A Stranger City, Linda Grant

A Stranger city

By Linda Grant

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Let’s start with some of the lines and words which makes this book special! 

A warm night in July when people are moving from One gratification to the next, a veil of humor happiness lay over good city. 

We’re all a set of numbers one way out the other: National insurance, credit cards, bank details and ask the rest they’ve got on you, but atleast we’ve got names. 

What it felt like to be the child of an immigrant family whose only purpose was to di better than the previous generation. 

When she thinks about it, she’s life and gained something. The internet has deprived her of her right to privacy, to be anonymous and like her Dad said to her that’s a precious thing to lose, but on the other hand, she’s also never going to be forgotten, is she? People die and all that’s left of them is some bones in a box but she exists now independent of herself, which is quite a thought. 

What I’m interested in, the underlying theme, is to do with those who disappear in a city, how you can vanish with trace, be forgotten altogether, or, as in this case, develop a second life online as a result of being searched for. 

Alas had a serious intelligence and non judgemental curiosity that could touch everything it gazed at with a radiant illumination. 

This girl was someone who would allow her son the make something of himself, give him a push, keep pushing. 

English of all people? Who drink their tea with their little finger cooked

A deep understanding of the human condition is necessary to sell to them:a An appraisal of who likes to bargain and who is more concerned with the quality of the goods over their price. 

He admired fashion even when it was stupid, for it was fearless in its belief that it could never be ridiculous; if you took yourself seriously enough then works world respect you. 

The kind stranger who warns them of an impending attack. The story was circulating after 9/11 in New York and again after the tube bombing in London. It’s a long standing urban legend which goes back atleast to the Second World War. There was no kindly person and no compassionate terrorist, only a collective craving to be comforted. 

Christmas bites down on you like a teacher with a cane, Christmas threatened you with loneliness and solitary tears of you didn’t get your act together and make up with your nearest and dearest. 

He took a detached analytical view of politics with no sense of attachment to a cause or a party. 

He used to think that conspiracy theories were the effect of a lack of democracy and transparency and a sense of helplessness in the face of the uncontrollable and inexplicable; if the political process was opaque the gaps were filled in by the imagination. Maybe religion was the first, the grandest of the conspiracy theories. 

London induced a feeling of evaporation, as if by no longer noticing the cold, she was becoming of the cold. 

‘Well you build on a flood plain and you’re asking for trouble, aren’t you? But that’s the English for you, ask greed, no sense.’

The Queen world  die and then it was finished, everyone knew that, old jug-ears wouldn’t last five minutes on the throne, nor would he? 

‘And you were born in a villa’, he whispered, ‘a villa with rose gardens, for the rose is a Persian flower, there is nothing English about it.’ 

Talking about the situation had given it the outlines of a solid and permanent reality she didn’t yet believe in. 

Francesca clicked away these thoughts, for they were like staring in the sun. 

And while the words and story would always stay with me, there are new things I learnt, some concepts and some great new words from this book. ‘The Garden of the Finzi-Continis’ the book, and the prehistoric existence of Etruscans in Italy. 

The entire book is a big statement on the  Side effects of globalization and what everyone talks about ‘Going Home’. Earlier people lived with their native race, no intermingling as travelers were rarely found. The oldest ones coming to Mughal courts were Europeans and Chinese. Indians should also travel. Anyways the nationalistic agenda is becoming the side effect of globalization. You see people are scared and judge mental of outsiders. This entire concept of community itself had a side effect. As soon as we meet we categorize people into communities in a certain way, Indian, straight, couple, mother, working, foreigner, woman, book lover, these are all kinds of communities or likes and dislikes. 

The story has all sorts of immigrants living in London or londoners moving out to find another home. There are Irish, Germans, Persians, Moroccan, Hungarians, Indians and all sorts of small towners or immigrants from troubled countries coming to build a life in this big city which is known to be a potpourri of cultures and legends of past people amalgamating and writing their own rag to riches tales, while some get lost in the winds of time and leave a next generation confused and on the wall not knowing where they belonged. The tussle of the first movers to late movers because aren’t we all immigrants from primitive to new lands. 

I once watched a show on Door Darshan where the wise old man says, ‘All of us belong to our roots of a smaller town or a village’, and that stayed with me. Myself who has moved cities, countries trying to build a home every time, a social circle and a good life with good work. I don’t see it as taking someone’s job, isn’t life about merit and events. Certain choices are made from our personal priorities and some based on our capabilities. 

Its possible that we like our community than others, but to dislike or look down upon them is unacceptable. Everyone wants to be the best and as soon as you think of certain qualities as a community it’s a nice feeling. Having a different point of view should be accepted but not at the cost of kindness. The world needs more of it is all I can say. 

May be they have a different skin color, different language, habits, food, life style and even bringing up, morals, even stories, folk tales and even religion. Globalisation itself means tolerance for new world, not only for the ones coming but also the ones welcoming. If only world was equal but there will always be stronger to weak, there will be peace to strife, there will be host to home, and there will always be people moving and arriving. Immigration or migration has been for ages since the snow age and every decade or turn of century. People explore new places or just leave their homes to find new homes. Yes in a strange city soon to be the home you always wanted for yourself and your children, hope to be accepted and then again the next generation feels that the ones coming now are a threat, and not just how their grandparents were. The irony of all this is life is a cycle, sometimes you are the migrant and sometimes the immigrant. 

So in the world of globalization and corona, the book stranger city shows us the naked version of the reality of our current times and our society. Our insecurities, fears and failures but also hope, passion and vulnerability. After all hope is the only thing which carries the human kind ahead. 

A series of people strung around together around a stranger dead woman, in a strange city, living strange lives. Thinking of the past, with a confused present and an uncertain future. Trying to make sense of it all, are we truly aware what we are doing and where we are heading, living day by day and then one day it all ends. 

And then comes the social media with people becoming celebrities over night, one calamity, one twist and suddenly your story becomes the talk of the town. You are not important but you are the mention and this short lived fame can go either way. Apparently everyone has a story and the new generation streaming channels are looking for the same to connect and tell stories of people who can easily slip in front of the screens or be nameless corpses floating in Thames. 

What better way to wrap up the review with the famous voices of the past, Rudyard Kipling, the famous writer from the colonial past of Great Britain and its own past of being a visitor to rest of the world. 

Norseman and Negro and Gail and Greek

Deans with the Britons in Barking Creek.