Walter Greenwood (1903–1974)
Autor de Love on the Dole
Sobre El Autor
Obras de Walter Greenwood
Down by the sea 1 copia
Obras relacionadas
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Nombre canónico
- Greenwood, Walter
- Otros nombres
- GREENWOOD, Walter
- Fecha de nacimiento
- 1903-12-17
- Fecha de fallecimiento
- 1974-09-13
- Género
- male
- Nacionalidad
- UK
- Lugares de residencia
- Salford, Lancashire, England, UK (birth)
London, England, UK
Polperro, Cornwall, England, UK
Douglas, Isle of Man (death) - Ocupaciones
- film producer (Greenpark Productions Ltd)
- Organizaciones
- Labour Party
Royal Army Service Corps
Miembros
Reseñas
Listas
Premios
También Puede Gustarte
Autores relacionados
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 12
- También por
- 2
- Miembros
- 382
- Popularidad
- #63,245
- Valoración
- 3.7
- Reseñas
- 9
- ISBNs
- 16
- Favorito
- 2
I'm a native of Salford; I can attest that this book rings true. The places, the mentality of some of the people, the rain ("does nowt else i' this hole" (pg. 16)) and the thick accent (even if Greenwood's use of dialect does go a bit overboard at times). The story has the air of an early kitchen-sink drama, and though this isn't something that usually appeals to me, it is done well here. The characters are vivid and they mesh well; the book takes a while to get going, but it rewards perseverance. Even the political character, Larry Meath, doesn't become an authorial mouthpiece; refreshingly, his message is communicated more by the effects of the plot upon him than by any didactic speechifying. Greenwood's novel is literary and sincere, rather than over-earnest and bolshie, which is perhaps why it retains its power.
It might seem strange that I offer myself as a guarantor of the book's authenticity, considering it takes place nearly ninety years ago. Surely Salford has changed significantly? Well, as someone who is not only a native and resident of Salford but someone currently unemployed, I have to say: unfortunately, it hasn't. Hanky Park may be gone – and the coal, too – but the circumstances and lack of opportunities are, for many people, much the same. Love on the Dole proved even more uncomfortable and resonant than I expected. Not only does Greenwood accurately convey the sheer, mind-warping hopelessness and abjectness of long-term unemployment (I find it impossible to choose between examples because so many lines ring true, even ninety years later), but it is unnerving how accurately he pins down the fool-proof methods used to exploit people who are in this situation through no fault of their own. Everything Greenwood's characters do has the air of "temporary relief at the expense of further entanglement" (pg. 24); "you gave a week of your life, every week, so that you might have a hovel for shelter, an insufficiency of food and five bob left over for to clothe yourself" (pg. 150).
Of course, the standard of living has increased since 1933; though unemployed, I'm writing this on a computer, can clothe myself, eat decent food, and so on. The dole is still there as an option and it's slightly more reliable than the dreaded 'Means Test' that is imposed by the government on Greenwood's characters, but it's still a humiliating trap; "what the hell use was there in discussing homes, marriage? It was nauseating in its mockery" (pg. 176). It's still the case that if you do cobble some work together and you try to make rent, after a while you've paid the cost of building a house many times over (pg. 12). There are no coal piles or slums anymore, of course, though there are streets they don't put on the brochure. When I say much has remained the same, I'm referring instead to the general mechanisms of the society, that make you feel as though you are refuse passing through a waste system; a by-product of someone else's money-maker; something that is to be disposed of, rather than candidates in a (scoff) meritocracy. When Harry, one of Greenwood's protagonists, gets trained up for no reason other than that he was there (pg. 47), I thought of the degree mills I was thoughtlessly hustled through in the present day; when he is sacked after he finishes his apprenticeship because the company doesn't want to pay engineers when they can just train more apprentices (pp91, 154), I thought of the top-down push for apprenticeships advocated by businesses nowadays. (It's arguably exploited even more now, as apprentice wages are subsidised by the government.) Life might have become less near the bone, but it's no less real, and no less hopeless if you happen to be born in the wrong place. Then, as now, getting a job depends on connections; you've got "a cat in hell's chance" if you've got no one to speak for you (pg. 232).
Salford is an area that has always been in flux. Its people have always been experimented on; from the Industrial Revolution which used them as economic batteries, through the years of the 'Means Test' and pauperdom and post-industrial hangover, to the reckless New Labour experiment of degree inflation and economic speculation, the cost of which was borne by my own generation. (To complete the bare-arsed cheek of it, Tony Blair's son is the one now profiting off this degradation by spearheading a lucrative new apprenticeship program.) The town is now known largely for the top-down MediaCity experiment; the regenerated quayside that, in Greenwood's time, brought the "melancholy hoot of a ship's siren… from the Salford Docks" (pg. 13 – there are no ships anymore.) The area looks nice now, but it's textbook gentrification; the native Salfordians are being shunted away rather than having their lives improved. A dispiriting lesson from Greenwood's book is that nothing changes, even if some of the landscape and the place names change.
What, then, was the value in reading Love on the Dole? It was a thoroughly depressing read, and was designed to be so. It communicates the hollow horror of unemployment and disenfranchisement uncomfortably well, but those in that situation don't need it reflected back at them and those that aren't don't care anymore, if they ever did. Greenwood's book was a bestseller in its time, as people were horrified at the conditions and the helplessness so many people lived in; I believe if you wrote a similarly-intentioned work nowadays it wouldn't even get published, considering the gatekeepers of the publishing industry, and if it did it wouldn't make a mark. For all the copies it sold, Greenwood's book didn't change anything either.
So why did I like the book? Partly it's because of the opportunity to vent, and to have my frustrations validated and reflected back at me, even if the enormity of them – and their historical permanence – can become imposing. Partly it's because this is a good book; the writing may be a bit too busy for my own personal tastes, but it's more than capable and it brings out its characters well. Partly I enjoyed the novelty of reading about places I know but as they were in an earlier time, a time when the area was "the Two Cities", Salford and Manchester (pg. 11), rather than Salford being seen as a maligned supplicant to the city of Manchester. (Not many people know this, but in the pre-Industrial days, the county now known as Greater Manchester was called 'the Hundred of Salford'.) Millionaire's Mile might now only be an old road, but if you look for it the landscape is still recognisable deep underneath. The people here have for generations been trying to overcome their circumstances and break out into open country, however complete the hopelessness of the situation appears both to Greenwood and to us. Maybe the answer as to why they do so is so unfathomable and contradictory as to be beyond the scope of any book.… (más)