MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

PERM STATE UNIVERSITY

Capital
by John Lanchester

A commentary with annotations

Edited by Karen Hewitt

Perm 2016
W‘—
CONTENTS

Introduction
About the Author ........................................
About the Novel ..........................................
INTRODUCTION
About the Author
John Lanchester is a novelist and journalist who was born in
Germany in 1962 and brought up in Hong Kong. His parents
Vvere British but his experience of living outside the country has
enabled him to look at it from the point of View of outsiders as
well as insiders (of whom he is undoubtedly one). He studied at

..................
Oxford and subsequently became a journalist and novelist. His
Locations 7 novels include The Debt to Pleasure (1996) and Fragrant
(a) London Harbour (2002) which is set in Hong Kong.
(b) Pepys Road ..... His journalism has in the last twenty years covered many
(c) Inside the Houses ................ aspects of our society in long, thoughtfiil and very readable
articles on subjects ranging from football to the internet,
Capital and the Social Consequences criminals to environmental change. He has also been a food
(a) The Financial Crisis of 20021 ................ critic, reviewing restaurants for Esquire which describes itself as
(b) Personal Wealth and What it
Means
‘the smart man’s guide to fashion, restaurants, gear and women’
(c) Characters in the Drama ...................... — a magazine for Roger.

In 2010 he published a book on the 2008 financial crisis called

Challenges to British Society 19 Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay.
(a) Quentina and the Problems for Refugees .............................. You can read more about this book in the section on the
Firearms 22
(b) The British Police and ............................................ Financial Crash.
Lanchester began working on Capital in 2006, when he was
Capital as a Literary Work struck by the obsession of Londoners with the housing market.
(a) Style... At that time he was sure that the economy of the country was so
(b) Humour .......................... . ........ heavily based on financial gambling that it could not be
t..
(c) Character and Psychological Insrg sustained. When he proved to be correct, he stopped writing
(d) We Want What You Have .................... Capital in order to write Whoops! The novel was finally
published in 2012. It has been widely discussed and analysed in
the media and has become a popular success among serious
TEXT 31
A COMMENTARY ON THE ...................................... readers. Since then he has published other non—fiction works on
money.
John Lanchester is married with two children. He lives in
Clapham, London, but says that Pepys Road is not based on the
road in which he lives.
_
7,

political life, some of the statements made here are expressed

About the Novel ‘Condition of more e l p a l1C3 l y than usual . The edlt 01' and La 10 e S tel 21g1"ee
Capital is partly inspired by the popular
novels of the nineteenth century, although in this case
England’ distinction is
London’ novel. The
it is definitely a ‘Condition of London has Locations
Lanchester since he believes that
important for (a) London
differently from the rest of the United Kingdom
developed very It is simple and accurate to describe L ondon as the ca ital '
c' t1);
If are writing about London you are
over the last ten years. you the
. .
of Great Britain and Northern Ifeland.1
of United Kingdom
not writing about anywhere else in our country. wide of admirustratively divided into 32 boroughs and the City of
of London” novel takes a range if ondon. The
A ‘Condition
and follows their lives which may or may
not entwine boroughs are easy to understand: each one has its
characters encouraged to counc11 and administrative officers like any other
characters. Readers are
with the lives of the other conditions
ptxnleletctted.
a an ority. Pepys Road '
(fictional)
'
is
‘

in the real Borough of

consider the different attitudes,
make comparisons, to Lambeth‘
character who represents, in some sense, a
and values of each
The ‘City of London’ is differ ent and today it' has tw
within the metropolis. It is not focused on one th:
whole group is wide
. . .
the City of London was the area of
individual or one family, so the reader’s experience meanings. Historically
(Sillldrmedéazvgl
City with St Paul’s Cathedral in the centre l It was
rather than deep. White Teeth, oun e y one
5 t walls and '
was apprOXimately a square mile
‘

approach this genre:

Other novels in our project and above all, in area.
in some respects Nice Work,
What A Carve Upl, novel was It has many historical traditions and its own government.
A Week In December. This
Sebastian Faulks’ week in of the ‘City of London’ or ‘the City’ is
take place over one meaning
published in 2009; the events ‘BThe'other
week in which Lanchester begins his ritain s finanCial sector’. Almost all the main banking and
December 2007, the same finanCial serVices are situated within this area. By many
the novels by Faulks and Lanchester together
novel. Reading the City. is the biggest financial centre in the
They both deal with the super rich, mealstprements
can be very enlightening. crash, with immigrant and it is hugely important for Britain’s economy. Only
with banks and the oncoming financial 3550
and money, with possible Muslim people .live in the City but 300,000 work there. Roger
families, with football
of life based on money and Y on the other side of the Thames works in a
terrorists, with the precariousness a 13:33:]:th 122::d this '
exp lains why he does not drive his
‘

Faulks also explores mental health, literary ere.

social image. Mercedes to work.)
and computer games; Lanchester looks at East
specialists, drugs Sometimes you may come across the term ‘Greater London’
immigrants, asylum seekers, children and the police.
European ambivalent feelings for
.
which officially means all the boroughs but not the historically
.

Both of them concentrate on London;

plieculiar City
of London. This large area has an elected Mayor —
the capital city pervade both books. of London ,7 and an elected council, the Greater
sections provide some of the background to Le (liVIayor
The following
Lanchester’s novel. As always, the material is not intended to on on Authority which is responsible for London-wide
is simply to provide the dCCiSions such as road and rail planning.
it
direct you to critical judgements; British reader think of London they manually think of the
the kind of information that a ceWhen tourists
Russian reader with
when he picks up the novel. However, since — Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Hyde
will already know mire
P ar 7 but these are not the places where Londoners live
attack on abuses in English social and
Capital is, in part, an
 substantial homes. In the 18805 labour was cheap, bricks were
although Clapham, the area described in this novel, is not very
far away (about 6 kilometres). However Pepys Road is across cheap and the area was not fashionable. Also people who had
somehow risen from the working-class (manual labour) to
the River Thames in South London which is a brgemotlonal
lower-middle class (office work) now had extra money and
distance. (Londoners think of themselves as being North
could afford very cheap servants. But they were not wealthy.
Londoners or South Londoners, depending on which Side of the
river they live.) They were ordinary people who were beginning to have better
.

London has an area of approximately 1500 square kilometres, prospects. Lanchester emphasises that people went on living,
which compares with the 1000 kilometres of Moscow (until being born, marrying, working, bringing up families, growing
old and dying in the most normal human way in these families.
Moscow in 2012 more than doubled its area by expanding
Petunia is the example he gives of someone who had lived in the
officially to the southwest). Within this area London had around
7.5 million people in 2008, whereas Moscow had about 10.5 same house since she was born in 1925 .
Then things changed — and this is the second point he wants to
million. So here is a city which is much less densely populated
make. In London, in the last decades of the twentieth century,
than Moscow; the majority of its citizens still live in houses
about a hundred years after the houses were built, London’s
built for individual families. Even when they live inflats, the
buildings are rarely more than six or seven storeys, while almost economy accelerated. Suddenly there was so much money
around from rich people, and so many people wanting to move
all high-rise residential tower blocks have been rejected by
into proper London homes that the housing market was hugely
London’s planners. The spectacular tall buildings that you can
distorted. London had always been more expensive, more
see in the City of London, overlooking the Thames and the old
desirable than other cities, but it was still connected
docks, are precisely those financial services. buildings where
sociologically to the rest of the country. In the 1990s and the
Roger works. They are not, mostly, for livmg in and are 20005 the connections frayed. The London rich began to get
certainly not family homes.
richer as Britain developed into a more unequal society. The
(b) Pepys Road money of the rich had to go somewhere, so districts like
.
road
.
Clapham which
. '
is Clapham which were ordinary residential areas but close to the
Pepys Road is a fictional but typical in
centre became very desirable for those people like Roger who
a district within the London Borough of Lambeth. Nearby
districts are Brixton, Battersea and Tooting (where Quentina were working in the newly-invigorated Financial Sector.
lives) while other districts are mentioned. from time to time. Consequently, ordinary people could no longer afford to live
in these residential districts, unless they were alreaahz there 7
They are not at all important for understanding the novel.
like Petunia. House prices increased as much as 12% a
The Prologue which tells us the history of theVroad has two year.
the kind of Within a few years the prices had doubled — and then doubled
purposes. First, English readers will easrly recognise
houses and the approximate history of the road because-houses again. The houses became not so much homes as ‘assets’;
like these were built all over the country in the late Victorian wealth, value, expense, capital. If you read pages 5 — 7 you will
understand the underlying moral concern of the novel: what
period. (Most houses had only two storeys; Pepys Road IS
unusual in providing rooms at the top for servants or for extra happens to a society when this strange phenomenon of rising
house prices becomes the central topic of conversation and
children.)
— who moved into the preoccupation for hundreds of thousands of Londoners? What
. ‘

Lanchester explains the social history

houses, what jobs they did, how they could afford to live in such happens to their human values?
w—
narrow
the Houses
( c)AtInside
the beginning of Chapter 56, Zbigniew

hall with a flight

the
.
builder
.

hall are two doors, one to the sitting room and one to
is shown
round Petunia’s house. Although it is substantial, it is not as
grand as pictures may suggest. The front door opens into
of stairs at the

kitchen. There is a small, cramped toilet under the stairs. On

next floor are two bedrooms, one of which has been used as a
small study, and a small bathroom. On the top floor are two
more ‘poky’ (small) bedrooms and another
When it was first built, the top floor would have been for
servants or possibly for some of the children.
.

a long
end. On one Side of the

small bathroom.
the
the

'
which they have substantially altered. Reconstructing the
interiors of houses they have bought is a hobby of the rich;
Arabella is not the only one forever altering her home.
Note that the houses are built as a terrace, sharing walls with
their neighbours. They have tiny front gardens 7 the chief point
being that the inhabitants do not step out directly onto the road.
Also they can keep their wheelie-bins in the front of the house
rather than at the back from which they would have to wheel
them through the house. Parking has to be on the road.

Capital and the Social Consequences

(a) The Financial Crash of 2008
This novel begins in December 2007 and quickly introduces a
Above the third storey is the roof space, the ‘loft ’
, which
banker who works in the City. In 2012 when the novel was
Petunia and Albert left alone, unconverted. Since the houses
old published, all readers would have had at the back — or front ~ of
have slanting roofs, the loft can be used for storing boxes,
their minds the knowledge that the whole interlinked system of
tools and other stuff which the owner does not want to throw
have converted international finance was very nearly destroyed in 2008. Most of
away. In recent decades more and more owners the banks and associated financial firms across the world
their lofts into living space by inserting skylights (Windows in
somehow survived because, afier urgent debates, governments
the roof) or building outwards fiom the sloping roof. Such
is uncertain stepped in to support them. Public money was moved to support
rooms, suitable for children, are called attics. Mary
private money. As British citizens, our taxes were used to
whether to convert the loft before selling.
The other space available is the basement. Most of these prevent banks going bankrupt and failing to pay out to their
customers. So bank customers (all of us) were protected at our
houses were built with cellars where coal was stored in one part
ovm expense, whereas the Vast majority of bankers and financial
and the rest left empty. In some houses there were dark
speculators survived without much suffering. In this crash (or
basement rooms for servants. In London many specialist
KpHCPIC) the richest people lost least, the poor lost most. The
building firms are devoted entirely to constructing extra liVing world economy has not yet recovered from the consequences. In
of
areas in lofis and basements. New residents who have plenty Britain the financial crash has led to years of economic
and like to change what they have bought Will quickly
money depression, of huge cuts to public funding, of the closing of
start ordering such conversions. At least half the'houses in
Road will have been adapted and enlarged either at the many public local institutions and of stagnant or decreasing
Pepys
wages.
top of the house or at the bottom. N
d Lanchester became well~lcnown afier the crisis for articles and
The ground floor and the first floor (RuSSian Heparin 3Ta)l( an
.

Windows are a book he published for the general reader. The book is called
Bropofi 3raxc) have high ceilings; the bay
Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay
attractive. And there is a walled garden.
Four of the houses are double-frontedwhich means that there
.
(‘Whoops’ is what the English say when someone falls over or
is a similar set of rooms on the other Side of the hall almost
— nearly falls over. It can range from sympathy to warning to wry
twice as much space. The Younts live in one of these houses laughter at the Victim.) This semi—comic colloquial word

10 11
M—
demonstrates why the book was so popular: it explains for any
reasonably intelligent person who knows nothing about
economics why we, the ordinary public have found ourselves in
a horrible financial situation. He shows how we are
about as much as the person who does not look carefully

banks and financial institutions, allowing us to be shocked and

outraged and yet to see that most bankers (like Roger) are
human beings.
Lanchester thought that the source of the disaster would
probably be London financial institutions, but
America. In Britain the first signs that the financial markets
were not stable and had gambled and borrowed too
at fault

falls over. He describes the ingenuities and irresponsibility of

much came
in the autumn of 2007 when a bank, Northern Rock, collapsed.
By early 2008 many American banks were struggling,
big catastrophe which set off a train of other catastrophes
occurred in September 2008 when the American financial firm,
Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy (see p.509).
Readers’ foreknowledge of what is going to happen affects
their involvement in Roger’s calculations about his bonus.

