Who are the castaways?

A lovely little alley way in the Latin Quarter

I have become reflective in my last few weeks in Paris – the art of Bookpacking has begged me to draw new parallels and contrasts between my life and the lives of Hugo’s characters in Les Misérables. We’ve been tracing stories, people, relationships - and naturally, I’ve begun to see myself as part of them. I’ve learned how literature can be part of everything, rather than simply existing in a vacuum. We’re using Les Mis as a portal into a rich vault of history, geography, politics, and philosophy. More than that, we can use a book – like Les Mis – to understand emotions, motivations, and groups as collections of individuals. Hugo’s work – like Dickens – focuses deeply on the power of the individual. When we come across a group like the Friends of the ABC, I think that there is something so powerful in taking a step back and dissecting who these characters are and how we, as individual readers, can relate to their different aspects and values.

In reflecting on all of this, something rather obvious dawned on me. Here we are, a group of sixteen university students, wrapping ourselves in discussions on politics, philosophy, morality, we debate the nature of Hugo’s characters, his beliefs, his motivations; we consider the past and the present and the future and what we can do, as individuals, to inspire change… I can think of another group of university students who debate and challenge beliefs, politics, and the nature of the world: Hugo’s ‘Friends of the ABC.’ And then, I thought to myself that this might be an interesting lead into bookpacking!

ABC is a clever pun on the French word ‘Abaissés’ translating to the abased or degraded. The Friends of the ABC are a group of revolutionary activists. Hugo describes: ‘The friends of the ABC were few in number. It was a secret society in embryo, we would say almost a clique, if cliques culminated in heroes. They met in Paris in two places, near Les Halles in a tavern called the Corinthe… and near the Pantheon in a little cade on Rue st Michel called café Musain, which has now been pulled down.’

Friends of the ABC

What is so striking about them, to me, is their dynamic. Its members juxtapose each other, creating a welcome friction, offering a freedom of debate and intellectual challenge, completely opposing any idea of an echo chamber. They exist in difference. I find that this is not too dissimilar to the group I find myself in now. We all have different backgrounds, different stories, different opinions. We have different understandings and different values and yet and we can come together each day and openly discuss and debate and maybe not always agree – which is what is so amazing to me. Agreeing all the time is boring. Diverging opinions and stark differences are where interesting conversations are born.

Someone in class noted, that each member of the ABC ‘fulfilled a niche’, and I guess that is true. In being so different, they all add a new element, a new aspect of this vibrant, living, breathing being that is the ABC. As they are some of my favorite characters of the novel, please humor me and let me take you through the five main members.

First and foremost, we have our leader: Enjolras who ‘had only one passion: rightfulness. Only one thought: to remove any obstacle to it.’ An intensely dedicated man, Enjolras has the task of inspiring others. He is the focal point of the ABC group, defined by his passionate idealism and belief in the potential for change. He offers a sharp contrast to a character like Marius; while Marius is drawn to the cause due to his love for Cosette, Enjolras demonstrates a profound commitment to the ideals of the revolution. Then, we have Combefrerre; where Enjolras ‘represents the logic of the revolution, Combeferre represents its philosophy.’ I see Combefrerre as the embodiment of humanity and morality in the midst of the revolutionary activity. He is said to believe that the ‘good must be innocent’ and where his friends are excited by the violence of the revolution, Combeferre takes a pragmatic and peaceful approach. Courfeyrac seems to the character who plays the proletariat, having dropped the aristocratic ‘de’ before his surname, Courfeyrac wants to be a man of the people. He is lighthearted, altruistic, and like Enjolras, fiercely committed to the cause. Bahorel is perhaps my favorite of the group, if only because Hugo tells us: ‘he sauntered; to stray is human, to saunter is Parisian.’ And I absolutely loved that!

Finally, we have Grantaire, our token skeptic. Essentially a drunk, he is characterized by his deep cynicism and disillusionment – he offers the other members some push back and skepticism on the revolutionary ideals, raising questions about the viability of what it all represents. To me, he seems impeccably Parisian, tragically romantic, Grantaire sees the world through a lens of despair and while slightly depressing, this adds a beautifully French and poetic beauty to his perspective. I also think he is essential to the group not existing in an echo chamber, they need the rebuttal from him in order to facilitate conversations on the viability of the revolution and thus, be assured in their cause.

