Places: The Horse’s Mouth

*London. Horse’s Mouth, TheCapital city of the British Empire, whose neighborhoods, landmarks, public houses, and climate provide a constant source of energy for a maverick artist. His friends, admirers, rivals, and passersby represent the rich variety of life in Great Britain just before the war that significantly transformed the city. Other parts of the city are brought into the narrative as Jimson pursues his quest for a place to paint. The wealthy patron Hickson lives in “Portland Place, top end, near the park,” one of the more affluent sections of the city. The Beeders, who are collectors, live in a modern development called Capel Mansions, a relatively tasteful, slightly ostentatious group of town houses that Jimson describes as “fine large new buildings in the playbrick design.” The sculptor’s model Lolie is described as good stock by her husband, who identifies her as being from Bethnal Green. Sara Monday, Jimson’s lifelong, truest love, lives with her common-law husband in Chattfield Buildings, grim, squalid, deteriorating tenements probably built as inexpensive lodgings for the poor. These locations, as well as public houses in Chelsea, Hammersmith, and Belgravia–bohemian quarters near the city’s center–contribute to the ambience of the metropolis and deftly suggest its complexity. A bus tour that Jimson and his admirer Nosy Barbon take provides additional details to deepen the picture.

*River Thames (tehmz). England’s greatest river and London’s connection to the sea. Jimson refers to the river as “the old serpent, symbol of nature and love,” suggesting its timeless allure, as well as its primal power and its capacity for engendering the strongest emotional response. The river’s serpentine course through London is suggestive of Jimson’s peregrinations through the city, and its Greenbank section, near the city’s center, is the location of Jimson’s home. Familiar London landmarks, such as the fabled Tower of London and the London Bridge, are just upriver from Greenbank. What Jimson calls his old studio is actually a deserted boathouse down by the water.

Greenbank. Maps of London list the section that Cary calls “Greenbank” as two words, and while he is clearly using the geographical facts of that site, his adjustment of the name is designed to permit a degree of imaginative alteration. His intention is to draw on fundamental features that his British readers would recognize to highlight his rendition of the neighborhood. Not far from many world-famous tourist spots, Jimson’s Greenbank is a working-class realm, gritty and blunt, where the homeless shelter Elsinore is placed. Cary gives it an Ellam Street address, another invention as there is no Ellam Street in London, and also places his friend Plantie’s cobbler shop there in a basement off Greenbank.