(b) Personal Wealth and What It Means

The novel has much wider preoccupations than the
development of Pepys Road but ‘Capital’ is the predominant
theme as Lanchester looks at what money means to almost all
and

also

in fact it began in

but the
the characters. Perhaps the group who have come to terms most
successfully with money as a useful means of exchanging work
for goods and services are the Kamal family. They have limited
but work as a family, and since Ahmed and
resources, they
Rohinka are basically content, money does not seem to distort
their behaviour. For the others money is a worry and a constant
measure of success. Search the novel and you will find not just
houses but sport, art, festivals, marriage, games, reputation,
dreams and education defined in terms of money. That does not
include the activities of Roger’s bank where money is all that
matters .
In one sense the novel is summed up in five words. Nobody
knows what they mean, but they sound as if they come out of a
Capital world — a potentially threatening world: We Want What
You Have.
How much do people earn? On average they earn a lot more in
London than elsewhere in the country, but life is much more
expensrve. The average salary for a full-time adult worker in
London who worked 40 hours a week in 2008 was about £34000
a year — about £2860 a month. That no doubt sounds a lot to
Russran readers. Some points must be taken into account.
(1) This salary includes income tax which is deducted before
you are paid. An average earner in London in 2008 would have
paid around £8000 in income tax and national insurance
(welfare insurance for pensions, etc.)
(2) House owners have to pay substantial council tax, obligatory
house insurance and 7 usually until they are in their mid—fifties —
a mortgage. Utilities (gas, electricity, heating, water) are more
expensrve than in Russia, at comparable rates. These costs all
arrive before anyone can start choosing to buy anything.
So owning a house is a very expensive undertaking. Most
people can expect to be repaying their mortgage loan every
month for at least thirty years. The alternative is to rent
accommodation ~ a room or a flat 7 or to share a rented house
With others. Local authorities (councils) used to build municipal
housmg for subsidised rents until the 19805 when the
government made it much more difficult to do so. Municipal
house building has dwindled to almost nothing. So newcomers
to London have to find accommodation from private landlords
who can charge as much rent as they like if they can find
someone prepared to pay. If you are poorly paid and have to
spend half of your income on rent, you will never struggle out of
poverty. Lanchester has set his story in 2008, but in 2016 the
Sltuatron is even more difficult. People who bought their homes
thirty years or more ago are more-or—less comfortable. The rich
are very rich and forever rebuilding and renovating their very
expensrve properties while teachers and nurses and people who
Work for the local councils in essential jobs cannot afford to live

12 13
 Roger’s basic pay is £150000 which is four-and-a-half times
in the city. The London housing market is complicated, the average wage. To him it does not feel like a lot of money, it
deregulated and savage. is simply the amount he needs to keep going and cover his costs.
We are told of all his extra commitments — two houses, cars, a
c Characters in the Drama
(I)f list of characters
.
in this
.
novel
.
it looks rather nanny and so on. He cannot possibly manage to live on his
you draw up a
salary; he is totally dependent on his bonus like all bankers for
like a cast list for one of Shakespeare’s plays. The followrng
the last twenty five years or 50. His bonus is theoretically based
named characters are all given an opportunity to express to us
on how much he earns for the bank. He gets more if he has had a
their innermost thoughts at one point or another: Petunia, Mary,
Rohinka, Shahid, good year by (in effect) gambling on the foreign exchange rates.
Roger, Arabella, Mark, Saskia, Ahmed, He hopes to be awarded a bonus of one million pounds, If he
Daisy,
Usman, Mickey, Patrick, Freddy, Smitty, Parker,
does not get it he calculates that he go bankrupt.
Zbigniew, Piotr, Davina, Matya, Quentina, Detective Inspector
Mill and — though he never appears — the ghost of Albert.
Arabella and Saskia These two women come close to being
The rest of the cast play the roles of children, office Workers,
caricatures. Their inner lives are almost non-existent; they
cleaners, policemen, civil servants, a priest, an imam,
behave like giggly school children. Lanchester would probably
businessmen, bankers, asylum seekers, traffic wardens,
shoppers, footballers, art dealers, entrepreneurs, nannies, argue that there are such women will always exist when
spending money is considered to be the necessary occupation
builders and members of the public.
has to
.
for the wives of rich men.
The breadth of the story means that Lanchester explain
much to his readers, something which he evrdently enjoys.
If
should find the answers to many of your Mark He is of the generation of young financial specialists who
you read carefully you
in the text. In addition the Commentary on Words and were required to be clever, hard and ambitious while developing
questions the too-clever gambling schemes in which international finance
Phrases provides detailed information about specrfic
was involved. He probably started in the banking profession in
peculiarities of London life in 2008. the late 19905. Unlike Roger he is not socially at ease. (See
below in the section on Psychological Studies.) British readers
The following notes on some of the characters should help
will recognise a resemblance to a young banker who made the
Russian readers.
headlines in the 19905.
If readers think Roger seems to do very little, they are
gzifgrright. Roger is one of the last of the ‘gentleman’ bankers Ahmed and the Kamal family They are a typical, integrated,
long-standing British Muslim family. In the 19605 and 19705
who ran the banks until the mid 19805. However‘he has happily
With a bonus culture Pakistanis immigrants often bought the corner shops in
adapted to a new, much tougher world residential districts and turned them from commercial failures to
which includes wickedly large financial rewards. He is always
happy to leave the difficult sums to his commercial successes, [See the story ‘Empire Building’ in
at
socially ease, always
subordinates and then be charmng to them. Lanchester carefully Contemporary British Stories.] Ahmed is too lazy to make a lot
it Of money, but he has a happy family life. Note how often
lists all the details of Roger‘s income so that we can compare
‘family’ is used about the Kamals.
to that of Quentina, for example or Matya (whom Roger pays
legally, unlike most family employers).

14 15
W From
was a

Mickey,
the

problems.
mid—19905
revival of

Patrick and
Football,
in
interest
the

Freddy
even
Muslim
among the

Chechnya — illegally of course, but that

Their
more
community
younger
traditions of the Muslim faith. Young idealists like

were suffering in Chechnya, so ‘let

story
than
us
in Britain there
generation

excitement.’ After this uncomfortable experience Shahid lost

enthusiasm, long
did not respond to
before
the
Al—Qaeda
attacks

going through one of his pious

on New
became
York
The youngest brother, Usman, irritates the family
really
in
in older
Shahid felt
that they should do more than attend Friday prayers and undergo
ritual fasting periods. What could they do? ‘Brother
Muslims’
volunteer to go to
is part of the

effective;
September
when he is
‘I-am—holier—than—you’ phases.
Lanchester wants us to recognise all of this as part of ordinary
growing up and of family life, [See
Intelligence and terrorists]
below about British

should not raise any

most
degraded by the colossal sums paid to players,
sports,

to corruption, the ruthlessness of all those financially

Smitty and Parker We are never sure how good Smitty’s

He likes ‘installations’ -
another. Lanchester is certainly mocking the fashion
expensive installations as a kind of high art
has been
the temptations
involved.
This includes the insurers, as Mickey reflects on p.442-3. In
the whole of Chapter 77 is worth reading.

(although
carefully selected installations can be very impressive).
other hand, Smitty’s passion for anonymity reminds British
fact

arrangements of objects in strange

places which are supposed to be significant
his
he
2001.

art is.

for one reason or

readers of a real graffiti street artist, a painter called Banksey

who has remained famously anonymous. His work,
stencilled satirical paintings which appear mysteriously on
house walls or big hoardings, represents a critical
political and social disasters in our society.
Banksy’s work has led to huge arguments about
for
few
On the

often

attack on

the rights of
the public, of local authorities, of art dealers and art buyers,

16
and
of those who object to public satire in our streets. Smitty is not
Banksy, but he has learnt how to make himself a celebratory by
studying Banksy’s career. Parker thinks he can do better at the
same game. Lanchester is exploring the relationship between art ’
public good and commercial profit.

Zbigniew, Piotr and Matya Since they are all citizens of the
European Union, all three had the right to come to the United
Kingdom, find work and start earning money here. Zbigniew
arrived. in 2004 when the Poles who had by then joined the EU
were given the right to free movement of labour. They lived in a
poor country by EU standards but many of them had excellent
technical and crafi skills. The British government expected
about 140000 Poles to come to Britain but in fact about 800000
did so in the first year or so of their opportunity to work
elsewhere. This was a huge number of people to absorb, but the
Poles were notable for going everywhere — cities, small towns
even Villages. Many of them became very popular because they
were good, efficient, reliable builders, electricians and
plumbers. Arabella’s enthusiasm for ‘Bogdan’ is typical.
One question the British ask is ‘Are they going back home?’
Many Easter Europeans arrive in Britain, fully determined to
send back money to their families and to return as soon as they
have made their fortunes. Very often they change their minds.
Making a fortune’ even by Polish standards is much more
difficult than they suppose. Zbigniew and Piotr are certainly not
livrng in comfortable conditions after nearly four years in the
country. So we might expect them to return home, which some
do. But many become slowly accustomed to the language and
culture of the host country and, without making a definite
decision, remain. Many of them will later become British
Citizens.
Matya will be familiar as a type to Russians. She is well-
educated, she wants to get out of Hungary, she wants to be
happy and loved and marry a rich British man. She has also
been 111- the country for four years and life has not turned out to
be so simple. Fortunately she has been well brought-up by her

17
w
grandparents;

should

because

point
Remain
the European
resulted in
may affect
affect the

of

not uncommon

make use of a
otherwise

As
Union
British
the

Roger’s

parents. Among

the whole day.

not clear
of
why
view

Russians have
Russians send
this not just an
is

bringing up
a

people
status

They
they
we
of
opportunities
Europeans to follow him.]

do
as

Member
which
British

of
took
voting
Zbigniew
for
the

by

more

incompetence,
readers know, she could
easily be embroiled in disaster. (p.240-241)
M: The Referendum on whether the United Kingdom
European
place
52%
and

Children — Conrad, Joshua, Fatima, Mohammed

Although they
children and the
are
Kamal
brief, the
children

children seem to have no real relationship

wealthy
to turn
are
have

full-time
ofien
their
not

English

portrayal of contemporary
couples
the
so
children
detached
children
know
nanny
made
children
use
to
how
if
of

phenomenon.
to
Matya,,
Poles

but

like

they
48%

scenes
are
attitudes to child-rearing in Britain. Fatima
far more typical of small English children,
because they are
enthusiastically
chapters
surrounded
curious
describing Roger’s
about
by

nightmare

boarding

Rohinka and to millions of other parents, the

one’s children seems
childhoods
multi-faceted portrayal of British life.

18
Union or Leave
in June 2016 and which

vivid
to leave

involving

practical
whatever
the EU
and will certainly
and other Eastern

pictures
the Yount
of
and Mohammed are
different

self-confident
parental love and
is going on. The
Christmas are hilarious
also painful because the

Roger
over
from
at
many
had
to
with either of their

a
their

the
and Arabella it is
nanny

schools
However,

very
is
children

money

strange.
another
to
for almost

all. From a sociological

that it is

other parents would

to
near—full—time grannies; rich
do so.

in Britain. So
Ahmed and
Younts’ way of
Lanchester’s
side of this
Challenges to British Society
(a) Quentina and the Problems for Refugees
Quentina’s situation rightly bewilders and shocks readers
including British readers. They ask — How can this happen?
‘

reason is because in the British media there is considerable and

often- deliberate confusion about the differences between
‘rmrmgrants’, ‘refugees’ and ‘asylum seekers’. Lanchester wants
to make us much more aware of What is happening. He explains
on p.131-133 and on p.205-209. The following fuller
explanation should help you to understand.
Zimbabwe was a part of the British Empire and at that time it
was called Rhodesia. It became an independent sovereign
country in 1980. Robert Mugabe became its Prime Minister and
smce then (for 36 years) he has been in charge

African countries, so it made sense for Quentina, afier being

2:31:13
and
flogmred

escape to Britain.
for trying to help AIDS sufferers in
‘ '
we an or c ampaigmng to change the law, to try to

It seems obvious that Quentina is a refu e

according to the United Nations
Conventigne o?
for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a
One

either as
Presrdent or Prime Minister. During this time Zimbabwe once a
prosperous country, has become very poor, with a terrible health
and a terrible human rights record. As a former imperial power
Britain has a closer connection with Zimbabwe than with many

1r965fillgeitsa

someone who ‘owing to a well—founded fear of being persecuted

particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the

country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such
if): is' unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that
RefiltgrglesgArticle
1, 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of