In order to bookpack the ABC, I took to the Latin Quarter - a part of Paris I’d barely touched until now. Hugo tells us that the main meeting spot for the group was the Café Musain: ‘The secret meetings of the friends of the ABC were usually held in a back room of Café Musain. This room, quite separate from the cafe itself, with which it was connected by an extremely long corridor had two windows and an exist with a staircase hidden from view leading on to the little rue des Gres.’

Having honed my bookpacking skills, I managed to map this out. Using google maps as well as a 19th Century map of Paris I was able to locate Rue St Michel as the present-day Boulevard St Michel. Then, judging by a fountain/ intersection both maps showed, right off of the Boulevard St Michel, I realized that what was ‘Rue des Gres’ must now be Rue Soufflot. Standing at the intersection myself, I was extremely disappointed to see that the Café Musain was now a McDonalds… Clearly I had to use some historical imagination here.

Contemporary map

19th C map of Paris

1968 Barricade

The Latin Quarter has served Paris as a hub for revolutionary activities for centuries. Home to La Sorbonne, the university of Paris, it is still writhing with young activists looking for change. Students as recently as 1968, were building barricades around the Latin quarter in political distress – the area has always been connected with idealism, determination, and social and political unrest.

We are castaways

I channeled my inner Bahorel during my time in the Latin quarter, and I took myself for a Parisian ‘saunter’. I let the alleyways lead my way and I walked, completely free of agency. Like much of Paris, it is so easy to lose oneself in the labyrinth of tiny streets - and so I did. I soon found myself in a gorgeous little enclosed street and on the wall I saw these cryptic words: ‘we are castaways.’ They took me aback for a moment, I thought who wrote this? Why? I immediately found myself contemplating the Friends of the ABC - I wondered how much these words would have resonated with them. They were at the forefront of a revolution begging change, begging to be seen, heard, and listened to. In a time of destitution, need and rigid class boundaries, the masses became societies castaways. The ABCs fought, and died, for the potential for this to change, the potential for a better world. And here I am now, in 2023, walking the same streets, seeing the same ideas expressed and wondering how much has really changed.

As Valjean Walks

Valjean in his last moments

There is something inherently tragic in Jean Valjean. A convict, on the run, who falls in love with fatherhood - his story is poetic, charming, and unfortunately, doomed. After spending ten years of his life bringing up little Cosette, Valjean has finally given himself a sense of purpose; hard to come by after nineteen years in the prison hulks. The pinnacle of life becomes his Cosette, and for a long time this is reciprocated – they are all each other have; Valjean is really all Cosette knows. When, however, she inevitably falls in love and begins to transition into womanhood, everything changes. She no longer needs Valjean, she wants Marius. For Valjean this means he has lost her, and letting her go is no easy feat.

Victor Hugo does something really interesting here; for so long he represents Valjean as this incredibly tough man – he has survived hell and come back from it [repeatedly]. And yet, when it comes to Cosette, Hugo gives us a very different portrait, we now see Valjean as a weary, sad, and irrefutably sensitive man. His inner monologue divulges to us that it is not Javert, or prison or even death that scares him, it is being without Cosette he fears, it’s being alone.

Rue Aubriot / Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie

There is a heart wrenching sequence in the latter stages of the novel where we see Valjean wilting away. An old and decaying man at this point, tired and burdened by the weight of his past, he walks solemnly, every day, in the direction of Cosette and Marius’ house. Eventually, he can no longer bring himself to finish his walk, and subconsciously he curtails it, every day Valjean’s journey becomes shorter and shorter.

Soon he barely makes it halfway and with a tear in his eye, he turns back on himself. To me, this signals closure, the end of an arch – we’ve cycled through the heroic, passionate and fearless phases of Valjean’s life and now we are here: watching him walk in solitude through the darkening streets of the Marais until he can no longer bring himself to do it.  

Hugo diligently maps out Valjean’s walk for us:

‘During the last months of spring and the first months of summer 1833, the occasional passer-by in the Marais… noticed an old man, neatly dressed in black, who every day at the same time, towards nightfall, emerged from the Rue de l’Homme-Armé, on the Rue Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie side, walked past Blancs-Manteaux up to Rue St Culture-Ste-Catherine, and at Rue de l’Echarpe turned left into Rue St-Louis…He would come to Rue de Filles-du-Calvaire. Then he would stop.’

