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The Furnished Room
Joe Beckett drifts from job to job and woman to woman in a seedy world of bedsitters and all-night cafes. Living in the wasteland between Notting Hill and Earl's Court, he heats up tins on gas rings and smuggles girls past the landlady. He has no values or beliefs. A chance encounter with a roadhouse braggart brings him the opportunity to murder someone to shock himself back to life. The Furnished Room was filmed as West 11.Laura Del-Rivo was an associate of Bill Hopkins and Colin Wilson, who described The Furnished Room as one of the significant novels of the 1960s.
245 pages, Paperback
First published August 14, 1961
About the author
Laura Del-Rivo
6 books9 followersLaura Del-Rivo was part of a group of young bohemian writers - including Colin Wilson - living in Notting Hill and Soho in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Her novel The Furnished Room was adapted for cinema. She has continued to live in Notting Hill, selling clothes in the Portobello Road, and has continued to write.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 30, 2017
Somewhere between Rodion Raskalnikov and Patrick Bateman, there's Joe Beckett: office clerk, nihilist, chauvinist, sleaze, stumbling numbly through squalid neighbourhoods of London in the early 1960s, churning joylessly through jobs, parties and women, and sleeping in a shabby bedsit – the 'furnished room'.
Joe's existence is characterised by an enveloping blankness and a frequent sense of 'unreality'. He sometimes experiences small moments of euphoria, brought on by innocuous things: broken glass in a gutter, leaves brushing against a window. At other times, he ponders matters of religion, politics and philosophy. He yearns for something indefinable and impossibly universal, for 'spiritual intensity'. When he appraises an attractive woman in a café and then sees that she has a male companion, he is disappointed not because she is 'taken' but because he knew that there was no universal woman; only individuals. He did not want individuals. He wanted everything and nothing. He is plagued by destructive and perverted thoughts, often being momentarily seized by the desire to commit a violent act.
This extraordinary novel appears to be a bit of a hidden gem. It was made into a film, West 11, in 1963, and it's fun to imagine the characters speaking in the plummy tones of sixties Brit actors – in fact, the dialogue makes more sense when you consider it like that. Del-Rivo portrays the mindset of her dissolute young antihero so effectively that I had to double-check the name wasn't a male writer's pseudonym (it isn't). A darkly compelling depiction of amorality and alienation in a turbulent, disintegrating city, The Furnished Room is a fascinating book and well worth seeking out.
---
Some other miscellaneous bits I liked:
'Happy? No, she doesn't make me happy. Another person can make you unhappy, but can't make you happy. Happiness has nothing to do with other people. Sometimes, for instance, I know I'm a god and that everything is good. It's a feeling of certainty and affirmation. But this feeling comes when I'm alone.'
'Do you often feel like that?'
'No, on the contrary, generally I feel only a paralysing despair. It settles on everything like grey dust.'
'Can't you decide which of the two is right?'
'It's not a question of one being right. They are just states which occur.'
The objects in the room had an oppressive life of their own, like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm.
When she had left him for another man he had felt miserable on one level but on another level utterly indifferent.
Her eyes were untrustworthy, and cool as fishes, and he felt that she was one woman promising all women.
He knew that he would pursue Ilsa determinedly; but that even as he redoubled his efforts to win her, there would be a cold mocking voice inside him telling him that he did not really want her. He experienced, simultaneously, raging desire for her and the knowledge that he did not really care.
The picture was a standard reproduction and he had seen it before; Christ parting his robe to display an embarrassing heart which bled crimson glycerine.
Walking alone through a crowded fairground was his nearest approach to feeling a member of humanity.
'It's only because I am superior.' He said it as a joke, and then realised that he meant it. He had always had a conviction of his superiority; a conviction so basic that it was hardly conscious.
He thought: no prizes in life. Only mirages that disappear when you arrive at them. Freedom from sexual desire results from gratifying it. But there must be another sort of freedom. Not just a passive lack, an emptiness, but an active, positive freedom.
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Joe's existence is characterised by an enveloping blankness and a frequent sense of 'unreality'. He sometimes experiences small moments of euphoria, brought on by innocuous things: broken glass in a gutter, leaves brushing against a window. At other times, he ponders matters of religion, politics and philosophy. He yearns for something indefinable and impossibly universal, for 'spiritual intensity'. When he appraises an attractive woman in a café and then sees that she has a male companion, he is disappointed not because she is 'taken' but because he knew that there was no universal woman; only individuals. He did not want individuals. He wanted everything and nothing. He is plagued by destructive and perverted thoughts, often being momentarily seized by the desire to commit a violent act.
