Is a kind of place where hate and disgust and avarice and malice and sympathy and sorrow and pity all mix up. Is a place where everyone is your enemy and your friend.
In this moment, the narrator is providing a broad picture of London. They mention an entanglement of intense emotions like sadness, hatred, and goodwill to show that it is a place that cannot be reduced to a single, universal sentiment. It is a place that, as the characters discover, is full of many different kinds of people. For the same reason, they remark that "everyone is your enemy and your friend" there, to make it clear that there is a great measure of both kindness and cruelty in the city. This quote works as a strong tagline for the book, as the characters experience moments of communal joy and care, while also suffering the pain of racial prejudice and poverty. Galahad, the most recent arrival to London in the story, both enjoys a night out on the town with a young woman and also is called an insulting name by a white child. For him, and the other characters, London is constantly a source of both happiness and pain.
So, cool as a lord, the old Galahad walking out to the road, with plastic raincoat hanging on the arm, and the eyes not missing one sharp craft that pass, bowing his head in a polite 'Good evening' and not giving a blast if they answer or not. This is London, this is life oh lord, to walk like a king with money in your pocket, not a worry in the world.
Here, the reader sees Galahad all in his glory after a recent payday. He has revamped his wardrobe and feels confident now that he has some money. His gesturing to other people also suggests that he now feels some sense of belonging in the city with the benefit of his recent paycheck. This moment highlights how much of a difference money can make on the temperament of the characters, as the ability to not worry about it lets them enjoy a carefree evening, even if it is fleeting.
But big headlines in the papers every day, and whatever the newspaper and the radio say in this country, that's the people Bible.
This moment occurs early in the book, as a reporter is questioning Moses about life in Jamaica, not knowing that Moses is from Trinidad. Later, the reporter asks Tolroy's sister Tanty some questions and requests a photograph. This quote deals with the fact that people believe almost everything they read and, as a result, end up feeling angry about whatever the headlines of the day are. In this case, this refers to how lately white British people have been upset about the recent influx of immigrants from the West Indies. Selvon is sadly taking note of the fact that a great deal of anti-immigrant sentiment is stirred up by the British papers.
It have people living in London who don't know what happening in the room next to them, far more the street, or how other people living. London is a place like that. It divide up in little worlds, and you stay in the world you belong to and you don't know anything about what happening in the other ones except what you read in the papers.
Here, the narrator remarks that London is made up of "little worlds." They talk about the way that people there live in extremely close proximity to one another but have no real idea about what their lives are like. Once again, Selvon seems to refer to the fact that the characters he is writing about would likely remain unnoticed by white Londoners, as they live in a different part of the city and are part of a culture that they do not understand. In writing this book, Selvon attempts to bridge that gap and provide access to the "little world" inhabited by people like Moses and himself.
Moses sigh a long sigh like a man who live life and see nothing at all in it and who frighten as the years go by what it is all about.
This quote comes at the conclusion of the lengthy stream-of-consciousness section towards the book's end. The passage depicts summer in London, as Moses and his friends engage in various love affairs and spend time in Hyde Park. The narrator describes Moses's sigh as that of a man who is frightened by the way that "years go by," as he enjoys summers like this one but knows that their passage means the end of yet another year. It makes him wonder if all of the trials he has endured alongside friends like Galahad are worth these passing moments of joy.
In this country, people prefer to see man starve than a cat or dog want something to eat.
This moment comes as Galahad hunts for pigeons, much to the dismay of one of his neighbors. The narrator notes that they live in a country in which people are less upset about the starvation of people than that of pets like dogs and cats. This observation, while humorous, is also disturbing. It shows that, in the view of the narrator, white Londoners care more about animals than they do about Black people. For this reason, Galahad's neighbor is more upset about him hunting the pigeon than they are about the possibility of him starving.
"Nobody in London does really accept you. They tolerate you, yes, but you can't go in their house and eat or sit down and talk."
This quote is said by Moses while he is talking to Galahad at dinner. He is referencing the fact that white people in London will "tolerate" Black people but never actually welcome them into their homes or have any kind of real social relationship with them. He describes the way in which they will conduct transactions with them, but ultimately want to have their social worlds remain entirely separate. It is a tragic remark, made fairly casually, as Moses is saying that even after all these years in London, he feels rejected by white society and receives, at best, tolerance from native Londoners.
Sometimes, listening to them, he look in each face, and he feel a great compassion for every one of them, as if he live each of their lives, one by one, and all the strain and stress come to rest on his own shoulders.
In this moment, from the novel's later section, Moses looks around and thinks about how much he cares about his friends. He feels this so strongly that he is actually taking on the physical weight of their various struggles and difficulties. He shows the depth of his concerns for them by demonstrating how much he thinks about their individual lives. This also works as a summary of the book itself, as it uses Moses as the central connecting figure between the various characters and their storylines.
It was a summer night: laughter fell softly: it was the sort of night that if you wasn't making love to a woman you feel like you was the only person in the world like that.
This is the final line of the book. It offers a romantic portrait of London in summer, describing the night as one in which everyone would either be with a lover or feeling like everyone else was. For all of the difficulties it presents, London, as painted here, is a place of great beauty. Selvon seems to capture why someone like Moses would continue to stay even after all of these years of struggle.
He watch a tugboat on the Thames, wondering if he could ever write a book like that, what everybody would buy.
This quote comes after Daniel tells Moses that everyone is writing a book these days. He says to Moses that cab drivers and street cleaners are writing critically acclaimed novels now. Moses wonders to himself if he could do this himself. It is a poignant moment in that Moses appears to be a stand-in for Selvon and the book that Selvon ended up writing was not only celebrated but depicted the lives of these very people: factory workers and other working-class individuals. The book that Moses imagined is the one that Selvon himself wrote.
