"The Riceyman Steps" by Arnold Bennett

I just love Arnold Bennett. He may be deeply unfashionable at present. He may have been rather dismissed by Virginia Woolf as the archetypal 'middlebrow' novelist against whom she and her generation of modernist, highbrow novelists sought to differentiate themselves. His work may now seem dated in so many ways. But I still enjoy reading him hugely.

This is one of his later novels. It was published in 1923 and is set in 1919 just after the first world war has ended. It is set in Clerkenwell and, like all Bennett's best work, it is built around lower middle class characters. In this case the protagonists run a small bookshop. The location, namely the Riceyman Steps, is real. They are still there now and I have walked up and down them. Their real name is the Gwynne Steps and they lead up from the Kings Cross Road to Granville Square.

The shops that once traded at the base of the steps have been demolished and replaced by a large Travelodge hotel, but the location in the book is easy to imagine, while the square (now without the church that stood there in Bennett's time) is otherwise as it was in the 1920s, although significantly gentrified.

This novel is superb at portraying the social milieu of the time in which it is set. The way people lived a hundred years ago was in some ways vastly different from that of today, but the characters are completely recognisable. Arnold Bennett was every inch a realist writer, so there are no villains or heroes, just normal people with aspirations, strengths and flaws.

There are three central characters in the form of a middle aged couple who marry early in the story (Henry and Violet Earlforward) and their live in maid, Elsie. The ups, downs, struggles and consolations of married life are interestingly portrayed, as are those associated with being a domestic servant living in close proximity to a married couple. The other major theme is the destructive nature of a miserly disposition, both on the miser himself and those around him.

I enjoyed the book most of all for its descriptions of London after the Great War. The characters take walks and deliver messages around Clerkenwell and south into the city. The Earlforwards visit Madame Tussauds at one point. We also get an insight into food storage before refrigeration and the way that horses and tramcars co-existed at this time, as did electric light and candles. The cost of healthcare is explored too. It is all so interesting and woven into a pretty compelling little story too. All in all, simply a very enjoyable reading experience.