Jake is almost obsessed with Hugo as a thinker. Hugo is a rich industrialist and currently the owner of a leading British film studio, whose star actress is Anna’s sister, Sadie. She is six years older than Jake, and has had many other lovers. She is a well-known singer of French chanson. Jake believes Anna is the love of his life. The novel is largely a series of comic set-pieces loosely structured by Jake’s searches for two people, Anna Quentin and Hugo Belfounder. Perhaps London is the only British city where this is possible. Jake emphatically does not have a “manor”, or a “circle of friends”. He has friends that he may run into in pubs, particularly in Soho, but he is not invested in local friendships or a local. Jake and Murdoch both step lightly across London.Jake has lived in many parts of the city without becoming rooted anywhere. Jake prefers to live in his friends’ flats because of his ‘shattered nerves’, not because he can’t afford to rent a room. One essential feature aspect of Murdoch’s 1950’s London which strikes the modern reader is that there is no difficulty in finding affordable accommodation, at least for white people without children. Louis-Ferdinand Celine: Guignol's Band I & II John Sommerfield: Trouble in Porter Street Pamela Hansford Johnson: This Bed Thy Centre
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