Reading the 20th Century discussion

Welcome to our May 2024 buddy read of...




The Plains of Cement (1934)

by

Patrick Hamilton



This is the finalpart of a trilogy that has also been published in a separate compendium called Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky. The other two books in the trilogy are The Siege of Pleasure (1932) and The Plains of Cement (1934) which we will also read and discuss in March 2024 and May 2024.



The Plains of Cement is a "story of a London pub and its romance of two romantically bewildered people. Though a complete story in itself, this novel follows The Midnight Bell and The Siege of Pleasure as the final book of the Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky trilogy

I have embarked on this one now. I am already worried and anticipating an excruciating ending!

I think this is the best of the three and so look forward to your reaction Susan - look out for another of Hamilton's monstrous males


Really looking forward to getting to this one. Ella is the most sympathetic of the main characters

Al that said, it as a complete trilogy that the three books become greater than the sum of their parts

Yes, Mr Eccles and his new hat. I love the way that Patrick Hamilton has him glancing at it as he enters the pub. I guess we don't really buy hats now, but people do the same with new shoes or a new coat I guess. He really picks up on all these easily sneered at foibles.

I liked Ella. I fear for her.

Don't expect any happy endings Susan 😬


On a style front, watch out for more of Patrick Hamilton's "Komic Kapitals" to emphasise key phrases, and/or cliches, homilies etc - they are employed to great effect for Mr Eccles

Susan wrote:


"Yes, Mr Eccles and his new hat. I love the way that Patrick Hamilton has him glancing at it as he enters the pub..."

Ah yes that hat

This is how Patrick Hamilton introduces us to Ernest Eccles in The Plains of Cement...

You could see at a glance that for the time being the man lived in and through his hat. You could see that it cost him sharp torture even to put it on his head, where he could not see it, and it had to take its chance. You could see him searching incessantly for furtive little glimpses of his hat in mirrors, you could see him pathetically reading the fate of his hat in the eyes of strangers, you could see him adjusting his tie as a sort of salute to his hat, as an attempt to live up to his hat. You could see him striving to do none of these things.

By focussing on the hat we learn much about the character and foibles of Mr Eccles

Mr Eccles is straight into my gallery of literary grotesques.

This is so much my favorite volume that I'm already looking forward to rereading it next month... And I only discovered PH in January!

That's high prasie RC

So, the theatre, tea and now dinner! Ella, go home.

Susan wrote: "So, the theatre, tea and now dinner! Ella, go home."

I know! She's far too nice and is just encouraging him.

She enjoyed the show at least, but it's like witnessing a lamb being nudged aside from the flock by a wolf.

*Shudders*

I've met men like that through work... but I'm nowhere as nice as Ella!

Susan, just wait...

We've all met men like that, especially when we are young. When I was about 21 I worked in a shop in Regents Street and that was a nightmare because the Mr Eccles of this world know where you will be and they can drop in, right?

It is nice to be young, but it's so much more pleasant as a woman to be older!

Haha, yes, the dropper-inner! (Some) men have such confidence that it never occurs to them their attentions might not be wanted, or that they're not doing us the favour they think they are.

Mr Eccles is in a class of his own though -eh, what?!

So, I've met Ella's mother and Mr Eccles has reappeared with an invitation.

I'm going to start this one tonight - all this Hamilton chat has whet my appetite for the final instalment of this magnficent trilogy, especially having jettisoned Piglet

Can't wait to get stuck in. Small matter of an early evening football match first though

Mr Eccles: two words - park railings. You'll know it when you get there, Susan 😱

Just got a few pages in


Two things instantly strike me….

PH writes beautifully

PH is, are we’ve observed before, great at writing female characters


Ella’s perceptiveness is beautifully and sparingly described

Nigeyb wrote: "Just got a few pages in


Two things instantly strike me….

PH writes beautifully

PH is, are we’ve observed before, great at writing female characters"

I'm going out on a limb here but am going to say that PH is one of the best male authors I've read at writing female characters. Especially 'difficult' and usually marginalised women like Jenny and Ella.

It's easier to write conventional women like 'good' wives and mothers, or upper class matriarchs, but I can feel quite resistant to male-authored women when they're as central as here and when it's their interiority that's at stake. PH always makes me believe in his women.

Previous male authors who've had this effect on me are DH Lawrence (though not so much Constance Chatterley), and Thomas Hardy - though it's been years since I've read either and I wonder if I'd feel the same way. Oh, and Henry James, of course.

High praise RC - and I am sure you're right

I have finished this now. I thought it was excellent, but so, so depressing. Perhaps it is my current mindset but I feel like I just wanted to finish it.

The football has been fantastic this weekend, Nigeyb. Highs and lows. We were holding on until the end of the West Ham match before going to theatre yesterday. Just watched the Liverpool - Man Utd match.

Susan wrote: "I have finished this now. I thought it was excellent, but so, so depressing. Perhaps it is my current mindset but I feel like I just wanted to finish it."

I'm sorry that you found this depressing, Susan. I found everything to do with Mr Eccles excruciating, and the ending is quietly tragic but I enjoyed every word all the same. PH creates a world that feels utterly real.

Well, perhaps depressing is the wrong word, but tragic perhaps. So realistic, beautifully written too.

