Comment

Nov 24, 2012JimLoter rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
I just read a gaggle of other reviews on here and I've concluded that it is impossible to summarize The Great Stink without making some kind of pun about malodorousness or shit. Nevertheless, I will try. The novel lingers on the putrid conditions both above and below the streets of Victorian London. The text practically drips with toxic sludge and noisome fog. Indeed, the city's sewers - in particular, their ineffectiveness - are the primary setting of the story and container of its many plot points. Two parallel plot lines emerge from the fetid reek of the sewage troughs, collide in insanity and violence, and then become entangled as the actual plot kicks in about 2/3 of the way through. The slow start to the plot is not necessarily a criticism, though I did find the first half a bit slow-going. But Clare Clark does a rather remarkable job describing the city in all its disgusting glory and she crafts fully realized characters who are right at home in the filthy and foul streets, taverns, and catacombs. William May - the sewer engineer with horrific wartime flashbacks and a propensity toward cutting (himself) - is a principled but pathetic man who is too good for the world in which he finds himself. Long Arm Tom, the rat-catcher, is a product of the very miasma that chokes the city - wretched, poor, and desperate. Both men are taken advantage of by cruel characters and must rely on an unlikely savior. The city of London is as much a protagonist as William and Tom, however. It is a city growing out of control with shamefully inadequate infrastructure - both physical and social - to support the basic functions and needs of its citizenry. In the end, the novel is really about the struggle of civilization to tame the basest and most corrupt elements of human nature - our literal and figurative excrement ... both the shit and the shits. Dammit; I said I wasn't going to do that...