He considered the animal in himself. In congested streets, he daydreamed of mowing down the slowmoving crowds with a machine gun. If he saw a fat woman waddling across a zebra, or an old man tottering off the kerb, he longed to be a maniac killer driver. When he passed the children's playground in Kensington Gardens he tried to see the knickers of the little girls who stood on the swings. If others could read his thoughts like tickertape across his forehead he would be a social outcast. Yet in actuality his behaviour was decent enough.Sooner or later, Joe thinks within the first few pages of the book, he would commit a violent crime. He was certain of it. It was only a matter of time. And indeed, almost as if he has willed it, his aimless, drifting lifestyle inevitably brings him into contact with some dubious characters who lead him down such a path. There's the splendidly named Captain Dick Dyce, and the rather less salubrious Jacko, who starts trailing Joe around like some physical manifestation of those dark thoughts he keeps having. When Joe becomes embroiled in a murder plot, he treats it primarily as an interesting moral dilemma.
This extraordinary novel appears to be a bit of a hidden gem. It was made into a film, West 11, in 1963, and it's fun to imagine the characters speaking in the plummy tones of sixties Brit actors – in fact, the dialogue makes more sense when you consider it like that. Del-Rivo portrays the mindset of her dissolute young antihero so effectively that I had to double-check the name wasn't a male writer's pseudonym (it isn't). A darkly compelling depiction of amorality and alienation in a turbulent, disintegrating city, The Furnished Room is a fascinating book and well worth seeking out.
---
Some other miscellaneous bits I liked:
'Happy? No, she doesn't make me happy. Another person can make you unhappy, but can't make you happy. Happiness has nothing to do with other people. Sometimes, for instance, I know I'm a god and that everything is good. It's a feeling of certainty and affirmation. But this feeling comes when I'm alone.'
'Do you often feel like that?'
'No, on the contrary, generally I feel only a paralysing despair. It settles on everything like grey dust.'
'Can't you decide which of the two is right?'
'It's not a question of one being right. They are just states which occur.'
The objects in the room had an oppressive life of their own, like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm.
When she had left him for another man he had felt miserable on one level but on another level utterly indifferent.
Her eyes were untrustworthy, and cool as fishes, and he felt that she was one woman promising all women.
He knew that he would pursue Ilsa determinedly; but that even as he redoubled his efforts to win her, there would be a cold mocking voice inside him telling him that he did not really want her. He experienced, simultaneously, raging desire for her and the knowledge that he did not really care.
The picture was a standard reproduction and he had seen it before; Christ parting his robe to display an embarrassing heart which bled crimson glycerine.
Walking alone through a crowded fairground was his nearest approach to feeling a member of humanity.
'It's only because I am superior.' He said it as a joke, and then realised that he meant it. He had always had a conviction of his superiority; a conviction so basic that it was hardly conscious.
He thought: no prizes in life. Only mirages that disappear when you arrive at them. Freedom from sexual desire results from gratifying it. But there must be another sort of freedom. Not just a passive lack, an emptiness, but an active, positive freedom.
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March 17, 2017
Laura Del-Rivo's The Furnished Room shares a lot in common with Colin Wilson's Ritual in the Dark but having read both I have to say Del-Rivo's book is for me the better one by far. While both books feature bedsitter dwelling, unlikeable anti heroes, Wilson seems to like his protagonist and have him speak for him. Del-Rivo on the other hand only presents her protagonist for us to decide. Both of them spout pretentious philosophical clap-trap and set themselves apart from society, both get caught up in murder in one way or another, both stories are set in London with a brief escape to the country...
The characters washed out emotional and physical states are excellently conveyed and the atmospheric writing places you in the grubby bedsits, dark pubs and gloomy deserted Sunday afternoon streets of late 50's early 60's London.
I could go on but I'll just say that The Furnished Room has more interesting supporting players and at 222 pages says it's piece in half the time of Wilson's book and more entertainingly.
The characters washed out emotional and physical states are excellently conveyed and the atmospheric writing places you in the grubby bedsits, dark pubs and gloomy deserted Sunday afternoon streets of late 50's early 60's London.
I could go on but I'll just say that The Furnished Room has more interesting supporting players and at 222 pages says it's piece in half the time of Wilson's book and more entertainingly.
December 29, 2021
“The Paradine Café snack bar had wiped-over tables, and a counter with urns and a glass case of buns…The menu slate listed egg, peas, and chips; sausage, peas, and chips; shepherd’s pie, peas, and chips; rice pudding with jam; jam roll with custard; tea…”
It occurs to me that my few years in a furnished room on the fringes of Notting Hill are far closer in time to Laura Del Rivo’s 1961 novel than to the present day, which is a bit sobering. She captures the gas-ring grubbiness of bedsitter life, the tedium of basement clerks, and the lowest ranks of café society pretty well – though the writing does tend to reflect the greyness of the time rather than illuminate it. Serviceable, but a little dull.
