Patrick Hamilton

[holyzombiejesus]

He's good, isn't he? I think I've read all the ones worth reading - 20,000 Streets, Slaves of Solitude, Hangover Square and the Gorse trilogy - but would welcome anyone recommending any of the 'lesser' works. So, yeah, talk about Patrick Hamilton.

[non capisco]

^ I think that is pretty much every novel he wrote, at least that's readily available today. I did whip through pretty much all of those at a rate of knots after reading and being blown away by 'The Slaves Of Solitude', which I still think is his best. 'The Midnight Bell' (collected as part of '20,000 Steets Under The Sky') is almost like a dry run for 'Hangover Square'. The only one I didn't get anything out of is 'Unknown Assailant', the last part of the Gorse 'trilogy' which can barely be called a novel, given that he was too much of a hopeless alcoholic to write it himself and just dictated it drunkenly to someone else. And it shows.

[Jake Thingray]

A chap I know who was 94 last week recently began discussing this author's work and that shadowy sub-genre of London, but refused to agree with me when I mentioned Hamilton was gay.

[Serge]

One of those authors I was convinced I would like but just didn't get on with. Attempted '20,000 Streets Under The Sky', but barely got 30 pages in.

[non capisco]

One of those authors I was convinced I would like but just didn't get on with. Attempted '20,000 Streets Under The Sky', but barely got 30 pages in.

It's a compilation of three earlier novels and not his best work. I'd say give 'The Slaves Of Solitude' a crack and if it's still not doing it for you then definitely sling him.

[imitationleather]

Although I enjoyed reading it, I found 20,000 Streets Under the Sky a bit predictable on the whole and could understand someone full-on not rating it. What I liked about it a lot was that at the time I was reading a lot literature written at that time about that time and it is very vivid at describing that world. A bit lacking in plot, however. Thought Hangover Square was all-round better top shit, though. Only problem was I made the mistake of reading the Introduction at the start and the fucker gave away the ending. It's an ending you really could do without having spoiled.

[Norton Canes]

'Hangover Square' is excellent, I must get round to reading more of his stuff.

[Norton Canes]

A chap I know who was 94 last week recently began discussing this author's work and that shadowy sub-genre of London, but refused to agree with me when I mentioned Hamilton was gay

What did he have to say about the 'shadowy sub-genre of London'? I love a good shadowy sub-genre of London novel.

[Sebastian Cobb]

A chap I know who was 94 last week recently began discussing this author's work and that shadowy sub-genre of London, but refused to agree with me when I mentioned Hamilton was gay.

Are you sure you've not mixed him up with the similar US author of The Lost Weekend Charles Jackson?

He was also a soak who struggled to come to terms with his sexuality. I'd recommend the book to fans of Hamilton.

[ASFTSN]

Are you sure you've not mixed him up with the similar US author of The Lost Weekend Charles Jackson?

He was also a soak who struggled to come to terms with his sexuality. I'd recommend the book to fans of Hamilton.

Hmmm... I loved The Lost Weekend, so presumably I should also try some Hamilton too.  I think there's a copy of Hangover Square around here somewhere.

[shiftwork2]

I started with Hangover Square and moved on to 20,000 Streets Under The Sky.  As already mentioned the latter is less compelling but evokes the 'world' just as well.  And the best description of that is provided by a quote on the jacket of one of the books, to the effect of being able to 'smell the gin'.  Must read his other stuff.

[Jake Thingray]

Are you sure you've not mixed him up with the similar US author of The Lost Weekend Charles Jackson?

He was also a soak who struggled to come to terms with his sexuality. I'd recommend the book to fans of Hamilton.

Honestly, it was Dear Boy, as he calls everyone so it's what I call him, who mentioned Hamilton first, bringing up Gaslight, for the record the more recent writer he tried to compare Hamilton to was Martin Amis. I disagreed with that but he wouldn't listen, literally as he declines to wear his hearing aid, nor did he when I claimed Hamilton's work, if revived at all today, is often done with attention paid to the gay aspect and gave Rope as an example. Later in the conversation, he classed F. Maurice Speed, editor of yearly, pre-Halliwell's film books, as similar to L. Ron Hubbard. I very much doubt Dear Boy has ever heard of Jackson, though he may well have seen the film of that book, he once asked me "what's Ray Milland doing now, Dear Boy?", I replied for the past twenty years, not much.

Norton Canes, I suspect Dear Boy sat in the same sort of pubs in London in the 1940's, but had no idea some of the people there were gay, in much the same way he's talked of having seen Albert Finney, and Lionel Bart's doomed musical Twang!, in that he once saw Finney walking down the Charing Cross Road and lived quite near the theatre where Twang! was on, similarly until I gave him David and Caroline Stafford's biography of Bart, he thought the composer and Alma Cogan really were an item.

[Serge]

Only problem was I made the mistake of reading the Introduction at the start and the fucker gave away the ending. It's an ending you really could do without having spoiled.

I stopped reading introductions years ago because they inevitably give things away. The less I know about a book going in, the better.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Plus they're usually as dry as fuck.

[Pranet]

This thread reminded me that I had Slaves of Solitude on the shelf, so I read it and it was really really good, highly recommended. Surprisingly funny, I was half expecting it to be too grim to be really enjoyable.

I read 20000 Streets years ago and I remember it being ok, may give it another go off the back of this.

I bought Slaves of Solitude after reading the Backlisted podcast on it, they did a couple of podcasts on him which people in the thread might find interesting- scroll down a bit here:

http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:13730980/sounds.rss

[holyzombiejesus]

^ I think that is pretty much every novel he wrote, at least that's readily available today.

Craven House is in print too. Twopence Coloured was in print until very recently and now, according to Amazon anyway, is going for 3 figure sums (but is due a reprint next year, as is Monday Morning). I've never heard anything about these 3 so suspect they're pretty shoddy. Anyone?

[imitationleather]

This thread has alerted me to the fact I've never even actually read The Slaves of Solitude. And I have the gall to call myself a Patrick Hamilton fan. Slapped that mofo right on the Xmas list.

[Smeraldina Rima]

Rope

After seeing the 1948 Hitchcock film, I've been intrigued about the play (of 1929) but not enough to read it. Obviously there wouldn't be any of the film's deliberate Nazism parallels in the original play. My question is whether the play's attitude towards Nietzsche and the superman differ at all being twenty years earlier, does it have any interesting ambiguity or creative flirting with the appeal of that outlook? In the film it seems like the timing demanded an exaggerated stupidity and naivety of the murderers but perhaps there is also no notable intellectual tension in the play. That wouldn't necessarily be a criticism.

[gilbertharding]

There was an adaptation of 20000 Streets on telly a few years back.

I can't really discuss it, because I only watched the first two parts, and it was before I'd read the book (actually, it was before I'd read anything by him).

Anyone better qualified care to talk about it?

Also, anyone like to compare him to Julian Maclaren Ross? I went through a phase of enjoying these tales of bleak existence, bracketing the war... Orwell had a crack at it - Keep the Aspidistra Flying, type thing.