At the time of the signing of the convention in 1951 most

countries expected to receive very few refugees and were
Willing to demonstrate their own good reputation as upholders
of humannghts. (Refugees who escaped from the Soviet Union
\lilvere particularly well-treated.)
But in recent years, applications
ave increased, although the numbers who are asking for or

19
 tiny proportion of the population a decision. Some failed asylum seekers voluntarily return home
receiving help are still a others are forcibly returned and for some it is not safe oi-
However a generalized worry about immigration —
(0.24%). practical for them to return until conditions in their country
to
which is quite different — has led the British government put change.’
of obstacles in the way of those trying to reach this
all sorts Quentina comes into the last category. As Lanchester says
Once they do arrive, international law requires that
country. British ‘she has entered a legal state of semi-existence’. In terms of thd
their claims to refugee status must be investigated. Many society she is living in, she is a non-person.
insist that we must fulfil our legal obligations although
lawyers
about doing so. As‘ a failed asylum-seeker she is not allowed to work. She will
British governments are too often uncomfortable be given very basic accommodation and a few pounds each day
has to leave Zimbabwe in danger of her life.
So Quentina to cover the minimum of food for survival. All she can do is to
for her. As
Christian missionaries manage to get a student visa wait until human rights are restored in her country and it is safe
Russians know, there are (or were) a lot of false ‘colleges’
many students from to return. Quentina reminds herself that Robert Mugabe will die
in Britain which declared that they were accepting
their hopeful one day, and perhaps the next leader will be better. [Quentina
abroad and co—operated in getting student visas for
no does not know, but Mugabe, at the age of 92, is still ruling
students. When the students arrived they found no college, Zimbabwe in 2016.] She would normally be sent to a detention
some money demanded, and the chance to work
courses,
(Recent laws have changed this dishonest scheme.) centre — a kind of prison — for those waiting deportation but a
illegally. charity has offered her a room in a house so she has freedom of
about
If you have been beaten and tortured, you do not worry
the difficulties. Quentina arrives in Britain as a
student, movement so long as she goes by foot, but no money and no
and claims asylum actrvrty to keep her occupied. Under these circumstances
overstays her visa dates, reports to the police Quentina, who is an active, intelligent, well-educated persori
Ari asylum seeker is a person who has left her
as a refugee. lot help our society, is forced into looking for
for asylum (refugee t:
country of origin and formally applied 311:0 ciould (1:0 :1
ga wor anc ester
'
describes
’
in
' '
V1v1d detail
‘ '
what this
has not yet
status) in another country but whose application
.

means.
been concluded, Unfortunately Quentina’s circumstances and what happens to
So Quentina’s claim is investigated but it is rejected. Many her are not at all uncommon in the present confused and badly
status are rejected, often because of lack of
claims for refugee
from structured system of domestic refugee law. She does benefit for
evidence. (The authorities in the country you are fleeing time from one of the many refugee charities, but they do not
rarely willing provide that evidence!) The judges decide that 1':
are ave nearly enough money to support all the desperate people
the appeal, the
Quentina must be deported to Zimbabwe. But at
that if she returns to Zimbabwe she may be killed. who need their help. Moreover she is forced into an illegal
judge decides eXistence that cannot be sustained.
She cannot be deported. Lanchester’s most bitter comment can be found on p.212-2l3
it seems obvious to the ordinary person that
At this stage when he gives us the words which Quentina thinks — but does
is a refugee. But that is not what the first court
Quentina speak — to the woman who is angry about the parking ticket.
decided. The appeal can only be about her present non-refugee 1%):
seeker who cannot gross discrepancy between this extremely privileged
status. Instead she becomes a failed asylum
definition of a failed
00; the conditions of people in many countries of the
retum to her country of origin. Here is the wort?is agdeeply hurtful Quentina. Lanchester
seeker: ‘A whose asylum application has been to‘ suggests that
asylum person . '
B rltish readers (and Russran readers) should understand that
unsuccessful and who has no other claim for protection awaiting

21
20
 the failure of the British central London, you want to arrest the plotters as soon as
Quentina’s situation represents
illogicalities in national law, the more possible. If you want to get information on everyone involved
governments of the time,
you need to wait until the plot is nearly ready. But you must not
malign effects of capitalism, the collapse of
decent political
under dictators, the lack of imagination by most of us, wait too long! (All this is explained in Chapter 82.)
systems Information is passed on to the police who will certamly
into this
and sheer bad luck or good luck for everyone born include armed officers in any potential raid on terrorists. Such
world. raids are usually carried out early in the morning while the
thousands of
To our British shame, and despite the work of
of people suspects are probably asleep and therefore not a danger. But if
campaigners, volunteers, fund-raisers and supporters
like Quentina, our laws on failed asylum seekers are (unlike the suspects are awake and all ready with their high explosives
it is essential to stop them before they can blow up themselves
those anywhere else in Europe) even harsher in 2016. and everyone else. Just as important from the Intelligence point
of View, they must be prevented from warning their fellow—
(b) The British Police and Firearms
Towards the end of the novel, readers are confronted with two plotters of what is happening. So if the police decide on a dawn
homes raid on a suspected terrorist hideout they will burst in suddenly
shocking scenes in which armed police burst into two
Are they with guns pointing. They must do everything to keep the suspect
where the inhabitants are eating or sleeping peacefully.
allowed to point at unarmed individuals, force them immobilized and helpless. If, later, the suspect turns out to be
really guns
van? innocent, the police argument is that it is better for the innocent
to roll over and be handcuffed and dragged off in a police
The answer is ‘Yes’, but with many qualifications.
Armed to suffer, mildly, then for a real terrorist to kill dozens of
around 140000 innocent people.
police are rare in Britain. In 2008 there were What rights do arrested people have? They have the right to
carried firearms.
policemen in England of whom 6500 free legal advice, to inform their family of their whereabouts, to
2500 of those armed police work in London.) An
(However decent treatment and to a police officer explaining their rights to
unarmed police force is very unusual; most police forces across them. Moreover, they must be either charged with a crime or
the world regularly carry arms. As a consequence of our allowed to go free within 24 hours. For very serious crimes like
It is
tradition, the actual use of firearms is also extremely rare.
murder, the police can apply to a judge for more time to
understood by citizens, the police and criminals that Britain
Question the suspected person 7 but the absolute maximum time
does not have a gun culture, so anyone who possesses a gun is 96 hours (4 days).
will face strict legal penalties including almost
illegally very Unfortunately all this breaks down if you are arrested for
certainly prison. suspected terrorist activities. In 2006 the British government
The small groups of trained police in the firearms units are
forced a law through a reluctant Parliament that allowed the
mostly used against suspected terrorists. For many years we
police. to detain and lock up anyone suspected of terrorist
faced a terrorist threat from Northern Ireland, but that was act1v1ties for 28 days without charge. The suspects do not need
solved at the beginning of this century, and now the threat to be charged with an offence and do not need to be told why
from Islarnist fanatics. Our Intelligence Services have
comes they are being held. The government wanted to introduce a 90-
terrorist plots: to
two aims when they turn their attention to day detention period but this was overruled. The 28-day pre—
actual attacks and fatalities, and to find out as much
prevent any Charge detention rule is seven times the detention period
the plots. The two aims
as possible about the people involved in PCI'Imtted for a person accused of murder. It is also the longest
in
conflict. If you want to stop people blowing up a building

23
22

period of time for someone to be held without charge anywhere
in the legally developed world. It undermines the basis of our
it to be totally
rights in Habeas Corpus, and experts consider
This terrorist act was introduced to placate media
unnecessary.
hysteria about terrorists in 2006.
The law is probably used only very occasionally, even against
individuals who are strongly suspected of plotting terrorism, but
of the secrecy
we cannot be sure about this just because
readers to
surrounding those who are arrested. Lanchester wants
know exactly what can happen a and why.
Capital as a literary work
maternal antennae that he was doing pretty well at it though
not that he was genuinely minted. (Ofcourse, some of, Smitty ’s
art-world mates would have said that he was absolutely a
commercial artist in a larger sense. That was OK by him.) His
father didn’t know the details of what he did and didn’t
particularly care, since he could tell that Smitty had an
entrepreneurial streak and would turn out fine. 'He's a natural
barrow boy, like me’, was what he always said to Smitty‘s
mother, often in Smitty 's hearing. That too was a description
Smitty didn’t mind at all. His mum though 7 he instinctively
didn ‘t want her knowing what he was up to. As for his nan
saying to her ‘I am a conceptual artist who specializes in
provocative temporary site-specific works would have been like
’

(a) Style telling her he was the world heavyweight boxing champion She
The chief characteristic of Lanchester’s style is that it easy
is
That is a virtue. would have nodded and said, ‘That’s’ nice ,dear' and felt
to read without becoming boring or banal.
genuinely proud of him without needing to go into any further
Lanchester is a specialist in many areas (economics, details. She was good at accepting things; a bit too good
investigative journalism, football, technology, restaurant
1

ideas to maybe, in Smitty’s view.

reviewing) which require him to explain events and
readers who want to understand. Each sentence uses an explanatory phrase to hook on to the
fiction.
Something of this tendency to explain appears in his next one so readers are helped at each step not to get lost
there
For example, we are told a lot about his many characters; Lanchester begins by describing the relationship between Smitty
is little subtlety in the presentation of their lives. The vocabulary and his nan, but somewhere between the third and fourth
is easy and obvious, the syntax casual, the tone that of someone
the edge of sentences the reader engages with Smitty’s own mind. Smitty is
talking comfortably and colloquially, always on qulte capable of analyzing his relationships with his mother his
cliche’, but usually avoiding the dangers because
Lanchester
the father and his nan; moreover he is basically relaxed ’and
slides easily between telling us and allowing us to enter into comfortable with himself. His father, Alan, compares him to a
minds and vocabulary — of his characters.
r barrow boy (a clever Londoner who can persuade shoppers to
Take this from p.86: buy the huh and vegetables on his barrow — a mobile vegetable
stall ~ rather than on any other barrow.) The comment is not
But Smitty and his grandmother, Petunia got on well for all dlfficult but it is illuminating of both father and son just as his
that. When he did see her he was able to be relaxed, his guard JOke about his grandmother confirms what we know, of Petunia
down, with none of the wariness he was never quite
able to put
~ but in Smitty’s terms.
aside with his mother. That was partly because of his work. His the whole novel were about Smitty, readers would be right
mum would ask questions and he would fend her of with talk tolfi
emand something more complex and linguistically vigorous;
about being an artist, deliberately leaving the impression he b lit Lanchester cleverly moves from character to character and
in the sense of a graphic
was some sort of commercial artist, mmgles his voice with their different voices. We are not allowed
she could tell with her
designer or something like that and
—

24 25
W
to contemplate any one character at length with the
intention that we should not get bored.

(b) Humour
manifest

Some readers are puzzled by the reviews which describe the

novel as ‘fimny’ or ‘hilarious’, since several of the characters
are unhappy, in danger, angry or dying.
when so much of what we are told is bleak?
Where is the humour

This editor’s advice is: Do not spend time reading reviews on

the backs of books! The original review may have been
insight, balanced, enlightening, but the publishers

Consider the chapter when Roger goes shooting. Gross wealth

full of
select the
words that they think will help to sell many copies. Often they
take phrases out of context. There is no special authority in these
recommendations although if one word occurs several times you
might consider it.
Nonetheless, the novel is funny in parts, and warmly
affectionate towards most of the characters throughout. That
what is meant by ‘humane’. Lanchester’s satire is rarely bitter.

and waste are on display (an account to invoke our anger) but
we are left with the image of Roger watching
feeling a strange mixed sense of joy and loss.
the rabbit and

The only characters with whom Lanchester has almost no

sympathy are Arabella and Saskia but his censure of their
is combined with enjoyment at their complaints. Here
is

values

Arabella listing the things she does not like about Roger. ‘He
didn 't cook, except show-ofl barbecues on the occasional
summer weekend at his silly boy-toy gas grill
'.

He doesn’t cook! Probably he has not been asked to cook, but

she needs reasons for her complaint. A barbecue is a device for
grilling meat and other foods outside in the garden, usually over
a fire of charcoal or specially prepared fuel. (Russians
shashliki over wood fires, and now sometimes use a special box
which is what we would call a barbecue.) In England barbecues
are often a part of summer parties in the garden where
like to show off their cooking skills. A ‘boy—toy’ is a
disparaging word used by women for the kind of expensive

26
cook

the men
is
gadgets which men like to buy and then to use very rarely.
Roger has a special barbecue grill which is heated by gas — so
much easier than using charcoal. His cooking—skills can be non—
existent with this technical help.
As for ‘the occasional summer weekend’ this can mean ‘a few
weekends in the summer months when they are free to enjoy
themselves. But it can also mean ‘those very few weekends
during the typical wet British summer when you can have a
barbecue because it isn’t actually raining.’
The whole passage is funny because readers are expected to
recognise it, whether they are men or women. ‘Yes Roger
would behave like that, and yes, Arabella would be iiritated
And that is exactly what English summers are like! ’
The scenes with non-English people are not ‘funny’ because
Lanchester is understandably less confident at describing them
Qt is worth noticing that he feels confident in being humorously
ironic about the Kamals who are well—established British.)
Besrdes, as Matya points out, the English have a strange attitude
towards humour. On p.531 she thinks of ‘those English boys
who would. tire you out by always putting on a show, barely able
to speak w1thout trying to make a joke. .’ The tendency of the

steyeog

;
.