Our antihero Joe Beckett, ex-Catholic and would-be existentialist, drifts through dingier parts of West London and Soho in search of some meaning to life – or at least some money and a reliable girl friend. Eventually he becomes involved in an improbable plot that would have benefitted from a rethink, by both Joe and the author.
Still, the improbable plot does lead him to an epiphany when running up a hill in the countryside – a Julie Andrews moment that links him strangely to the heroine of the recently-read One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes. Perhaps hills have some spiritual significance in the English novel that I have never appreciated before?
But it’s the seedy early sixties in W11 that make the book. Woodbines and Watneys on an unmade bed...not enough shillings for the meter... and the landlady waiting down below, below, below.
It occurs to me that my few years in a furnished room on the fringes of Notting Hill are far closer in time to Laura Del Rivo’s 1961 novel than to the present day, which is a bit sobering. She captures the gas-ring grubbiness of bedsitter life, the tedium of basement clerks, and the lowest ranks of café society pretty well – though the writing does tend to reflect the greyness of the time rather than illuminate it. Serviceable, but a little dull.
Our antihero Joe Beckett, ex-Catholic and would-be existentialist, drifts through dingier parts of West London and Soho in search of some meaning to life – or at least some money and a reliable girl friend. Eventually he becomes involved in an improbable plot that would have benefitted from a rethink, by both Joe and the author.
Still, the improbable plot does lead him to an epiphany when running up a hill in the countryside – a Julie Andrews moment that links him strangely to the heroine of the recently-read One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes. Perhaps hills have some spiritual significance in the English novel that I have never appreciated before?
But it’s the seedy early sixties in W11 that make the book. Woodbines and Watneys on an unmade bed...not enough shillings for the meter... and the landlady waiting down below, below, below.
September 11, 2015
Until I read this book, I never understood what nihilism is or who a nihilist is. I have niticed this 'state' being described in Father's and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, and that is all I heard of it.
Nihilism is belief in nothing, according to this novel. Joseph Ignatius Beckett is a nihilist. He starts out believing in nothing, considers himself superior than the rest of humanity and he's anti-catholic.
He doesn't believe in happiness nor in any form of relationship. He's however, a confused nihilist as he changes his ideas dependinding on who he's arguing with. He cries that religion is necessary for society to live morally.
I found this novel to be very powerful. Joe Beckett expresses what is felt by the majority of us. I have also heard of this arguments in the movie God is not Dead, where they quote a number of philosophers including Dostoevsky.
For the record, am not a nihilist.
Nihilism is belief in nothing, according to this novel. Joseph Ignatius Beckett is a nihilist. He starts out believing in nothing, considers himself superior than the rest of humanity and he's anti-catholic.
He doesn't believe in happiness nor in any form of relationship. He's however, a confused nihilist as he changes his ideas dependinding on who he's arguing with. He cries that religion is necessary for society to live morally.
I found this novel to be very powerful. Joe Beckett expresses what is felt by the majority of us. I have also heard of this arguments in the movie God is not Dead, where they quote a number of philosophers including Dostoevsky.
For the record, am not a nihilist.
January 3, 2012
Like Patrick Hamilton, 30 years on and 2 miles east.
September 6, 2025
bueno qué decir… me esperaba otra cosa.. creo q solo me ha caído bien un personaje.. demasiada chapa existencial entre hombres.. pf a ver en realidad está bien lo que pasa que no contaba con tanta reflexión y me ha pillado por sorpresa supongo, el protagonista insoportable por cierto
February 4, 2026
Del-Rivo's first novel. The writing is not consistently excellent but there are frequent flashes of precise and fresh word-painting and psychological portraiture. Though the main character is not the narrator, the line between the narration and his thoughts is sometimes blurred pleasingly. The clinical flatness of the writing, which felt at first like a fault, reflects his state of mind. I think Del-Rivo's prose got better with time (see Where is My Mask of an Honest Man?) but this is full of indications of what was to come. The story is indeed, as others note, improbable; the vivid abnormality of certain characters is made more striking by the 'realistic' expectations one gets from the drabness of the place and events; and they always turn up improbably at the right time in the right place. But they are types, caricatures, whose significance depends on their part in the inner drama of the central character.
February 12, 2014
A forgotten voice of her generation. Laura Del Rivo's 'The Furnished Room' is a combination of kitchen-sink drama and existentialist odyssey. Filmed as 'West 11', but apart from one vaguely similar minor character, it's a completely different story.
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February 3, 2024me quedaba muy poco para acabarlo pero no sé si lo voy a hacer supongo que el og en inglés será mejor porque en español kinda costra
March 19, 2024
Curiosa y atípica novela que navega por derroteros peculiares.
Parece que no sucede nada hasta que ocurre de todo.
Parece que no sucede nada hasta que ocurre de todo.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews