 Hello and welcome to our video summarizing all you need to know about the novel The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvin. My name is Barbara and in this video we'll examine this novel in a lot of detail. We'll begin with a little bit of context about the author himself, Samuel Selvin, before going into detail on the novel's summary and then we'll examine important themes that you need to be aware of. This video is really useful if you're studying this novel for your coursework or exams as we delve into the details. So let's get started. Now to begin with The Lonely Londoners is a 1956 novel by the Trinidadian author Samuel Selvin. Its publication was one of the first to focus on poor working class black people following the enactment of British Nationality Act in 1948 alongside George Lemming's The Immigrants in 1954. The book details the life of West Indians in post-war London a city they consider the centre of the world. Covering a period of roughly three years, The Lonely Londoners has no plot in the usual sense of the term. Rather, this structure of the novel follows a limited number of characters of the Windrush generation, all of them termed as collards through the daily lives in the capital. Now, Samuel Selvin is a novelist and essayist and he was born in 1923 in Trinidad and Tobago. As an East Indian, his heritage really played a major role in his published work as he often depicted the experiences particular to people of colour. So now, before we go into the details of the novel itself, it's important to know a bit about Samuel Selvin himself. So as was mentioned before, he was born in San Fernando in Trinidad in 1923 and he was an Indian Trinidadian with maternal Scottish grandfather. However, he grew up in a multicultural society with mixed colonial history. He attended Naparima College in San Fernando before leaving Trinidad at age 15 for work. During the Second World War, he was a wireless operator with the Royal Naval Reserve, an experience which provided the backdrop for his first novel, which is called A Brighter Sun. During a slack period, Selvin started to write poetry and then in 1945, at the end of the Second World War, he moved to the Port of Spain, which was Trinidad's capital, where he worked for the Trinidad Guardian as a reporter and literary editor. In 1950, he left Trinidad for Britain, travelling by chance on the same boat as the Barbadian novelist George Lemming. And it was on this journey that Selvin completed the first draft of the novel, A Brighter Sun, which was published soon after his arrival to international acclaim. It was set in Trinidad during the Second World War and it's a coming of age story centred on a young Indian man named Tiger, while also delving into the prejudices between Indians and Creoles on the island. In 1978, he and his family left the UK for Canada, where they settled in Calgary, Alberta, and during this period, he took up a right-hand residence post in different universities around Canada, as well as West Indies. He ended up passing away in 1994 when he was age 71. Now, to go into some detail on the novel itself, The Lonely Londoners, it's interesting in terms of the fact that it doesn't follow a straightforward plot line. Instead, it describes the experiences of a group of West Indian immigrants living in London in the 1950s through a series of loosely connected vignettes. In an episodic star, the unnamed narrator focuses primarily on Moses, who's an immigrant from Trinidad who's lived in London for roughly six years. A night labourer, he goes to Waterloo Station to greet Galdad, who's a young Trinidadian man arriving in London for the first time. Although the two men have never met, a mutual friend has asked Moses to help Galdad to get settled. While Moses waits for Galdad to arrive, he runs into a Jamaican friend named Tolroy, who's at the station to pick up his mother. Apparently, Tolroy has saved up enough money to bring a rover from Jamaica, a fact that astounds Moses, who can't fathom being able to save so much money from his meager paychecks. As they wait, British reporter approaches and mistakenly assumes Moses a Jamaican, asking him why so many people from Jamaica have come to England. As Moses answers, though, the reporter turns to interview Tolroy's family, all of whom are suddenly barreling out of the train. This surprises Tolroy because he only expected his mother. Instead, though, Tanti, who's his aunt, has come along, too, along with his relatives, Lewis and Agnes and the two children. He laments this fact, asking his mother why she brought so many people with her, but she and his aunt scold him for not embracing his family and they choose to ignore his protest that there isn't enough money in lodging to accommodate the entire family. When Galahad finally appears on the platform, Moses is shocked to see that he's wearing nothing but an old, great tropical suit. What's more, he doesn't have any luggage. And when Moses asks if he's cold, Galahad insists he doesn't think the weather is particularly chilly and adds that he decided not to bring any luggage because he'll simply buy new belongings once he starts working. Because of Galahad's optimism, Moses views the young man as headstrong and naive, frequently intoning. Take it easy when Galahad asks eager questions about life in London. In this manner, the two men get to know one another on the way from Waterloo to Moses's small apartment where they have dinner and Moses finally relax, allowing him to reminisce about himself in Trinidad. The next morning, Galahad tells Moses that although he appreciates his advice, he prefers to discover things on his own. Galahad sets off into London on his own determined to make his way into the employment office to secure a job. On his way, however, he becomes suddenly disoriented and begins to doubt himself, worrying he won't remember how to get back to Moses's place. Having predicted this outcome, though, Moses follows Galahad and appears just when the young man begins to fret. Thankful for his new friend's guidance, Galahad admits to needing Moses's assistance and the men go together to the employment office, which the narrator describes as a place where a lot of men get together to look for work and draw money from the welfare state while they ain't working. As Moses and Galahad wait in line, Moses explains that many immigrants choose to draw on government assistance as only income, something he himself scorns because he believes it muddies the water for other immigrants who merely want to support themselves with honest jobs. Galahad agrees with his outlook and decides not to subsist solely on welfare. At this point, the narrator describes a Nigerian immigrant called Captain, an old man Moses has known since his first days in London. Captain, who's also known as Cap, originally came to England to study law, but soon became consumed by life in the city, spending all of his father's money on woman and cigarette. As a result, his father eventually stopped sending money, so Cap started borrowing from his friends and lovers. When Cap doesn't have anywhere to stay, he endears himself to white women, moves in with them and spends the money. All the while courting other women. To illustrate Cap's tendency to take advantage of people's kindness, the narrator tells a story about a time when he simultaneously dated an Austrian woman and a German woman, both of whom helped stay afloat financially. At one point, Cap borrowed eight pounds from the German woman, and when she finally came after him to recoup the money, he stole a watch from his English girlfriend and took it to the pawn shop and sold it for money. Having provided a brief character study of the Wiley Cap, the narrator explains that Galahad meets many interesting people during his first days in London. One such person is Bart, a light-skinned black immigrant who tries to convince people he's Latino and avoids lending money to friends at all costs. Bart works in a clerical job and holds onto it as if it were gold, not wanting to have to work in a factory. He also worries about the fact that so many new immigrants will come into London faring they'll make things hard in Britain for him. In keeping with this pair, he also doesn't like to be seen with people who look too black. When he falls in love with a white woman named Beatrice, he decides to ask for her hand in marriage and shouted out of the house upon meeting her father. Nevertheless, they keep dating until one day Beatrice disappears and worried he'll never be able to date a white woman again. Bart scours the city looking for her, all those asking his friends if they've seen her and even decided to work as a doorman at a nightclub she frequents in the hope of spotting her. One night while working with Louis, Tolroy's relative, Moses, decides to have a little fun with him, telling him that women often sleep with other men while the husbands are off working a night shift. Deeply worried, Louis tells his boss he has a headache in Russia's home where he beats Agnes, his wife, even though she's alone. Unfortunately, this doesn't settle the matter and he continues to physically abuse her and accuse her of adultery until she finally leaves him and even taunt he won't tell him where she's gone. Continuing this episodic character oriented manner of storytelling, the narrator considers the way in which London has accommodated immigrants, noting that racism exists alongside a certain sense of entrepreneurship and tokenisation, which is made evident by white people who open businesses that cater directly to the immigrant population. One such establishment is a suit store that treats the black community with a particular kindness, encouraging each customer to tell his friends to frequent the shop where they'll be offered complimentary cigars. Similarly, a certain grocer stalks his store with staples of Western cuisine, which are otherwise impossible to find in London. Tanti greatly appreciates it since she visits the shop on a regular basis. Indeed, the grocery store falls within the small boundaries of