.
Attitudes to women seem harsh - discussed by the men in the early pages at 'things' to be pursued for sex. It is a pursuit that causes a few of them more anguish than pleasure and there is a hint that the partriachial attitudes they seem to proclaim aren't working out well for them. Battersby's sister, Jean, suggests there is another element to West Indian culture that ascribes to the females the role of holding it all together and moving the Caribbean community forward. -
"Summer can't last for ever. All them tulips and daffodils and blue skies have their day of bloom and depart."
Sam Selvon's The Housing Lark is a beautifully lyrical and humour-filled book, every line in the hundred or so pages is laced with West Indian witticisms.
Essentially a character study of a group of Windrush Generation immigrants in Brixton who come up with a scheme to save to buy a house as a collective. The story meanders with tales of their respective vices and foibles and joviality ensures. It is extremely playful in tone and I did not want it to end!
"Syl was a master of refractions, like Fitz was a professor of womanology."
The racism appears shocking to us because it is so surface level, compared to the racism of today where it is rarer for slurs and discrimination to be so open and brazenly used, but the prejudice is still there now, just sometimes harder to identify than in 60s. The language may have changed, but some of the attitudes shown here remain the same.
"All you interested in is that he black - to English people, every black man look the same. And to tell you he come from Trinidad and not Jamaica- them two places a thousand miles apart- won't matter to you, because to Englishers the West Indies is the West Indies, and if a man say he come from Tobago or St Lucia or Grenada, you none the wiser."
I read this for Black History Month, but is also a great #readcaribbean title too. -
after loving selvon's immersive and expansive city song The Lonely Londoners, this proved to be a satisfyingly broad and accomplished excursion in the kind of character-focused 'balladry' that left episodes of the other novel like the bedroom pigeon trap sparkling clear in my memory. selvon's mastery of dialect can overshadow his astute sense of narrative empathy: this novel knows when to bring the reader in (conspiring to acknowledge our protagonist's renaming of his flat to delight him) and when to push us away (chiding english readers for not caring about the distinctive physiognomic or national differences between his characters), when to step back from commentary (the potent contrast between the breughelian landscape at hamdon court and the coachman's patently inadquate but plausible retort) and when to speak plainly and directly (the quotation in the top review on this site, which encapsulate's the novel's remarkable and finely aged balance of political defiance and easygoing geniality). The Lonely Londoners is an essential historical document but this novella proves selvon's enduring capacity to balance testimony of distinct experience with rich evocations of universality.
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Truthfully speaking, I have no feelings towards this book, however, it was interesting to read from this unique moment in history. This tells the story of a group of people, a community, from the West Indies, trying to find their footing in Britain after WWII. They try to do this by buying a house where they all can live in—the issue is that most of them can't hold back on their vices and temptations, thus spending a lot of the money they should be saving.
What's interesting about this time, is that those who came from the West Indies were being discriminated against by the white British population, and as a result one of their predominant struggles was to find decent housing with poor wages. Also, the book does introduce conversations about gender, race, culture, expectations, as well as how far can dreaming get you when the general society works against you.
I am glad that I read this perspective from an author who experienced the struggle of the characters. That being said, it just isn't on brand with the stories I tend to enjoy, thus why I'm not giving it a higher rating. It was alright, and I felt I learned a bit about the time period and many of their struggles, but as a book is was just okay. -
About ten years ago I read Selvon's The Lonely Londoners and enjoyed it. But it didn't make me want to rush out and read every Selvon book. The Housing Lark, on the other hand, is excellent through and through and it has rekindled my interest in this writer. Primarily it is funny, extremely funny in parts, and charming.... but there is a more serious sociopolitical undercurrent here too, for those who care to acknowledge it.
