Mr Love And Justice - Colin MacInnes

MR LOVE AND JUSTICE – COLIN MACINNES

The third of Colin MacInnes' three great London Novels and again as with City Of Spades I'm struck by the thought as to why it's always Absolute Beginners that is touted as being the best of them and why it was made into a film (albeit a very bad one) and not the others?

Mr Love And Justice centres upon two characters, a seaman turned pimp called Frankie Love and Police Constable Edward Justice, newly promoted to Detective Constable in the Vice Squad. Being both in the same line of business as it were, their paths inevitably cross.

As with Absolute Beginners, the plot is neither here nor there and of little consequence, and as also with his previous books it's a bit long-winded and nothing really happens until half way into it. The difference between Mr Love And Justice and MacInnes' two previous books, however, is that whereas Absolute Beginners accent was on the emerging new youth cultures of that time, and City Of Spades dealt with the new immigrant culture in London, Mr Love And Justice is solely about prostitution.

From the start, it's very apparent that MacInnes has done his research into the subject and has obviously spoken to and interviewed prostitutes, pimps and police officers alike. It's all in the detail. Noticeably, there is also a more liberal use of the word 'fuck' than there was in the first two books, both in the narrative and in the dialogue.

The book's strength lies in the way MacInnes has managed to enter the relatively secret and twilight worlds of both prostitution (particularly the pimping or 'poncing' aspect of it) and the police and how he reports back on what he has observed. Essentially, he offers an insight into what drives these two worlds both morally and ethically. From these insights he then slips into the text a fair few of his own thoughts and deductions regarding the police and the law they uphold.

For example, at one point he writes 'For the true copper's dominant characteristic, if the truth be known, is neither those daring nor vicious qualities that are sometimes attributed to him by friend or enemy, but an ingrained conservatism, an almost desperate love of the conventional. It is untidiness, disorder, the unusual, that a copper disapproves of most of all: far more, even, than of crime, which is merely a professional matter.' And isn't that the truth?

'I think we can do without them,' says Frankie Love, referring to the police 'They're the only profession, the coppers, who've never had a hero – ever thought of that? They've put up statues to Nell Gwynne and Lady Godiva, but never so far as I know to a copper.'

And then in a discussion between Frankie Love and Edward Justice there's this: 'If you hear a scream in the night these days you say, “Oh, the law will take care of it”. A hundred years ago or even fifty, our grandfathers would have grabbed hold of the poker and gone out and taken a look themselves. They'd have done something: not just dialled 999.'

'I guess that's the age we live in,' Edward said.

'Yes, but I don't like it. Because you cops – well, you'll switch to any boss: any boss whatever. Whoever's got a grip then you'll obey him however good or bad his acts and his ideas may be.'

And again, isn't that the truth?

At another point in the book, MacInnes describes the audience at a wrestling match: 'Surrounding them was a cross-section of that part of the London populace which is rarely to be seen elsewhere (except at race meetings, certain East and South London pubs, and courts and jails), and whose chief characteristics are their uninhibited violence, their heartless bonhomie, and their total rejection alike of the left-ish Welfare State and the right-ish Property-owning democracy: a sort of Jacobean underground movement in the age of planned respectability from grave to cradle.' This being a very good description of a working class strata that is probably more common than MacInnes suggests, though hardly ever spoken of or written about.

All these things are almost obviously and exclusively the thoughts of MacInnes himself put into the mouths of his characters or slipped into various paragraphs along the way that interestingly reveal an almost anarchist bent to MacInnes. Having now read all three of his London books, though it might grate with some of his fans of his work, I would say that MacInnes himself is actually more interesting as a person and as a writer than the books themselves, and that perhaps it's not the books that should be highlighted, celebrated and held in such high esteem but the actual man himself?

John Serpico

City Of Spades - Colin MacInnes

CITY OF SPADES - COLIN MACINNES

Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes comes highly praised and as touted by Paul Weller among others is 'the mod bible' but I'd argue that actually City Of Spades is the superior book. It's slicker, better paced, and less stodgy and so subsequently more engaging.

Apparently, MacInnes spent a lot less time thinking about City Of Spades whilst writing it than he did with Absolute Beginners, and this shows. The names given to the characters, for example, are the kind that might come in a flash of inspiration but if mulled over for too long might be dismissed as being too colourful: Billy Whispers, Jimmy Cannibal, Peter Pay Paul, Ronson Lighter, Karl Marx Bo, Alfy Bongo, Moscow Gentry, Norbert Salt, etc, etc. How could you possibly go wrong with such names?