the city in which Tanti feels comfortable in frequenting. The narrator notes that the old woman lives in a small town life in the normal city, never venturing beyond her immediate neighbourhood. Nevertheless, she's learned the ins and outs of public transportation and speaks knowledgeably with her visitors about which line they took to reach her home. One day, she finally journeys outside the small radius of a neighbourhood when Toleroy's mother accidentally takes the cupboard key with her to work, forcing Tanti to take not only the underground train, but also double deck bus. Now, nobody can tell her that she ain't travelled by bus or tube, the narrator remarks. Now, as Galahad spends more time in London, he becomes enamoured by the city's beauty and its intoxicating addictive qualities. He loves going to Piccadilly circuits and looking at the lights, and while walking, the street's dressed in his finest clothes one day and enjoying the city and feeling his existence within it. He says, good evening to a white woman and a child in the child jailed's mummy. Mummy, look at that black man. The mother quickly replies, you mustn't say that, dear. Nevertheless, Galahad stops and gives the child a kind hearted pat on the cheek, but the child shrinks away and cries, what a sweet child, he continues. What's your name? Uncomfortable with his closeness, the mother slowly backs away with her child. And the next day, Galahad looks at his own hand and reflects that the colour of his skin causes all his troubles. Towards the end of the novel, Sullivan explores further the ways in which black and white people interact in London. This dynamic often manifests itself with the romantic and sexual relationships that the narrator describes. In a stream of consciousness sentence that runs for nine pages, the narrator gives an account of how a park in the summertime where white and black people are like congregate to find sexual partners. One summer day, Moses is approached by a white man in the park. You're just the man I'm looking for, the stranger says. It takes Moses to a blond woman and offers Moses money to go with the woman while he watches, a proposition to which Moses agrees. This kind of rendezvous takes place in the park during the summer. And it's perhaps for this reason that the narrator, along with Moses, romanticizes summertime in London. In fact, the summertime is so appealing, it seems, that people like Moses are willing to endure grueling winters with almost no heat and little food, constantly questioning whether they should return to their home countries where life is warmer and easier. The narrator concludes the text reflecting that people put up with the difficulties of life in London for its fleeting joys and to be able to say that they lived at the centre of the world. Now, when it comes to analysing the characters in this novel, the first, of course, is Moses, who is a protagonist. He's a Trinidadian man that's living in London and at the outset of the Lonely Londoners. He has been in England for roughly 10 years, making him somewhat of a mentor and role model to many newly arrived immigrants. A manual labourer who works nights and spends his days fraternizing with other immigrants, many of whom he judges, even though he counts them among his friends. Indeed, Moses is a man of principle, somebody who resents the fact that some of his fellow immigrants take advantage of the welfare state by taking employment, unemployment money without even trying to secure a steady job. To Moses, this kind of behaviour only elicits criticism and prejudice from the many white Londoners who already think black immigrants are a scourge, flooding the city and draining its resources. Unfortunately, Moses feels discouraged by the idea that people like Cap lead seemingly prosperous lives, even though they never work, especially since he himself has dedicated the better part of a decade to toiling away in the hopes of climbing the socio-economic ladder. By the end of the novel, Moses finds himself experiencing stasis and feeling that he will never make enough money to become awkwardly mobile. Although this thought encourages him to return to Trinidad, he also can't quite bring himself to leave London, a city that he's come to love at least in the summertime. As such, he finds himself caught up in a limbo, unwilling to abandon his dreams of awkward mobility, but also sorely missing his homeland. The other key character is Galahad. His real name is Henry Oliver, but everyone knows him by his courtly nickname. He's a high-spirited Trinidadian man who comes to London seeking economic opportunity. Having heard of the financial prosperity of England, which he can offer, Galahad is eager to start out his new life when he hops off the train at Waterloo Station where Moses meets him. Although the two men are strangers, they have a mutual friend who has put them in touch and Moses agrees to show Galahad what it's like to live in London. At first, his optimism and naivety when it comes to living in this city agitates Moses, who