This book reminded me of V.S. Naipaul's earliest comedies, before he became the very serious and often bleak writer of his later years. I am thinking especially of the stories in Miguel Street. Selvon's novel in constructed in such a way that it often feels like a book of interconnected little tales rather than a novel, but this is no disadvantage at all. -
This Penguin Modern Classic audiobook reading by Don Gilet of the 1965 novel The Housing Lark is a delight. It captures the struggle and humour of the Windrush generation from the West Indies into Britain. The dialogue and observations are well-captured and delivered by the reader, in particular the beautiful patois of Battersby and Alphonse who are always looking out to make pound or two whist struggling with the weather, finding a room to rent, and indiscriminate racism. There is lots of sexual observations of the women characters but they are fully realised in their own right and are often given the upper hand.
Thanks to Penguin Random House UK Audio and Netgalley. -
First published in 1965, The Housing Lark, is a book of its time - and yet, there are elements that seem remarkably similar to the current times. The book was written in West Indian Vernacular English (WIVE) but it only took a page or two to fall into the rhythm. Racism, still an issue, though perhaps not so overt as in the fifties and sixties. Sexism, still an issue, though perhaps not so overt - I doubt anyone these day could get away with calling women, 'things'. For all that this book is warm, witty, and shows the strength of women, whatever their rank in life and is absolutely worth the read.
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Very funny, somewhat sad tale of the struggles of black immigrants in the 1960s to settle in London. Fleeced for the rent of shabby rooms, let and sublet to far too many tenants, and suffering from racism, they seek to work collectively to get on the housing ladder. However, the tendencies and trials of their lives get in the way.
Oddly reminiscent of the working men in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, this has a fun collectivity, the occasional laser-like historical barb and a vernacular all of its own.
One scene in particular, where two West Indians argue about who is the most Indian, is very funny. And you will just love Teena. -
This book tells of a collection of unique characters that group together in an attempt to buy a house in London in the 1960's. There are ingenious schemes in making money and ducking and diving from some of the characters.
The characters are beautifully illustrated and this is a funny story with serious themes of inequality and racism in the 1960's and the price of housing.
It is well narrated and very enjoyable.
Highly recommended.
Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley in allowing me to listen to in return for a review. -
This was such a sincere and raw account filled with relatable moments of feeling homesick while also trying your hardest to make the most of your current circumstances.
The humour in this book was refreshing even when dealing with issues of loneliness, racial intolerance and the experience of immigrating to London in the 60's - full of confusion at being asked to come but arriving and finding yourself unwanted.
For such a short story, it's incredibly immersive and relatable, regardless of your background.
What a charming book full of laughs, hopes and dreams! -
If you enjoy the narrative of Zadie Smith and Hanif Kureishi, you'll love this book too.
Interesting and funny story about Jamaicans and Trinidadians in London in mid 1960-s who decide to buy a house. And then the story begins. Their scheme is very chaotic and one of them tries to scam his colleges. There si also an issue of racism and all the problems and challenges of migrants in Great Britain.
Optimistic and enthusiastic novel. Real classic. -
The Housing Lark is a short book that centres around a group of West Indians living in 1960s Britain. Owing to the hideous price of rent in London (not much has changed!), these friends decide to band together to save enough money to get themselves a house. What follows is a beautifully depicted tale of friendship, hardship and strength in the face of adversity. Selvon has a gift of bringing humour to even the most dire of situations and this was woven in seamlessly throughout the book.
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This book is about a few immigrants from the West Indies who settle in London and their friendship and what they have to deal with as immigrants, They decide that they want to buy a house after struggling with landlords and making payments without steady incomes. It’s an insight into their lives at this time in the 60s-70s. It’s more of a slice of life with the plot of saving for the house. I found the accent a little tricky to follow at times.
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The Housing Lark started in earnest and then became a bit of a joke to the men who had committed to saving money to purchase a house. However, the women in their lives are serious about wanting a home of their own. A quick glimpse into the lives of these West Indies immigrants..the hopes, dreams, follies, fun, and desperation. It was so short there wasn't much in the way of character development.
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This was my first time reading a book entirely written in vernacular and I really enjoyed it. Selven's writing is lighthearted and funny, while at the same time being able to take its characters and world very seriously. It was a great balance.
I look forward to reading more books like this in my English class.