As for the title, 'Spades' means black people but any suggestion of racism regarding the term is dismissed very early on in the book in an exchange between the two main characters - Johnny Fortune, who is black and Montgomery Pew, who is white. It's Johnny Fortune who uses the term himself when talking about black people, with Montgomery Pew questioning if it's alright to use such a name? Johnny dismisses it as only a name said with some degree of cheekiness and no more insulting than the term 'jumble' that he uses for white people - 'jumble' meaning 'John Bull'.

So, City Of Spades means literally 'city of black people', the city being London. And that's largely what the book is all about: London as lived in and experienced by black people in the 1950s when immigration from Africa and the West Indies was a new thing.

The story is told through the eyes of two people, the aforementioned Johnny Fortune and Montgomery Pew, though the main protagonist is Johnny, fresh from Lagos and arriving in London to study meteorology. Montgomery is a Welfare Officer at a government Colonial Department, employed to give support and advice to immigrants though he's inherently less qualified than those he's meant to be helping

Johnny's journey through London is followed; revealing an almost secret, underground metropolis to not only himself but Montgomery too, who had no idea such a world existed where cultures simultaneously intermingle and clash against a backdrop of music, drugs and the crumbling of Empire.

Johnny's story is of a fall from grace; from pride and enthusiasm to world weariness and imprisonment, as he's battered and bruised by the ghosts from his father's past and the struggle to simply survive in the strange landscape of 1950s Britain.

Why City Of Spades has never been made into a film is anyone's guess. It's there for the making with even a good twist at the end with Johnny about to get on a boat that will take him back home only to be informed that his nemesis Billy Whispers who wishes to see Johnny dead has just got on board also. It was decided instead to make Absolute Beginners into a film and a musical at that, starring Patsy Kensit. It bombed, and deservedly so; it's only saving feature being the Bowie song of the same name - and possibly Ever Had It Blue? by the Style Council.

But I'll say again (and argue against Paul Weller) that City Of Spades is actually the superior book and would make a far better film but then compared to Absolute Beginners as directed by Julian Temple, that wouldn't be too difficult a task.

John Serpico

Absolute Beginners - Colin Macinnes

ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS - COLIN MACINNES

It's the mod bible, according to Paul Weller, and if he says so then so it is for who else could be better placed to make such a judgement? Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes evokes a period and paints a picture of a time long past when the idea of 'teenage' and a London emerging from the wreckage of World War 2 was something very new and exciting. It's a description of a time when Britain was on the cusp of a great sea change where economic spending power and the very idea of it lent a piquancy to those never in possession of it before.

The story is neither here nor there because the point of Absolute Beginners is in the language, the descriptions and the observations, and if read like this is thoroughly enjoyable if not - it should be said - a tad slow. Practically everyone has a nickname apart from the unnamed narrator, and everyone talks in an endearing hep cat jive slang that displays a love of English and American idioms. People are referred to as 'cats', girls as 'chicks', police as 'cowboys', and coloured people as 'Spades'. Most endearing of all, a good many sentences spoken by the characters finish with the word 'child' in the way that people nowadays would say 'mate'. It's a term used with affection and one that's never used nowadays at all - and it really should.

It's interesting that Colin MacInnes was in his forties when he wrote Absolute Beginners because reading it today it feels as though it's absolutely the voice of a teenager. Though very specific to the time period it's set in, as in 1958, there's an authenticity about the narrator's voice and outlook that doesn't fall into cliché or direness. Three years after publication, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange would be published and though not acknowledged, the influence of Absolute Beginners upon the way Burgess had his Droogs talk is obvious.

At one point, the narrator thinks to himself: "My lord, one thing is certain, and that's that they'll make musicals one day about the glamour-studded 1950s." Little could MacInnes imagine that one day a musical would be made of his book starring David Bowie and the legendary Lionel Blair. Not that the film of Absolute Beginners should really be associated with the book because they just don't compare as one is absolute rubbish and the other is required reading for anyone with the slightest interest in British culture.

Paul Weller is probably right but I do wonder how Julien Temple got it so spectacularly wrong?

John Serpico