English to make jokes in order to cover embarrassment or to

avord being serious about serious matters is painfully obvious to
most foreigners. (But note that it is Lanchester who put these
thoughts into Matya’s head. Besides, being able to mock oneself
Is not altogether bad, as Russians know.)

(c) Character and Psychological Insight

refi’ilrilent Capital first appeared, Lanchester was criticised for
00 much on types The cr1t1cism was not that he used

id ea of a particular type of
‘.
types (a stereotype is a fixed and oversimplified image or
person or thing’ and should never be
Died in serious discussion) but ‘types’ or representative
aracters such as Zbigniew or Roger or Mickey the fixer for a
$212111: football
club. While Lanchester obviously relies on
I

y typical characteristrcs in order to guide his reader in

understanding London in 2008, he is much more subtle than

27
 he is also a middle-class people who surrounded Roger when he was
that. Zbigniew is not just the reliable Polish builder;
who with his friends, has difficulties in his growrng up.
man argues
with women and struggles with his conscience. Some boys who feel angry and disappointed with their parents
relationships
in this sort of environment turn to revolution or unconventional
‘

become something of a hero in his own mad world

Mickey life—styles. Mark does not want that; he is ambitious and he
towards the end of the novel, in a most untypical way.
interested in the quiet internal wants to be successful in making money and showing privileged
Lanchester is genuinely
who do not find life easy. Let us look people like Roger how much better than them he is The
struggles of characters
problem for him is that Roger does not really care. He has too
briefly at Mary and Mark. in the much natural self—confidence and is too lazy to wish to
Several sympathetic chapters are devoted to Mary
is alone with challenge or fight Mark. Roger was a pointlessly tall
middle of the story. Her mother is dying and she contentlessly smooth public-school twat, a blujfer and chancer
for her, feeling guilty, feeling perplexed. There is no
her, caring
special reason. Mary always found her
mother mildly imitating, and lightweight, doing a job which Mark could do a thousand
She is distressed at the long process of times better. [An impossible sentence to translate but
but they did not quarrel.
but she remains mostly rational, knowing that at this wonderfully recognisable as a description of a type of privile ed
dying, public-school 7 expensive private school - boy. A well—knogwn
it is best for her mother to die quickly. The fact that her
stage example would be our previous Prime Minister David
mother’s house is so valuable confuses her feelings; thinking
in these conditions is shameful but how do you Cameron, who was of course more hardworking that Rbger but
about money
about riches coming into your mind? Lanchester is Just as llkely to make people like Mark feel frustrated rage’] So
stop thoughts Mark feels helpless. There was a tumult in Mark; there always
at allowing his characters to think their own droughts, and
good had been. There was a panic or emptiness inside him a too-
then to analyse their own thoughts. Mary is more than capable weak sense of who he actually was. This is very shrede At one
of watching herself thinking. It is a quiet, painful, genuine level Mark is sure that he is brilliant, but at a deeper level he is
worthwhile.
process, unspectacular but and not sure who he is 7 because, he believes, his parents have in
Mark is introduced to us as very clever, very polite
feeling about his subordinate. some sense failed him. We know that the deeper level is more
slightly sinister. This is Roger’s
hates and despises Roger. His hatred powerful because he is so desperate to prove to other people
Later we learn that Mark
hrs other bosses) just how clever he is.
beyond the dislike of an ambitious man for the man above (Rffirhand
goes home c ester is fascinated by Mark because he w
him in the hierarchy. On p.193 we learn that he was going other individuals in the sectoraiiisreta:
immersion in mediocrity, convention and stifling infiderstand why finance
for that 1 e acted
in rather similar ways. They were clever ambitious
horror called Sunday lunch. The rest of the page is
bourgeois y0ung men who took huge risks. If you find M,ark’s story
who feels
full of psychological insights into an unattractive man fascinating (if a little too b net)
' i
look up on the mtemet
himself to be at odds with his parents’ values. If you are
the name
in of NiCk Leeson'
interested in English class differences (which still exist 2008)
do read and re-read this page. Mark is ashamed of
his parents
about what the (d) We Want What You Have
because they are conventional. They worry
to do what others This is a wonderful ex ample of the pos51bilities '
and
people they know think about them; they try .
ESEIbllltles of the English language. At the end of the novel we
. . .

do because they are not special and not rebellious. They are very W who sent the postcards and the later threats. But the
middle—class, but not part of that group of privileged upper-

Z9
 ignored). COMMENTARY ON THE TEXT
message itself can be interpreted in so many ways (or
Petunia and Freddy, for example, have opposrte reactions to
the Capital is a novel packed with information about
contemporary London life. Not all of the allusions can be
mysterious message.
It resonates for many of the characters. It must be
. '
Significant - covered in this commentary. If a word or phrase is used with a
to standard meaning that can be found in any good dictionary, it is
but what is it significant of? This is a question for readers
some omitted here. Most brand names and titles of, for example, TV
answer for themselves. One tempting answer. is‘that in
sense it represents the mysterious force of Capitalism. We must programmes have been ignored; the general significance can be
inferred from the text. On the other hand, some peculiarities of
ask ourselves if the novel bears out any such grand conclusrons
eventually brings us down to earth. attitudes in London need extended comment, so some of the
or if the mystery
notes in this commentary are longer than usual.
Certain mysterious terms such as ‘Common’ and ‘Oyster
Card’ occur several times throughout the novel. They are
explained on their first significant appearance only.

Title — Capital is an obvious and effective pun. It refers to

London, the capital of the United Kingdom, and to ‘capital’
meaning money, financial assets, wealth. All the characters are
affected in different ways with the consequences of having or
not having money. In addition, the novel covers the first year of
the 2008 financial crisis that threw into chaos the economies of
almost every country in the world.

1 South London — this means ‘south of the River Thames’ 7 and

then not too far to the east or to the west, since ‘south of the
river’ has distinct localities and atmospheres. Lanchester gives
us enough information to learn that Pepys Road is in Clapham.
You can find Clapham on any Google search. Maps will show
you the importance of the Common which appears in several
chapters.

1
Pepys Road — This is of course a fictional road, but it is meant
to be typical of the district. Pepys was a seventeenth century
civil servant who wrote a diary that has become famous. Just as
In Russia, we like to name our roads after notable writers and
artists and scholars 7 and somehow we use far more names than
you. [See also the cover photographs .]

30 31
 ,7 ,i , ,

West Indian islands belonging to the British Empire such as

1 tax on brick this tax was introduced in 1784 to help pay for
- Jamaica and Trinidad were invited to come and work in Britain.
the wars in the American Colonies (which the Americans know
which the Many of the new arrivals worked in transport, especially on the
as their Revolution). It was abolished in 1850, after
London buses. Lanchester is reminding his readers that many of
huge boom in building substantial suburban houses began.
the black Londoners today are the children, the grandchildren
2 The developer hired a Cornish architect and Irish builders —
and great-grandchildren of this group of immigrants who came
There is probably no significance in ‘Cornish architect’ except to help the British after the war.
that Cornwall is a poor part of the country so a Cornish architect
2 a 2—up 2-down corner shop The corner shop is a
might accept a lower fee. Irish labourers were an army of cheap
—

characteristic feature of English residential areas. 2-up -2 down

labour for any English developer. Their grandparents had dug
refers to rooms. The Kamals have two rooms downstairs, one of
the canals of England, and their parents had dug the railway
which is the shop, and two rooms upstairs, a room for the
routes of England. Life in Ireland was so difficult that millions
emigrated to England and earned a living at these harsh and parents and another one for the children. The rooms are small
and close together. The shop which is described is exactly what
unremitting jobs.
a corner shop is — a shop on the comer where two residential
2 double-fronted houses — A single-fronted house of this era has roads meet which supplies newspapers, milk and other essential
da11y needs.
a front-door opening into a hall with rooms on one side of
the
hall. A double-fronted house had rooms on both sides. From the
3 British prosperity, emerging from the dowdy Chrysalis of the
road you see a front-door in the middle and windows on each
late 1970s and transforming into a vulgar loud butterfly of the
side.
Thatcher decades — Lanchester’s memory seems to be at fault.
2 lower—middle-class families — These were late nineteenth- Brltam was struggling during the 19705, so its prosperity can be
in described a a ‘dowdy chrysalis’, but the first years of Thatcher’s
century lower-middle—class families. To British people living time as Prime Minister (1979-1990) began With unemployment
the early twenty—first century, it seems extraordinary that for rrulhons of people. The economic boom was later in the
ordinary people could afford such houses. We can think of them decade. However Lanchcster’s point is that Thatcher encouraged
as the ‘clerical class’ — people who worked in offices and
had a
people to ‘act rich’. Being rich, she said, was not something to
steady income. They might work for a legal firm or a bank or an be ashamed of, or to keep secret. Rich people publicly declared
insurance company or perhaps for some firm which
manufactured something. They were the ‘white-collared thatthey were important because they were rich. Much of the
workers’ who did not get their hands dirty in their jobs, and who British population (being neither American nor Russian
oligarchs) felt very uncomfortable. When ‘the West’ arrived to
hoped that their children would rise upwards. Servants were
Labour was explain capitalism to Russians ten years later, they did not
very cheap, so they might keep one or two servants. explaln that the Thatcher era of proud and conspicuous
cheap so they cold afford these family homes.
$0nsumption had been a strange, unBritish aspect of our culture.
hrrty years later it is a normal part of our culture.
2 by families arrived from the Caribbean — After the Second
World War Britain suffered from a labour shortage because so
much reconstruction had to take place. So families from the