periodically takes the young man to, asks the young man to take it easy. Nevertheless, Galahad is determined to find his own way in forming Moses that he doesn't need advice. It has a kind of fellow who does never like people to think that they are unaccustomed to anything or that they're strangers in a place or that they don't know where they're going, as the narrator notes, asserting that this is a mentality that Galahad adopts when he arrives in London. However, when Galahad does venture outside of his own, he's struck by the overwhelming enormity of the city and he finally relents allowing himself to ask Moses for help and guidance. Like Moses, he wants to work hard for his money rather than living solely off welfare checks. He retains this attitude throughout the novel, holding onto his optimism and strong work ethic four years later when Moses begins to doubt the idea that an immigrant in London can attain upward mobility or financial stability by working hard in a respectable job. Despite the fact that Galahad is often desperate and poor, he even kills a pigeon at one point in order to eat it, he reviews it to believe that returning to Trinidad will help his situation, explaining to Moses that he has no prospects back home. The other character, of course, is Captain, also known as Cap, and he's a Nigerian man living in London. The son of a wealthy family who originally came to the city for law school, but he dropped out and spent the majority of his father's money on cigarettes and women so that eventually his family stopped sending him in allowance. His portrait is always wearing the same outfit, a green striped suit and a pair of suede shoes. He's a real schmoozer and mooch, a man constantly asking his friends if he can borrow money. Moses knows this all too well since Cap used to stay in his room at the hostel until the landlord finally kicked him out. Cap is deeply averse to holding down a steady job and he leverages his romantic relationship for money and lodgings, often becoming involved with wealthy white women to sustain himself financially. At one point, he becomes romantically involved with two women and when he can't repay money from one of them, which he's lent, he steals the other's watch and pawns it in order to use that money to settle this debt, which obviously shows how much of a leech he is. When he's not manipulating women, he has to be creative. Much like Galahad, he resorts to eating pigeons, devising elaborate techniques for catching them from where they dwell just outside his window. Above all, the strange industriousness shows his commitment to avoiding steady work. He'd clearly rather cheat his friends and resort to unconventional hunting methods than just accept a job as a laborer like Moses or Galahad. Tolroy is another important character and he's one of Moses' friends. He's originally from Jamaica and he at first appears in the opening scene of The Lonely Landowners when Moses is waiting to meet Galahad at Waterloo Station. He impresses Moses by explaining that he saved up enough money to bring his mother to London from Jamaica. I can't save a cent out of my pay, Moses confesses and the two men talk about how Moses helped Tolroy find a factory job when the young Jamaican first came to London. Much of Tolroy's surprise when the train pulls into Waterloo Station, his mother isn't the only family member who came to London. In fact, it seems the majority of his relatives have come to London, including his elderly aunt Tante Bessie, his relatives Lewis and Agnes along with their two children. Unfortunately, Tolroy barely has enough space let alone money to support this many people. However, his mother insists that he can't complain about his family's arrival. Now, there's several themes that you need to be aware of when it comes to this novel. The first, of course, is racism. Now, the West Indian immigrants of this book suffer not only from overt racism, but from a more subtle type of bigotry which is quite harmful to the lives of well-being. Even as Londoners refrain from broadcasting the prejudices and expressing them directly, racism repeatedly shows itself to be deeply ingrained in their society. By showcasing the ways in which his character's lives are complicated and inhabited by England's subtle racism, Solven demonstrates that this is perhaps the more difficult for people to thrive when the discrimination in the face is understated. Now, throughout the book that only Londoners, white Brightons are really reluctant to come out and outwardly say that they don't truly accept black people within their society. This is made overwhelmingly evident by the fact that black immigrants find it so hard to secure a decent job. While instructing Gala had about how to navigate the ins and outs of finding employment in London, Moses explains they don't tell you outright that they don't want coloured fellas. They just say, sorry, the vacancy got filled. Because of white Londoners' reticence to fully admit their own racism, black immigrants have to figure out for