Mr Eccles, at pains to point out he has Something Put By, and for Ella's benefit He's Letting Her Know


Patrick Hamilton again employing his Komic Kapitals to emphasise key phrases, and/or cliches, homilies etc

Mr Eccles is another of Patrick Hamilton’s monstrous males (which start with Mr Spicer in Craven House (1926), continue with Mr Eccles, and which reach its apogee with Mr Thwaites in The Slaves of Solitude (1947) (although perhaps Ralph Gorse tops them all in The West Pier (1952); and Mr Stimpson and Mr Gorse (1953))

Mr Thwaites at first appears absurd, but quickly becomes more sinister, using his creepy and evasive conversational style, along with this financial independence, to try to trap and coerce poor old Ella. He is lecherous and exploitative

Ella is not the naive fool he assumes though, and is able to see through him. Some of this book's most appalling scenes are a result of Ella's internal thoughts on Mr Eccles' absurd conversation, conduct and attitudes

Interesting that the monstrous male is a recurring character in PH's books: do you know if he'd met one in real life?

Mr Casaubon in Middlemarch might be a sort of prototype, though a bit milder, and there are examples in Dickens too. But none quite as excruciating as here.

He spent a lot of ruined in pubs and cafes observing people and noting bits of dialogue that caught his attention so I’d guess that’s how he got inspired

I'm just starting this and already enjoying coming back to the rich dialogue and subtle observations . I've just finished The Hotel by Elizabeth Bowen and Swimming Home by Deborah Levy and feel like I'm being given a masterclass in acute social interactions, interiority and dialogue by three very different writers stylistically . All three novels use building with contemporary cultural status to contain and frame the work ; a hotel , a villa and a pub . All three take you beyond the superficial of that contained escapist world and into the reality .What a treat ! Am already thinking The Man with the New Hat is going to be an unpleasant fellow .

What a great trio of books, Hester. Susan and I did a buddy read of Bowen's The Hotel in case you're interested, the thread will still be there.

Thanks Hester - glad this one is working out for you

Thanks RomanC . I'll have a look . I'm about to start The Last September , a reread, as part of an Author Spotlight , where we read our way through some of all of an authors work .

We've read that too - one of my favorite Bowens. The only one we haven't read is Eva Trout.

Odd experience reading Casanova's Chinese Restaurant and The Plains of Cement at the same time . I felt sure that Nick Jenkins and Bob were going to collide in the pub in Chapter One ..Also such a contrast in POV in the novels, when exploring the dynamic between hunter and hunted , customer and barmaid / waitress . Powell gives all the interiority to the male while Hamilton foregrounds the female . Both are insightful and nuanced .

Very good points Hester


I think there are some similarities between PH and AP despite having very different narrative perspectives

I'm interested to hear you both see similarities between Powell and Hamilton - to me they're *poles* (ho ho!) apart, but that's only based on the first two books of Dance to the Music of Time.

Apart from the class interest, Hamilton is interested in individual psyches, whereas Powell appears to concentrate on the sweep across time where players come and go. I didn't really see any interiority in the two books of Powell that I read, which was one of the aspects I struggled with. Are you suggesting that changes in the later books?

I’d say it does


More generally both authors seem preoccupied with other people and are both well attuned to relationships, personalities, and interactions.

Yes ...Maybe " interiority " is the wrong word to use about Powell, in that it's his detachment and close observation of character , along with an analysis of their behaviours is the hallmark of the narrator . But I do feel, by his method of "thick description " he builds over time some very well rounded portraits of the main protagonists and a number of minor characters . I agree Hamilton is much sharper and more intimate in his trilogy and has chosen a narrower canvas, both in time and participants which helps .

Reading Powell is both intriguing and a challenge , as his female characters exist in the gaze of a author who experiences a world where men call the shots and women have limited roles , usually sexual , but he does capture this world view so well it's fascinating.

I also considered bailing out after the second novel as I felt the style was too self important , occasionally cruel and littered with references to works of art , literature and the classics . Happily he seems to have softened and relaxed this approach although he's never going to Hit the Mark ( as Ella would put it ) that Hamilton does with his ability to capture his characters in just a few pieces of dialogue .

Thanks Hester


I love reading your observations. I agree with everything you’ve written there

Thanks Nigelb . isn't it great to discuss books ? Really enjoy this group .

And also fascinating to see a book through another's eyes.

I enjoyed this last one. While it had a more satirical and humorous tone than the previous two, it still conveyed the overall bleak outlook contained in the rest of the trilogy. The trilogy is quite an impressive achievement.
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I think it is as a trilogy that these three books show their collective brilliance. Each is enhanced by the other two.

Agree. I'm trying to work out if Ella's and Bob's timeline are the same for the first and third novels . If so it's done with such a light touch so far ...and even if not I can't help thinking back to book one and Bob's mental anguish and how Ella is completely ignorant of it . (No spoilers please if this changes ). How self contained we all are while passions rage underneath .

The timelines are concurrent in Bob and Ella’s stories. It’s part of what makes them both so heartbreaking. Two fundamentally decent people who could be so good together if circumstances were different 😩

Nigeyb wrote: "I think it is as a trilogy that these three books show their collective brilliance. Each is enhanced by the other two."

This! Couldn't have said it better myself 😉

Finished . There's so much to talk about here and I'm looking forward to the discussion . Just to say I was Blown Away by Hamilton's ability to Go the Whole Nine Yards with his characters in all three books building an immense sympathy for all . Mr Eccles ( never the hydraulically elevated Ernest ) is the only person we don't sympathise with as we are never inside his head . I guess Hamilton thought it wouldn't be a very entertaining place to take us ; full of huge caverns of dark nothing with the odd island of predictable order to cling to ..

Exactly that Hester 👏🏼