32 33
3 the housing crash of 1987 — Britain suffered a financial
recession in 1987 and the value of property dropped
significantly. As a consequence some people found that they
were paying a high mortgage for a house which was worth less
than when they had negotiated the mortgage.
4 the City ofLondon - in this context it means the financial area
of London, perhaps the most important financial area in the
world. Although the Bank of England is within the original city
boundaries, much of the financial area is somewhat to the east of
the old City of London. [See Introduction on London]
5 ‘Did you hear what they got for the house down the road?
’
Lanchester is making a point about the English obsession with
the price of houses. In most countries there will be discussions
about homes and availability and how much money one must
pay to get a flat of a certain size. In England there is a fiirther
peculiarity. For 30 years or more the housing market has
outstripped the general cost of living. The cost of, say, a
washing machine or a winter coat has increased because of
inflation, but the price of houses, especially in London, has
increased much faster, so much so that the inhabitants of Pepys
Road have become theoretical millionaires simply by staying in
their homes. People continue to be amazed at this phenomenon
and frequently comment to their friends and neighbours about
the extraordinary price that someone paid ‘for the house down
the road.’
6 eBay coups 7 eBay is the internet site where people can
auction anything they want, and anyone can buy what is on
offer. The game is to find something you want at a very cheap
price. Finding it is a ‘coup’.
7 Britain had become a country of winners and lasers 7 Of
course there are always people who are richer and others who
are poorer a but Lanchester’s point is more specific and more
urgent than that. The housing market is so distorted that people
34
who own houses in certain areas, especially in London can
become rich simply by living in houses which are getting inore
and more valuable by the day. They have done nothing to win —
like gamblers. All the people in Pepys Road are millionaires
although they may be otherwise quite poor like Petunia, because
they can sell their houses for a million pounds or more.
11 Tesco — one of the largest chains of supermarkets.
11 a set of chambers in Lincoln ’5 Inn ~ Lawyers in England are
basically of two kinds: solicitors who deal with a huge range of
legal problems, and barristers who argue cases in court. Each
barrister traditionally belongs to a small team who share ‘a set
of chambers’ which are in fact offices and studies in a kind of
legal college called an ‘Inn’. Each team has a clerk to do some
of the essential but routine paperwork. Lincoln’s Inn dates back
to theearly fifteenth century or earlier. Lanchester’s point is that
Petunia’s grandfather, the clerk, was able to live in a house
which today costs so much that only a successfiil barrister could
afford to buy it.
'
11 b oth conservative and Conservative
'
— someone who doesn’t
like change and someone who votes for the Conservative Party.
He know about his income because of his job, not because of
his temperament and political views.
11 she was evacuated during the early
World War — Petunia was born in 1925 years of the Second
so she was evacuated as
a. teenager. Children who lived in London and some other big
Cities
were moved, in a big national campaign, to the
gginuyside to live with rural families and escape the bombing.
e enjoyed their time, others hated it. Petunia
She returns home, old was homesick.
enough to take up full-time work, and in
time to experience the bi attacks
.
g on south L ondon by rockets
0 es 19 4.
35
12 the Common — Clapham Common. A Common is a piece of
land which belongs to the public; it is not in private ownership.
local
In cities Commons are usually administered by the
which has to observe the historic rights of ordinary
government
people. In this novel Lanchester is referring
to Clapham
Common in south London. It has an area of about 90 hectares,
with three duck ponds, a bandstand (for live music) and an
historically important church. It is simplest to think of as a
it
public park.
from
We learn that Clapham Common is a very short walk
exercise, children
Pepys Road and a most important area for
direction. You can
playing, people wandering in no particular
see what it looks like on the intemet.
12 the deliveries 7 Millions of people now buy their household
items online 7 furniture, tools, lights, toys 7 just about anything.
So instead of going to the shop to carry all those purchases
wait for deliveries from online providers like
home, people now
Amazon. There is a new ‘army’ of deliverers, a fact which
seems strange to Petunia.
13 ‘No substitutions’ — Petunia (or rather her daughter) had sent
she had
an order to the supermarket ‘Tesco’. If, for example,
asked for a particular brand of tinned tomatoes which was out of
stock, Tesco could make a substitution of a different
brand. She
would have the right to reject the substitution and wait until the
next week for her tin.
13a warden — a traffic warden checking on parked cars. (We
will learn a lot more about traffic wardens.) ‘Don’t even think
about it’ is a popular idiom.
This is an
14 you didn’t tip supermarket delivery men —
interesting example of a cultural change within generations. For
Petunia’s generation, people who came to the door to provide
services were probably badly paid. So you tipped them: the
the milkman, the newspaper boy, the
postman, the dustmen,
36
fishmonger. .. They would not be tipped every time they arrived,
but many people gave them money at Christmas, for example.
What Petunia and her generation thought was, ‘These people are
1ike servants. If we have servants we give them presents at
ChristIIlaS, and it is only kind and decent to do the same to those
who deliver what we need.’
People of Mary’s generation think this is wrong, because these
people are not servants. They are earning reasonable wages for a
decent job and should not be treated as servants. Not only is this
demeaning, it suggests that they will only work well if they have
a tip, rather than that they will work well because they have a
job that they are proud of. (Would you want to be tipped if you
were a teacher?)
Mary has a good point, but sadly, many people are now
working on such low-pay contracts for work like this that they
W111 be
very grateful for any small change which they can pick
up.
15 if his bonus this year would come to a million pounds. 7
Roger has a fixed salary, but each year he can get an addition to
his salary depending upon his effectiveness as a good employee
during the year. One upon a time 7 before the 19805 — a bonus
was a. small addition like a Christmas present. But in the
financial and banking sectors it has for many years been a very
Significant part of the wage, sometimes being far more than the
offic1al salary. [For more explanation see the introduction]
15 a good university (Durham) — Readers who think that Oxford
and Cambridge are the only ‘good’ universities in Britain are
naive and should consult any decent book about our higher
education system or Understanding Britain Today. There are
more than 100 universities in Britain, and many of them are
notable 'for highly-regarded specialist departments or for
research in specific areas. For example, the Russell Group of 24
universities has a high reputation for research, rather like your
National ReseaICh universities 7 except that they have selected
themselves as ‘the best’!
37
15 just after the Big Bang, just before the City became
infatuated with the mathematically gifted and/or barrow boys. 7
The best explanation for this sentence will be found if you read
Nice Work by David Lodge. It is set exactly in that period.
In 1986 the financial institutions in the City of London, above
all the Stock Exchange, were significantly deregulated and
computerised. The day on which the changes took place was
called the ‘Big Bang’. [The phrase is chiefly used for the sudden
‘event’ which started the universe existing and expanding] One
from the
consequence of the financial Big Bang was to remove
knew each other
money markets a hierarchy of people who
because they went to the same schools and moved in the same
circles. Now new people from any class or background were
welcomed so long as they had a particular gift for mental
arithmetic (doing sums in your head). Barrow boys are the boys
and men who trade in fruit and vegetables along the streets of
London, creating little mini-markets with their mobile stalls
called barrows. Traditionally they were trained to be very quick
with arithmetic; and so some of them turned out to be the best
people in the new Stock Exchange conditions.
16 a wide-boy 7 a deceiver or ‘con man’ who survives by
ingenious tricks. Particularly associated with London working—
class semi-criminal men of the mid-twentieth century. In this
but
case the point is that Roger has excellent suits made for him,
his tailor comes from the old London where criminals in the
City could be very smart — and there is just a suggestion of this
kind of old—fashioned smartness in his suits.
16 the compensation committee, sometimes known as the
Politburo — The Soviet Politburo was famous in Britain for its
secret and mysterious power: people never knew how it came to
its decisions. So the committee which awards bonuses that are
is known
so very important to Roger and his colleagues
colloquially as the Politburo.
38
17 the collapse of Northern Rock 7 This was a more significant
event that Roger has realised. The bank in September 2007
suddenly declared that it had too many debts and could not pay
its creditors (ordinary people who had their accounts in the
bank). This was the beginning of the world financial crisis in the
UK, although the Govemments’ prompt action in buying the
bank and making sure everyone was paid meant that confidence
was temporarily restored. [See the Introduction]
19 Four of his colleagues were tested and all four failed 7
Cocaine, Ecstasy and Marijuana (dope) are all illegal drugs in
Britain. However in practice the police follow up only serious
and targeted cases. For instance, they will tackle dealers; they
will look for groups of drug-users in criminal areas, and they
will target clubs where they think ecstasy is used. There have
been many attempts to decriminalise marijuana which is often
the first drug that people experiment with, and which is often
smoked in a cigarette — a sort of nervous students’ drug. This is
why Roger thinks of it as a ‘loser’s drug’.
Roger’s colleagues are not obvious drug addicts. They will
explain that they use the drugs for ‘recreational purposes’ much
as their friends will drink a glass or two of wine. They like the
experience and they cannot see why the law should prevent
them from enjoying their pleasures. They do not associate
themselves with popular images of sub-criminals sitting around
injecting themselves and being incapable of behaving normally
the followmg day, any more than their drinking friends associate
themselves with alcoholic tramps.
b‘Noiietheless, use of these drugs is against the law. Banks and
1g COmpames know that a proportion of their employees will be
usmg drugs on a Saturday and Sunday, so they introduce
random. tests to try to reduce the drug culture. This culture of
brecreational’ drug use is more often found among those with
1g salaries because of the costs of the drug. If
you are addicted
YOU Will do anything to
get hold of the drug. If it is an
entertainment , you will need a lot of money espec1a11y '
for
. ,
coca e.
39
 Statistics indicate that fewer people, especially young people
are using illegal drugs 7 perhaps because they are too busy
playing computer games. In 2007 when this novel is set about
20% of people aged between 16 and 24 had used cannabis at
least occasionally in the previous year, and about 10% of the
population at large. The proportion of the population who used
cocaine was about 3% 7 but with a significantly higher
proportion among the rich people who are Roger’s colleagues.
19 They had converted the loft, dug out the basement — This
long paragraph is not only about Arabella’s changing tastes.
Lanchester is laughing at her reasons for changing her house,
her decorations, her life—style so often. We are not meant to take
Arabella seriously.
20 wet room 7 a fashion in bathrooms in the early 2000s. There
is no bath; instead of an enclosed shower, the shower space is
level with the floor and water disappears down a hole in the
floor. Such rooms were more common in Russia (in various
institutions) than in Britain, but for Arabella they have become
the most necessary new arrangement.
20 when she, whoever she was, had boyfriends over to stay —
Arabella accepts that adult single women are likely to have
boyfriends, and will want to have somewhere to be private with
them. But the irony of this account is that she is thinking
entirely about the convenience to herself and Roger, and
eventually, after spending a lot of money, decides not to have a
live—in nanny anyway.
20 The sitting-roam was underwired — The whole of this page is
meant to show us that the Younts (especially Arabella) buy ‘the
best’ by which they mean ‘the most expensive. All the names
are of top—price firms and goods.
21 utterly pointless minutiae of the listing restrictions (it was
Grade Two) 7 In Britain there are many old precious buildings
40
ranging from castles and cathedrals to small cottages (in Britain
a cottage is small). These buildings have been listed and
catalogued over the years; if they are thought to be important
buildings because of their architecture, historical associations
particular role within a community or within a group of
beautiful buildings, then they are allotted a Grade. Grade One
buildings can only be altered with very special permission —
perhaps because the structure is now dangerous; Grade Two
buildings, many of them occupied by their owners, cannot be
altered inside or outside except with the approval and inspection
of the local authority. So Arabella cannot start redesigning the
house and removing windows or blocking up doors in a ‘listed
house’. And there are always questions about whether the
owners are using the correct materials when they want to
renovate their house.
As readers we are probably meant to feel that the restrictions
and rules are a good idea for preserving our heritage.
22 (he). made a point of preferring the tube
7 Roger has an
expensrve Mercedes which the firm has allowed him as a
company car, but he prefers using the tube for basically for the
same reason that Muscovites are now beginning to abandon
their cars as traffic becomes impossible. His
car route to work
would Involve him in some of the worst traffic
jams, whereas at
least the tube trains (usually) move. However, it looks
Impresswe to display a Mercedes on the road outside
house. (There is no parking for your
cars in the front gardens of these
houses. Cars had not been invented
when they were built.)
24
a bandage freak 7 (colloquial) someone who is sexual
excued by sado—masochistic practices.
:5 Mark here 'was using upspeak — Lanchester describes what he
hoeans. a partlcular style of speaking which allows the voice to
ver between a statement and a
question, so sounding
very
polite and humble but f0 '
rcmg the other person to make a
deCiSion'
41
27 a shufti — (colloquial) a look (from the Arabic).
31 Alcohol could not be legally sold outside the licensing period
30 took some ofyesterday ’5 naan out of the breadbin 7 naan is a n ShopS, pubs, restaurants and other places that sell alcohol have
slightly leavened flatbread from Pakistan, similar to breads from to get a special licence to do so by applying to the local
all over central Asia. magistrates. The actual period when alcohol can be sold varies
from outlet to outlet. For example it might be from 12 noon. to
10.30 pm. for a pub, or perhaps from 2
30 ‘No Junk Mail’ stickers 7 People stick these little notices pm. to 6 pm. for a
beside the letter flap on their front doors in an attempt to stop small shop. On days of special celebration it is possible to
get a
special licence to sell alcohol for an extended period.
people posting unwanted leaflets. Anything which is not
Magistrates are strict at enforcing the laws; there a big penalties
specifically addressed to the individuals in the house is ‘junk
for selling outside the period allowed by the licence.
mail’.
33 she would give Usman such
30 Marmite — a savoury product to spread on bread. It is made a bollocking 7 a common
from the yeasty dregs of beer barrels, is strong and salty and colloquial idiom, used widely in this novel. To criticise
someone
or to tell them off, loudly and severely.
unique to England. Half the population love it and half hate it.
36 A-level grades 7 A-levels are the national
31 A5 envelopes which had become so popular 7 Shortly before examinations
taken at the age of 18 after a 2-year special
the period in which the story is set the Royal Mail (the postal course. They are not
like the Russian school-leaving
service) had changed all the prices for posting letter. If you examination, and if you want to
know more about them, read
folded A4 sheets in half and posted them in an A5 envelope, the any decent book on British
education, such as Understanding Britain Today.
postage was much cheaper.
36 went on a mission to
31 Transport for London card—charging device — Paying for all
’ save his brothers in religion in
Chechnya 7 The way in which this sentence describes Shahid’s
types of public transport in London is now done through a
mission will tell readers that we should be smiling at him and
special credit card called an Oyster card. To add credit to the his ideals. He is not a mercenary, he is a naive volunteer.
card you need machines which (like mobile phone machines) in Chechnya he felt a sense of hi fact
are to be found in newsagents shops, supermarkets and public ‘permanent moral ambiguity’. If
the'Russ1ans had caught him he would have been in trouble
places. an illegal immigrant and as
possibly as a mercenary 7 but if he had
been caught, the authorities
31 Usman 7 These early paragraphs about Usman explain his would have been most sensible if
they had simply thrown him out of
effect on his family. He keeps telling everyone else that they are the country.
not such virtuous Muslims as he is. Substitute ‘Christian’ and a 37 to save the umma
self-righteous teenager who wants to give all the family
7 to save the Muslim ‘nation’.
possessions to the poor and you will understand why the others 41 Willingness
to submit to
find him irritating, especially since he is actually 28. local custom 7 Lanchester is being
Slime. British children today are notorious for refusing to eat
at is prepared for them.
Somehow they force their parents to