themselves that they're being held back by the colour of their skin. When Gala had asks if the racism in London was worse than in America, Moses says, the thing is, in America, they don't like you and they tell you straight so that you know how you stand. Over here is the old English diplomacy. Thank you, sir, and how do you do, and that sort of thing. The fact that Moses refers to this kind of treatment as the old English diplomacy is worth considering, as it brings to mind, of course, colonial ideas. While most white Londoners hide the bigotry, some try to compensate for it by fetishising blackness. The narrator notes that some white brightens feel they can't get big thrills at a party unless they have a black man in the company. Moses himself experiences this dynamic when he leaves a party and white people often push five pounds on his hand and pat him on the back and say that this was a jolly good show. Another theme is that of big city life. So London offers its residents an endless maze of adventures. With a district for every class and type of person, there are entire communities which have never met each other within London city limits. For Gala had a Moses, the challenge of living here is a geographical layout of the city. The streets were built centuries ago and the city grew up around them and this means navigating, especially for newcomers, is challenging. On his way to his first day of work, Gala had his lost, but thankfully Moses anticipates this and points him in the right direction. Out to this tucked away bars and brothels and establishment for every imaginable type of gathering and London is a veritable wonderland of mystery, certain told the imagination captive for some time. Another theme is that of romance. Now in the novel, romantic relationships are rarely simplistic or straightforward as the characters often engage in sexual or romantic act in order to gain access to other cultures and classes. On the one hand, black immigrants like Gala had covered the chance to sleep with white women because it seemingly enables them to further integrate themselves into English society. Conversely, many white women covered the chance to also sleep with black men. Now, although white and black people are often drawn to one another in this book by self-interest and ulterior motives, romantic and sexual attraction is ultimately one of the things shared between West Indian immigrants and native Britons alike. Now, Sullivan makes it clear that despite British society's discrimination against black immigrants or perhaps because of it, there are certain types of white people who are attracted to the idea of sleeping with a black man. For example, one day Moses is in the park when a white man approaches him and leads him to a blonde woman standing under a tree and pays him to go with the woman while he watches and as such, Moses is used as a prop in this white duo's racialized sexual fantasy. Sullivan illustrates the ways in which a black man's personality and emotions are often ignored by white Londoners who objectify him in the process of conscripting them to play a role in their sexual fantasies. Many immigrants of color in this book also derive excitement from their sexual encounters with white women. While white women in the book frequently have sexual black women in order to indulge a fantasy, black women sleep with white women because they're interested in getting a glimpse into this women's wealth and power. The other theme is that of nostalgia. Now in the lonely Londoners, immigration and community is important and Sullivan brings to light the emotional toll that the process of immigration can take on a person. In particular, he examines the vulnerable characters like Moses who experience, even after they've lived in England for many years, a sense of vulnerability. Although he's acclimated to life in London, he remains deeply affected by memories of Trinidad, even fantasizing about returning one day. And even though Moses avoids reminiscing about Trinidad with his friends, which is a defensive tactic that he employs that he can better focus in the present, he still allows a small community of expatriates to gather in his apartment every Sunday for old talk. At the beginning of the book, a strong and disarming sense of nostalgia comes over Moses when he visits Waterloo Station to meet Galahad for the first time and is overwhelmed by memories of his own arrival at the very same station. In a conversation with Galahad, he remarks, this is a lonely, miserable city. If it was that we didn't get together, now and then to talk about things back home would suffer like hell. Sharing good memories with friends, then, can make London feel less lonely and less brutal as a reality that's easy to bear. So that's all. If you found this video useful, we'd really appreciate it if you gave it a big thumbs up and also if you considered subscribing to our channel. Also, do make sure you head over to our website, which is www.firstreadtutors.com. 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