42
43
cook different food for each child. (It infuriates the
grandparents’ generation. They never allowed such nonsense.)
43 He didn ’t cook, except show—ofl barbecues on the occasional
summer weekend at his silly boy-toy gas grill 7 This sentence is
a wonderful example of Lanchester’s style, his observation of
today’s realities, his ear for contemporary phrases and his
humour. For explanations of the words see the Introduction on
‘
Humour’ .
44 She had a complete understanding of the signifiers — This is
Arabella thinking about herself and her ability to understand
what being expensive means. (It doesn’t just mean costing a lot
of money, it means displaying to the minority who need to know
that the expensive item costs a lot of money.) Lanchester, of
course, is laughing at Arabella.
45 I ’1] send you the deets — Arabella and Saskia talk in a kind of
texting language. ‘Deets’ means ‘details’.
45 The flap of the letter box opening and closing, and a thump
of mail landing on a door mat. — This is a sound familiar to
British people but unknown to most Russians. Since we live in
separate houses with their own front doors, our mail is pushed
into our own home by the postman. Each front door has a slit
cut out of it, typically about 6 centimetres high by about 30
centimetres long. To prevent the wind howling through this
hole, the slit often has a flap covering it which can easily be
pushed inward by the postman as he eases the letters (or
catalogues of things to buy.) Technically a letter box is a box or
cage on the inside of the door to catch the letters. Most people
don’t bother, but allow the letters to fall on the doormat just
inside the door.
46 a second—class stamp 7 The British postal system offers two
prices of stamps for ordinary letters: a first-class stamp which
means that the letter should arrive the following day; and a
second-class stamp, notably cheaper, which means that the letter
may take 4—5 days to arrive.
48 the CCTV camera underneath the till e An example of
contemporary British life: almost all shops now are fitted with
Closed Circuit Television cameras which can identify
shoplifiers and people causing trouble. The till is where the
money is collected and stored in the shop transactions, and it
might be a target for someone trying to steal the cash. Hence the
place for the secret camera, Britain has a higher proportion of
CCTV cameras than any other country but a very low level of
stealing and more threatening crimes.
51 She was not a cruel warden — Quentina is a traffic warden, a
person whose job is to check that people have not parked their
cars in the wrong place or for too long, and to issue a fine if they
have done so. So motorists always regard the traffic warden as
an enemy. [Notez officially the term ‘traffic warden’ applies to
employees of the police force. Employees of local councils or a
contractor are officially called ‘civil enforcement officers’. The
dlstmction is not known to most of the British public who
regularly refer to ‘traffic wardens’.]
52 £12000 with four weeks paid holiday and no health or
pensions benefits. — The borough (district of London) council is
obliged to pay its employees proper wages. But it has
outsourced this service to Control Services Ltd, and since the
servrce is cheap and the council saves money, it does not
enquire what 15 happening to the employees of Control Services.
In fact these employees e traffic wardens and probably other
people who maintain the car parks and collect the money from
the parking machines — are themselves controlled in several
fways. Firstz most of them will be working illegally, through no
Iault of their own, but through the illogical asylum system. [See
I\rIItroa'uctzon for a fuller explanation] So they cannot join the
frational-Health Service, they cannot get pension contributions
om thelr employer, they have no social protection. Secondly it
is almost impossible to live in London on £12000 a year,
although Quentina is better off than many because she does not
have to pay for her accommodation. Thirdly, she receives a
cheque for £227 for the week’s work. (Tax has been deducted.)
But she has to take that to Kwame Lyons who has found the job
for her, and he takes £77 or one—third of her wage. So she has
just over £20 a day, and no access to health or care or support
except through the charity.
As Lanchester knows, hundreds of thousands of people who
are not refugees and may be working legally for these
companies still have to endure these conditions. Although they
will be registered with the NHS, they may live in greater
poverty than Quentina.
53 PDA — a small electronic device called a Personal Data
Assistant, carried by people who need to type in official data.
56 Whatever the Sodding minimum wage was — In October 2007
the rate was set at £5.35 an hour for an adult worker. No adult
could be legally paid less. For a 40-hour week, this represented
an annual wage of just over £11000. Most workers on the
minimum wage are given uncertain hours which are then often
cancelled, and since they are paid by the hour it is almost
impossible to earn such an annual sum. ‘Sodding’ is a vulgar
expletive.
57 rockbroker belt 7 a pun. Parts of Surrey, the county
immediately to the south of London, were known as the
‘stockbroker belt’, meaning the area where Stockbrokers and
oflier financial advisers lived. Rock stars also tend to gather
together, also in Surrey, along the river or in the hills — hence
rockbroker belt.
61 a communal newspaper — a newspaper which will be read by
many people, such as the newspapers in the doctors’ waiting
room.
46
61 Petunia had never seen the same doctor twice in a row —
When Petunia was younger, each person had their own
individual GP or General Practitioner. Over the years this
‘system has gradually changed, not deliberately but as a
consequence of other policies. In Britain the National Health
Service (NHS) never developed polyclinics such as are common
in Russia and other parts of Europe; instead the GP treated his
or her list of patients and referred them to the specialists at the
hospital if they were suffering from something where he could
not provide help or treatment himself. GPs were therefore
isolated from each other. So they began to get together in ‘group
practices’ where typically four or five GPs plus a nurse, a social
worker, perhaps a midwife worked together. It was more
efficient because it made better use of nurses and other social-
medical staff. But today although in theory each patient is
allotted to one particular GP, in practice if a person tries to make
an appointment, he or she is likely to see Whoever has most time
that day. These and other changes in medical practice are widely
and passionately debated in Britain.
Data about patients is now computerised. The system means
that the doctors know much more about the effectiveness of
different treatments for diseases and can quickly trace a
patient’s history rather than struggling with ancient hand-written
notes. However, Petum'a’s feeling that some doctors get more
attached to their computers than their patients is widespread.
Nonetheless, although Petunia’s unfriendly doctor is not
uncommon, the vast majority of GPs are fiiendly and helpful
and trying to do their best for the patients in
a very over-
stretched system.
61 Master Cosmo Dent — ‘Master’ means
young boy, not yet 01d
enough to be called ‘Mr’. This usage was common when
figuma was young, but is now unusual. It may be that Petunia
seen the names and given them the prefixes in her head.
None of these names is typically white
English.
47
61 Petunia dislikedfeeling such an alien —Petunia is sitting in a
National Health Service surgery like 99% of the population. In
Britain everyone uses the NHS, although there are small
expensive private surgeries for certain conditions a used not
because the treatment is better (it isn’t) but because you can
sometimes get treatment more quickly. So she is sitting
alongside other Londoners. She feels an alien because she
cannot feel close to the young, the not—so-young, the ethnic
minorities, the people using mobile phones and listening to
music on headphones. She is of a different generation and
therefore these Londoners who seem to feel perfectly
comfortable with each other are strange to her. She can
remember the Second World War when people spoke of being
‘all in this together '; she wonders where that Britain has gone.
Inn the 1940s and 19505 when Petunia was young, people
would have been sitting in the waiting room, all speaking the
same language, all from similar backgrounds, all grumbling
together. The complaints would have been a common language.
Lanchester’s point is not that London is alien, but that it is
perceived very differently depending on your age. Twenty-year-
olds, thirty-year-olds, forty year-olds take these changes for
granted. Petunia has led a very narrow life for 80 years. So she
feels an alien
62 even ruder than ignoring her. A If you are sitting in a waiting
room and a man has his legs in the way when you want to move,
he may not notice you. He may be too preoccupied. But if he
lifts his legs then he has noticed you — in which case Petunia
thinks he should lifi his head, smile or at least acknowledge her.
She is bewildered by all this mobile-phone culture where
nobody seems to notice anyone else. (If you do not understand
her you are probably less than 40 years old.)
63 Then he sat looking at his computer screen for a little while.
— The careful reader should be able to deduce that he has a
problem. His examination has led him to think that there is
something seriously wrong with Petunia; now he has to decide
48
how much he should reveal of his concerns. He is thinking. He
talks about her heart and her satisfactorily low blood pressure.
But he is sending her off for tests to St Thomas’ Hospital and he
'does not explain the reason. Petunia does not ask. She could
have asked and he could have explained more. But if she does
not ask, he will not answer. The ‘reassuring’ pact that Petunia
imagines exists between doctor and patient has broken down. It
has broken down because there is something wrong. Lanchester
leaves it to readers to decide what a very busy doctor should do
in such circumstances.
64 so many bees in his own bonnet — so many trivial obsessions
that he kept talking about.
66 You would have expected him to be Scrooge — Russian
readers like to pick up the Dickens allusion. Scrooge is the
‘hero’ of A Christmas Carol, so this must have literary
significance! In fact you should not make too much of the
Dickens connection for many Dickens characters have become
part of the regular usage of English. ‘Scrooge-like’ means
miserly and unfriendly, and specifically, hating Christmas.
Petunia may know the original story but she may not.
70 the electricity thingies — ‘thingies’ is a word to use when
you
don t know the real word — like ‘whatsitsname’ and
‘thingammyjig’ - It is most often used by P e 0 P le like
'
Ara b e 11 a —
‘
upper Huddle-class women.
70 builders. . . were expensive and lazy — This
reputation applies
to British builders Polish builders like Zbi '
_
'
gm ew are much
admired for the opposite qualities.
.
Gresham ’s law — the economic law that had
(7)0,E money drives
11 good money. In this case it is used as an analogy.
‘7V1hHis first job in London 7 Zbigniew came to Britain in 2004
en the Poles who had by then joined the EU were given the
49
right to free movement of labour. They lived in a poor country
by EU standards but many of them had excellent technical and
craft skills. The British government expected about 140000
Poles to come to Britain but in fact about 800000 did so in the
first year or so of their opportunity to work elsewhere. This was
a huge number of people to absorb, but the Poles were notable
for going everywhere wities, small towns, even villages. Many
of them became very popular because they were good, efficient,
reliable builders, electricians and plumbers. Arabella’s
enthusiasm for ‘Bogdan’ is typical.
72 a two-bedroom flat 7English flats are not measured in the
same way as Russian flats. Most flats have not been built as flats
but have been created out of what were once individual larger
homes so they may have a strange shape. Zbigniew’s flat will
have a kitchen and a bathroom/toilet. The kitchen will probably
be separate from the living room which may also be where they
all eat, Two of the Polish men will sleep in one bedroom, two in
another and two in the living room.
79 which was odds-an to be cold — ‘odds—on’ is taken from
gambling. It is an idiom meaning ‘more probable than not that
this will happen’.
81 The assistant was a middle-class bay trying to be a Streetwise
working—class kid — Many boys from comfortable but boring
homes who want to be tough or ‘streetwise’ or excited by mild
criminality try to suggest that they have working-class origins.
Smitty, whose family come into the story, was once one of these
fantasists.
82 Nada, sweet FA 7 Absolutely nothing.
83 living large and caning it 7 two separate idioms: to live an
indulgent life style; to consume large amounts of drugs.
50
87 pancey 7 (colloquial); in this case ‘posh, too smart,
ridiculously expensive’.
'87 she would have subjected him to Abu-Ghraib—style
interrogation 7 an example of how a recent horrific event has
been subsumed into popular culture and can now be used
comically. Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was the prison to which
Iraqis were sent who had been captured by American troops
during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. There Iraqi prisoners
suffered torture, sodomy and murder — abuses which were
revealed by Amnesty International, and were then condemned
throughout the world, including in the USA itself.
Smitty uses this example of cruel interrogation to remind
himself of the searching questions which his mother asks. By
2007 it is culturally acceptable, at least for Smitty, to use this
analogy comically.
88 I've gone back to English Bren/fast — a kind of tea which
Petunia now prefers.
94 a debenture to a London ‘cauntry club' — a debenture in
sport IS a individual loan to an organisation (for example a
football club) where the individual invests money and has the
right to attend matches or use facilities. Many football clubs
encourage their fans to buy debentures in order to cover their
own costs. The investor’s money will be returned to him at the
end of a fixed period. Although those who buy debentures are
3:11:11 investors,
in this way they become part-omers of the
(1:; country club’ is a privately owned club (through
entures), often With a closed membership, that offers
recreational sports and facilities for dining and entertaining.
Typical athletic offeiings are golf, tennis,
'
and SW1'mim “g" It does
I
not have to be in the countryside!
95 Co
SpOrtsTveS
_ a Seaport on the 1515
.
0fW1ght, the centre of boating
51
108 a Ryanair flight for 99p plus tax — Ryanair is a low cost
airline which operates in a way which allows it to reduce fares
substantially. 99p is of course absurdly cheap but Ryanair has
special offers and attracts full flights because of a few such
extremely low fares. (Service is non-existent, luggage is charged
for, queues are long — but for Piotr and millions more the
tickets, normally around £40 so still very cheap, are worth the
discomfort.)
120 prone to seeing things from the other person 's point of View
— Petunia is perhaps too retiring, too unwilling to explore
beyond Pepys Road. She lacks egoism. But the other side of her
refusal to argue is that she can see the other person’s point of
View. She is tolerant, unlike her husband, and not in a constant
state of irritation. Her virtues used to be thought of as English
virtues. Whether they are still seen as English virtues it is
difficult to say.
123 Brixton Mosque7 Lanchester is describing a mosque which
become notorious because of a few radical terrorists. But as
Shahid thinks, they were only a very few and he does not wish
to turn away from the mosque which is his home.
123 M5 or Special Branch 7 M15 is Britain’s counter-
intelligence service (domestic spies) and Special Branch is those
units of the British police force which are responsible for
national security.
125 the Holy Q 'uran — the holy book of Muslims,
125 to be minted7 to be very rich.
pudginess 7 (colloquial) flabbiness, fat. Giving up smoking
125
often leads to weight gain and to irritable gestures and
restlessness.
129 BSc MSc 7 Bachelor of Science, Master of Science
52
130 Mandingo 7 Mandingo was a film made in 1975 about
slavery in the southern states of America. Terrible things happen
to the black men and women in the film, but the heroes are still
white men. To have this version of American slavery to
celebrate the abilities and activities of Africans from Africa
seems to Quentina to be a bitter joke.
131 Quentina's situation was this. — Lanchester does not give a
full explanation at this point. You need to read pages 51-52,
131-133 and 144-147. See also p.205-208.
[There is a full explanation in the Introduction]
131 Harare — capital city of Zimbabwe.
133 a kind of grapevine 7 ‘through the grapevine’ in its
metaphorical sense is now standard, meaning ‘acquiring
information and knowledge through gossip, rumour and the
informal talk of acquaintances’.
133 dodgy paperwork 7 faked or forged documents. In the
next
few lines we learn that Quentina has managed to
get fake ID
papers (because she is not legally allowed to work) and has also
managed to get a job, partly on the basis of those papers. It is
clear that Control Service is ‘dodgy’ enough, itself. Quentina is
obliged to work in the semi-criminal part of the
economy.
134 ‘If you are
lukewarm I
will spit you out of my mouth’ —
These are words put into the mouth of God
by the writer of
Revelation, the last book of the Bible. God is
saying that he
wants enthusiastic and committed believers, and because
so
many are lukewarm, they will be rejected.
135 he made
a huge deal of his washing and grooming in the
morning 7 There is nothing significant in the description
.
following th ese words except that it tells
about the kind
' us about Roger and
of care which affluent men can afford. We know
that RogeI is no macho man
[see Chapter 15] — no tough, heavy,
53
 the
sportsman. He is easy-going, self-indulgent and interested in
impression he gives. So Lanchester lets us into the secrets of his
bathroom rituals on important days. He feels prepared for his
million pound bonus as he marches into the room. The effect is
intended to be comic but not cruel. For Roger himself it feels
very cruel.
136 the compensation committee — See note to p.16.
136 he did deadpan for a living ‘deadpan’ means having a
—
completely expressionless face. Some famous comic film actors
achieved much of their humour through a deadpan expression.
Max apparently is successful in his job by not giving anything
clues about his feelings to the person he is interviewing.
139 whoop—de-flipping—doo — This odd phrase is simply
expressing a feeling. The feeling is ‘it ought to have been
wonderful, great, but it is not at all great, in fact it is awful.’ The
tone is mockery or self-mockery.
142 on the prowl for a satnav to steal 7 ‘satnav’ means satellite
navigator, and has become the standard word.
143 the Afi'ican Anglican Church the Anglican Church
— They want to prepare for their deaths, to think about their
includes the Church of England and many other Church
organisations in other countries which are affiliated with it
theologically. There are however differences: the African
churches have much livelier singing and dancing and sermons
which appeal to the African congregations. Many Church of
England churches in London are virtually empty, so they have
been passed on to other Anglican groups within the city.
145 the Mugabe government’s AIDS policy — AIDS is CHI/Ill.
Mugabe’s government refused to accept that this was a disease
which needed treatment rather than a kind of curse which would
vanish if nothing was done about it. (To be fair, such reactions
were the responses of many countries when AIDS first
54
appeared, but as more and more evidence appeared about the
ways in which the disease was transmitted and the increasingly
effective treatments for dealing with it, governments changed
their policies.) Mugabe ignored the evidence for years A and
Zimbabweans suffered accordingly. Today (2016) Mugabe is
still in power, aged 92. His government is now trying to prevent
AIDS with the help of international funds, but without much
enthusiasm. 15% of the population are living with the disease.
146 Zanu—PF 7 the ruling party in Zimbabwe. (For more
information about Quentina see the introduction.)
154 Boxing Day — the day after Christmas Day.
177—8 Her consultant had told her so. — Fifty years ago many
doctors would have hesitated to tell their patients about their
imminent death. They might tell the relations, and the relations
would think that the patient did not know ~ but very often the
patient did know (or guess) and yet each side had to keep silent
in order to protect the other side. That was obviously sad and
deceptive, and not the best way of facing death.
There have been many debates about what patients should be
told. It seems that most patients, though not all, want to be told.
deaths. They want control of their own lives.
In Petunia’s case, if she has a large brain tumour, there is no
hope of a cure. .But the doctor does have a duty to offer
:hemotherapy which may prolong her life for a few months. She
as to make a demsron whether to have the treatment, and she
cannot do that unless she knows the diagnosis. It is never to
tell someone that they are going to die easy
soon and it is
Icinitierstandable that the doctor is awkward. Petunia however
in her own mind for not taking her seriously. He
tmsesfhlm 0 her as a dear old lady who will
is
not understand the
But she does know What she wants and what she does
Willis. not
55
 In Russia it seems that patients are often not told what is
happening to them. We had that debate several decades ago, and
decided against deception, however kindly it is meant. In any
case, with the internet, people can find out plenty about their
own disease.
179 She was sent home to die. 7 The vast majority of people in
Britain express a preference for dying in their own homes. This
cannot always be managed, but many efforts are made to allow
patients their final wish. In Petunia’s case she has a daughter
who will look after her so she is sent home.
183 Five years out of university, on the graduate fast track up
through the ranks — In Britain there is an ‘accelerated—
promotion’ scheme for bright university graduates. All police
recruits have to spend some time ‘on the beat’, doing basic local
police work. Many will never advance beyond this, especially if
they enter the police force straight from school and have little
education apart from their actual training. The government
wanted to attract highly-educatedpeople into the police force, so
it set up this ‘accelerated-promotion scheme’ in which
university recruits do not have to spend much time on the heat
but are rapidly promoted to more responsible positions.
Inspector Mill and Superintendant Wilson are both beneficiaries
of this scheme. Inevitably there is some tension between them
and ordinary constables (the lowest rank) like Constable Dawks
who will not get much higher throughout their working life.
For example, Mill’s colleagues are suspicious of him, because
he has a different education and outlook from most of them. He
might start ‘getting ideas’ rather than following the rule book,
Whereas Dawks feels safe because there is a rulebook which he
does not have to question.
188 Mary Mary quite contrary — a popular nursery rhyme about
a little girl who disagrees with everything that other little girls
do.
56
192 Mddle—class mediocrity Lanchester is interested in
—
Mark’s view of the world. He is not ‘agreeing’ with it any more
than he is ‘agreeing’ With any 0f the Other opinions about life
voiced by the different characters. Mark is animated by hate and
contempt. He is ambitious and he looks around at his parents
and their fiiends and feels that they do nothing, behave vulgarly,
care about nothing. Mark considers that he is much better than
them, and he should be doing very brilliantly in the City.
Unfortunately he has an average/mediocre/banal boss, Roger
Yount. [See the next note.]
193 There was a panic of emptiness inside him, a too—weak
sense of who he actually was — This is a good example of
Lanchester’s sympathetic analysis of not—very-likeable people.
His psychological concepts are not, perhaps, familiar to
Russians. [For more explanation, see the Introduction on
Psychological Insight]
193 His father had gone broke in the Tory recession of the early
nmeties — ‘Broke’ means ‘bankrupt’. This recession started
when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, but became most
serious in 1991-2 when John Major was Prime Minister. In such
tunes of economic crisis inevitably some people fail in their
busmesses or lose the money which secured their position. Mark
does not come from a poor family, but his
parents lack
confidence, 110 doubt partly because of what ll appened to th €111
197 Instead of
dating things from the hegira — Muslims consider
that year one of their religious calendar is the date of the great
Eigration of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers from
ecca to Yathrib. Thls migration is the hegira.
(622CE)
199 jihad
as readers Will know, this key term has been
—
gzimrelted both as ‘the religious duty of Muslims to uphold
ore iglon and by some violent groups as ‘a religious order
to g out and destroy
anyone who does not agree with them,
57
including other Muslims’. Shahid is uncomfortable because he
thinks that he may know one of the second type of jihadi.
205 including a house manager who was a paid employee of the
charity 7 It may surprise readers that charities have employees.
Small charities are run entirely be volunteers and rely entirely
on volunteer help and contributions. But large charities cannot
do their work without employees. For example OXFAM, a
charity devoted to international aid and development (wells for
African villages, education for women, help in times of crisis)
could not possibly operate without paying people to spend
months and years out in developing countries. There are also
many volunteers but they need training and support if they are
going to be effective. There is much debate over how much
employees of a charity should be paid, and how they can
effectively work with their ‘clients’ and with volunteers.
In this case it is easier to decide what to do. The Refuge
charity has raised money to provide accommodation for people
like Quentina. Most of them are bewildered and suffering, many
are on the edge of mental breakdown. It is impossible to put
these women together without someone who knows London and
understands the situation to manage the house. Martin, the house
manager, typically would receive free accommodation and a
small wage in exchange for responsibility, care and advice
including the weekly house meetings. Martin may have another
job which can pay him adequately.
206 the Human Rights Act. — In Britain the Human Rights Act of
1998 lists the rights which all people have, irrespective of their
individual situation. These include the right to life, the right to a
fair trial and the right not to be deported to a country where you
may suffer torture or death. This is why the Sudanese woman
cannot be deported.
The British Human Rights Act (or law) is a version of the
European Convention on Human Rights which is an
international treaty signed originally in 1950. All European
countries including Russia have signed it. The only exception is
58
Belarus. Since Russia is a signatory, you should study this
Convention. All European citizens have the right to appeal to
the European Court of Human Rights which has an international
group of judges. The Court was set up to ensure that signatory
countries did actually keep to the rules. In general, they do. Both
Britain and Russia have been found in breach of the rules from
time to time, and in Such cases they are obliged to reverse their
policies. Most countries have incorporated the general principles
into their own constitutions, so an individual who thinks his
human rights have been violated has to appeal to his
own
country’s legal system first.
The European Convention differs (for example) from ideas
of
human rights in the United States of America where it is
still
legal for the state to execute people.
205? Fukienese ~Fukien or Fujian is a province
of south-east
China. People who wish to escape conditions or harsh treatment
in their part of China will sometimes risk their
lives to travel
across the world to a safer place. This woman is the only
surv1vor of a journey in the back of a lorry.
210 her Ruritanian...uniform In 1894
~ Anthony Hope wrote an
entertalnmg and very popular novel called The
Prisoner of
Zenaa. _It was set in a fictional East European
Runtama and told of a plot to assassinate counn'y called
the King. The English
hero comes to the rescue. Many of the characters
Runtaman army and wear elaborate are in the
uniforms. ‘Run'tania’ has
come to mean an imaginary exotic European
exciting events occur in exotic clothes. Quentinacountry where
Runtanra—type uniform but her life may have a
and work are very dull.
etmployees and those workers employed by its
:llllztifcoilttsra
Control Servrces’ are
public 13:00? treated properly by the
pe who are abusrve, racist, threatening the staff
shouldb 6 pumshed.
So Quentina has learnt
to write down such
59
details. She will probably hesitate to show them to an official
because of her own illegal status, but if she keeps a record she
may be able to use it to show what she has endured.
Many people who are not normally rude do abuse traffic
wardens who are always unpopular because of their job. They
are seen as ‘spies’ for officialdom. Quentina is a black woman,
so some of the anger directed against her is racist, but had she
been a white woman she would have endured foul language,
spitting, even physical abuse. Male traffic wardens can receive
even worse treatment. The shouting is not really about race but
it is deeply upsetting, especially since even normally polite and
helpful people can lose their tempers with traffic wardens. (Not
all, of course. Many people are always polite.)
As Quentina reflects, people like this woman have all this
anger about nothing; they are so comfortable and safe and
fortunate as compared to most people in the world, but they still
get irritated when their car or their purse is threatened.
225 Smitty had an economics GCSE — GCSE is the national
school examination taken at age 16. Students take the exam in
anything between 5 and 12 subjects.
225 London tap water 7 This means London tap water. Among
the very rich it can suddenly be quite fashionable to drink
ordinary water from the tap provided that it is first poured into a
special bottle labelled London Tap. (All tap water in Britain is
safe to drink; it may not taste very nice but it is not harmful.)
258 says Met chief 7 the Head of the Metropolitan Police, the
police who serve in London. London has a separate independent
police force for the capital.
260 any A&E unit on a Saturday night - A&E means the
‘Accident and Emergency’ departments at a hospital.Patients are
brought in by ambulance as medical emergencies, but people
can also just arrive if they have suffered an accident such as a
broken arm or a serious wound. Consequently on Saturday
60
nights A&E departments are always crowded by noisy, angry
confused individuals who have drunk too much alcohol and got
into fights.
262 Smitty was no Luddite — The Luddites were farm labourers
who protested against the introduction of farm machinery two
hundred years ago because it destroyed their jobs. ‘Luddite’ has
come to mean someone who distrusts new technology, (even if
there are no good political reasons for distrusting it, as in the
original case).
267 P45 — This is the form which an employer gives an
employee when he leaves. It contains details of his tax
payments. Another part of the form is sent to the Tax Revenue
officials, and when the employee gets a new job he gives part of
the P45 form to his new employer to record how much money
has been taxed, Everyone has a tax record so that they know
how much tax has been paid and can challenge any decision
which they think is a mistake.
275 Mickey was fine to drive, he had his three units of alcohol
at most — Mickey is deceiving himself. The legal limit for
alcohol in the blood while driving is 80 micrograms of alcohol
per 100 millilitres of blood. It’s difficult to test exactly, but half
a litre of beer is almost certainly too much.
29p Buzz Lightyear ~ a cartoon character in a children’s
ammated film, Toy Story.
290 she always seemed to find inexhaustibly funny: she said
You came. ‘ — No doubt there is film
a with this line, but even if
we do not know the film, English readers will understand the
phun.
You came’ in a romantic comedy could
ough there rs a storm and a difficult
mean ‘Even
route, you loved me so
much that you managed to reach
me. You came!’ The
altematlve meaning of ‘to come’ is ‘to have
a sexual orgasm’. A
61
man might say to his sexual partner, ‘Did you come?’ or, if he is
sure of the answer, ‘You came!’
308 go and see that old bint‘s tumpsy 7 This is very vulgar and
obscene, just like the carving they are going to see. On some
churches in England you can see mediaeval carvings of sexual
activities. A popular one is of a female figure displaying her
‘the old woman’s
open genitals. ‘The old bint’s tumpsy’ means
genitals’.
320-1 Quote in the high singlefigures. . .Quote in the low teens
7 Zbigniew will have to give Mary 21 ‘quote’ or a ‘quotation’
which means an estimate of how much the job will cost her. She
can then ask another builder for a quote, and compare the prices.
A quote is not legally binding; if, for example, the builder finds
that some wooden beams are rotten, which he could not have
known about before starting the job, he can renegotiate the
price. Usually a quote will be close to the final price.
For this work Zbigniew is thinking in thousands of pounds.
Single figures means ‘less than £10000, since 9 is a single
figures, and 10 is ‘double figures’. ‘Low teens’ is perhaps
£11000, perhaps £12000. Then, as she adds work he increases in
his own mind the quotation he will give her until it is in the
‘middle teens’ 7 something like £15500.
321 a loft which had not been converted — see the Introduction:
Inside the Houses.
337 (Matya) was in a receptive mood 7 Some readers may think
that inviting Matya as a guest to the charity dinner is strange.
This is a misunderstanding of the Younts. Roger is perfectly
comfortable with himself; he does not have to worry about
making the right impression because he does make the right
impression. So if Arabella is ready to accept the idea, he is more
than happy to take Matya. Arabella is lazy and amiable. Matya
likes the idea of being a woman of mystery. It does not occur to
her that she might be taken for an escort (a high-class
62
prostitute). Roger’s social self-confidence can be contrasted
with Mark’s social unease. Mark would never have taken Matya
such dinner, because he would worry about the effect on
to a
others.
353 It's a bit obsessive. bit 0CD 7 0CD is Obsessive-
A tiny
Compulsive Disorder, a mental disorder where people cannot
avoid repeating the same actions and routines.
355 Bell-end {Usually spelt bellend so this is a misprim) — As
vulgar slang this means the head of the penis; but as an insult it
means a useless, contemptible person.
355 plonker 7 this is not so vulgar as bellend; it means someone
who is not very clever, a bit silly and useless
357 yet another surprise — a young woman — The Church of
England (the state church for the English) admitted women to
the priesthood in 1994. They are still in a minority although
woman priests are quite common. But Mary is not a churchgoer,
and she is unused to developments in the church. Since many
women priests do not wear special clothes such as the dog-collar
when they are not in church, they are not easy to identify. Only
a small nnnority of English people go to church, so the majority
probably do not care one way or the other about women priests.
Within the church community they are now, after more than 20
years, widely accepted. Those who ob'JeCt are dymg
'
cm or have
changed their minds.
It must be 'a Polish thing, she thought. Maybe they like
2460
Mnerals. 7 This is an example of the humorous tone of the book.
trying to generahse about Poles, whereas we know that
Zhairy is
igniew has turned up because of that strange, almost
transcendental moment when he understood death
in Petunia,S
.
bedroom
63
365 a skip r a skip is a large metal container which is parked
outside a house so that builder’s rubbish can be collected in it.
You have to have permission to keep a skip on the road (and pay
for it).
374 G.andT. — Gin and Tonic.
375 the Chief Superintendent spoke in broad Cockney, the
Detective Inspector was impeccably middle-class, verging an
outright posh — This is the kind of statement about accents that
leaves Russians longing to know more. ‘What are the features of
this accent? Can I practice it?’ But Lanchester is appealing to
the Englishman’s instinct for accent and class. We know exactly
what he means, although the actual features of the accent may
vary considerably according to age and to the origins of the
speaker. You will have to accept that this is an English mystery
that cannot be fathomed by outsiders.
384 The Belgian had more front than Selfi'idges —Shahid is an
intelligent young man whose thoughts are witty and
metaphorical; his style at this point is close to Lanchester’s own.
‘Front’ is a pun. When referring to a person in this context it
means ‘impudent, cheeky, lacking shame’. When referring to
Selfiidges, a big department store in London it means ‘a long
frontage of shop Windows displaying goods’.
385 sheer weight # this phrase has become a cliche. The police
will often explain a traffic problem as ‘the sheer weight of
traffic’ meaning ‘too many cars’. Of course they are not
weighing the cars; it is a cliche. Ahmed starts thinking about the
phrase which seems to mean ‘a problem, an obstacle’. By
thinking about it like this he gives life to the cliche.
384 Elvis had left the building! The fat lady had sung! Mandela
had been freed! # These are three catchphrases which, put
together, sound ridiculous and funny. ‘Elvis has left the
building’ was first used by someone managing an Elvis Presley
64
concert in order to disperse the crowd. ‘It ain’t over till the fat
lady sings’ refers to the final tragic arias which Operatic
heroines, many of whom were notably large, had to sing So
.young audiences were warned not leave until ‘the fat lady
sings’. Nelson Mandela was in prison for twenty seven years
before being triumphantly freed. Put together, the three phrases
express Shahid’s delight at being free of IqbaL
398 WA encryption 7 Wif—Fi Protected Access.
398 The bombings of 7/7 — On 7th July 2005 three young British
Muslim men detonated bombs on the London underground and
a fourth terrorist detonated his bomb on a bus. 52 victims were
killed, and more than 700 were wounded. The victims were
Londoners, British visitors, foreign tourists and workers. The
first victim to be buried was a young Muslim woman from
London who was about to be married. The men had contacts
with Al—Quaeda.
408 two guns were painted straight at his face — The police do
not usually burst into houses with guns but it does happen
sometlmes if they fear violent terrorists. The whole of this
episode needs to be read in order to understand what is
happening to Shahid and why. [For more discussion on the legal
posrtron see the Introduction]
414 gouda and prosciutto and rocket on ciabatta ~ fillings in
saudwrches. are becoming more elaborate and ingenious. Being
expensrve is part of the point. Gouda is a Dutch cheese
Prosciutto rs cured dried Italian ham, rocket is the leaves of a
specral kind of lettuce and ciabatta is a sofiish Italian bread.
433 Semtex ~ a very effective and dangerous
explosive, usually
used for the demolition of buildings in commercial
activities,
but often sought by violent criminals for
blowing up planes
boats, buildings, etc.
65
447 Then, fess up — Then confess. Mark’s plan is to make a lot
of money for the bank, secretly, and then confess and be
recognised as a brilliant banker. (Real people have tried this
scheme for success — but not always successfully.)
450 the Channel Tunnel — the railway tunnel which goes under
the English Channel for 50 kilometres, linking England and
France.
457 Iqbal Rashid had been a person of interest to the security
services for some time. — For further explanations to this chapter
see the introduction on British security.
463 ‘Polish men — very unromantic’ 7 Matya is Hungarian and
talks to other Hungarian women. Her View of Poles may or may
not be a stereotype. How would the ordinary English person
know?
466 ‘What are you talking about?‘ said Roger — It is unfair on
Roger to be sacked for not knowing what Mark was doing. But
from another point of view it is not unfair. Roger is being paid
huge sums because he is making money for the company. That
is the only reason. So when his department starts losing money,
he should be thrown out. In this financial world there is no
appeal.
467 Roger wanted to say something about the Falklands 7 This
is not obvious to English readers unless we read carefully. The
Falklands war took place in 1982 between the UK and
Argentina in a dispute over the ownership of the Falklands
Islands in the south Atlantic. The British won the war. Roger is
looking at Eva.
who is an Argentinean and who is (he thinks) humiliating him.
So he wants to retaliate (but sensibly keeps silent).
66
474 sod this for a game of soldiers — a soldier’s idiom meaning
‘We won’t put up with this, this is a waste of time’. It is
colourful and vulgar.
486 CaIpoI ~ a medicine for small children made from
paracetamol.
489 Zero. Zilch. Nada. The big egg. Zip. Sweet FA — These are
all expressions meaning ‘Nothing’.
509 The implosion of Lehman Brothers — On 15th September
2008 Lehman Brothers, a major financial services firm, filed for
bankruptcy in the New York court. It had 639 billion dollars in
assets but it was 619 billion dollars in debt, with the debts going
completely out of control. This was the biggest step in the world
financial crisis: if Lehman Brothers could go bankrupt, no bank
or financial institution was safe because they all depended on
each other’s gambles with financial futures. The money they
held was not based on things but on changes in debts and
doubtful repayments.
Roger’s bank was one of thousands which collapsed —
completely. It has taken years to climb out of this mess, and we
are still doing it. John Lanchester was a regular commentator on
what was happening. In 2010 he published a book called
lf’hoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay
( Whoops’ IS what the English say when someone falls over
or
nearly falls over. It can range from s ympath y to warmn g to'
cheerful laughter at a victim.)
513 None of this rabbish about moving to Ludlow to make
Widgets — A Widget IS a colloquial word for some small device
or component that could be useful technologically. Rather
unprobably, Roger seems to have been dreaming not
only about
a life in the country, but about
setting up a small workshop in a
galefiiarket town (Ludlow) to manufacture a useful invention.
hlm to find another City (financial
alwants
with a sa ary of several hundred services) job
thousand pounds a year.
532 he was in some sense, like her, servant-class — This is an — For an explanation see the
intriguing and surprising thought for Matya. The Younts have 567 volunteer for deportation
paid servants, though not live-in servants. Zbigniew is a self- section on Quentina in the Introduction.
employed builder; Matya is a nanny for small children who gets .572 As things stood, the kid was guilty but probably wouldn’t go
her jobs through an agency. Neither of them is what we would
call a servant. to jail. # Om" final glimpse of D1 Mills is of him grappling with
the difference between legal justice and human justice. Parker is
However, Matya is considering Zbigniew as a possible
husband and remembering her dreams of a ‘rich man’ whom she being interviewed in his own flat and does not have a lawyer. If
he had asked for one, he would have been taken to the police
had imagined as a rich Englishman who would not have to
station and detained there while a lawyer was found. But Parker
work. She was living in a fantasy and now her fantasy is giving
does not know this.)
way to reality. She and Zbigniew work hard; they offer their
skills and expertise to people who will pay them. Those people
sometimes treat them with indifference or contempt so she
thinks that such jobs can be humiliating. You have to learn to
ignore such behaviour — or walk away. The point is that Matya
is rethinking her ideas about money and work and attitude and
values. Zbigniew will teach her to think even more
independently.

r
548 they thought the whole issue was moot the question about
Freddy’s knee was debatable, unresolved. (This is a slightly odd
use of the legal term.) The insurance company doubt whether
Freddie will ever play football again so although they are
arguing on the basis that he might become again a brilliant
footballer, they do not really believe it will happen.

557 You could probably slap an ASBO on them # Anti—Social

Behaviour Order. This is one of the methods for trying to
control teenagers and (occasionally) older people who keep
behaving in ways which trouble their neighbours. Individual
acts are not serious enough to send them to prison; the ASBOs
are intended to act as a threat: ‘If you go on behaving like this
you do risk going to prison, so do not break the rules of this
ASBO.’ They have not been found to be very effective.

562 vegan 7 someone who does not eat meat, fish or eggs or
dairy products. This is much stricter than being a vegetarian.

68 69
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