 … ‘Little by little, the old man ceased to go as far as the corner of Rue de Filles-du-Calvaire. He would stop halfway, in Rue St-Louis, sometimes a little further off, sometimes a little closer. One day he stopped at the corner or Rue Culture-Ste-Catherine and looked towards Rue des Filles Calvaire from a distance. Then he silently shook his head, as if denying himself something, and he turned back.’

Les Blancs Manteaux

Hugo literally gave me the directions to Bookpack Valjean’s journey- and so I did. Rather annoyingly, over time, street names change. So, with the help of google maps as well as some 19th Century maps of Paris, I was able to make connections. What was the ‘Rue de L’Homme-Armé’ is now the Rue des Archives. What was ‘Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie’ is now Rue Aubriot, what was ‘Rue St Culture-Ste-Catherine’ is now Rue de Sévigné. And finally, what Hugo describes as ‘Rue St Louis’ is now Rue de Turenne. Luckily for me, Rue de Filles-du-Calvaire kept its name, and the monastery of the Blancs-Manteaux still remains.

I started on the Rue des Archives and did exactly as Valjean would have, making my way up, meandering through the Marais. From the get-go this felt intimate and personal, this is such a powerful scene in the novel that to walk in the steps of our deteriorating protagonist felt almost like an invasion of his space, of his peace. Yet, delicately, I continued up Rue Aubriot, passed the Monastery of Les Blancs Manteaux [The white cloaks – Monks]. And made my way up to Rue Sévigné.

As I was walking, I thought to myself – I need to put myself in Valjean’s head, I need to feel his presence here… And, as if on cue, the rain came hurtling down. I knew it had been too easy before! The rain filled me with a sufficient glumness to continue on Valjean’s route. I turned left on Rue de Turenne and trudged on through the summer storm. There is something reflective about the Marais – with its narrow, cobbled streets, historical architecture, and quiet passages, I began to think of it more symbolically. To me, it seems as though the area echoes the passage of time that Valjean contemplates as he walks. You can literally see the history around you, you can feel it as you turn onto a teeny, tiny alleyway that seems as though it has been transported right from the 19th Century.

I started to make some more connections between the Marais and Valjean himself: there is a rich religious history, and you can see it in the ancient churches scattered about the Marais, perhaps this could link to Valjean’s journey to redemption – could it symbolize Valjean's desire for spiritual reconciliation? His inner dialogue as he walks seems like a spiritual contemplation on his past, his present and his future. Then I started to think about how the Marais has gone from a religious hub to the center of gay Paris; so, we notice a sense of transformation – also a crucial theme in Valjean’s arc. There is so much in Hugo placing Valjean in the Marais, and by walking in his steps, I felt like I could really connect to the intention behind it.

Eventually, I reached Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire and at the very same moment – the sun finally showed face. It seemed so perfectly timed that at the end of my journey, at the end of Valjean’s journey, the sun should replace the rain – shedding some light on the narrow streets of Paris. Now that I could look around without an umbrella whacking me in the face, I got to take in the quiet charm of the street. There was a sad, quaint beauty about it. Completely revolutionized by big name brands, the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire was a bittersweet climax.

Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire

I am not exactly sure what I expected to find waiting for me – was it Jean Valjean, hunched over, all dressed in black walking slowly towards me? Or Cosette and Marius, strolling hand-in-hand through the crowds? Perhaps just any sign of them, something saying ‘we were here!’ Yet, there was nothing, no-one waiting for me, nothing more to do. I felt oddly alone at that moment; the street was crowded and yet it was just me there. Now I understood Valjean – I spent all afternoon meandering through the Marais, trying to reach him and it was then, when I had come to end of it all, on the corner of Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire that I did. With nothing more to find, I turned around and walked back on myself.

Fitting In

The rooftops of Paris, taken from Montmartre

There are rules in Paris. Rules for everything – be polite but definitely not too polite, be quiet, never wear sweatpants out, make sure your makeup is done by your 8am Metro, ‘faire la bise’ [the peck on each cheek as a greeting], don’t have dinner before 8pm, don’t sit on the grass, and never, ever, make eye contact in the streets. The Parisians have a certain grace about them; they are soft-spoken, gentle until aggravated, and completely in love with their city. There is a certain artform in being a Parisian. ‘Flâneurs’ at heart, the Parisians are never in too much of a rush, never stressed, never without a cigarette, and never not basking in the beauty of their home turf.

A Londoner through and through, I am used to a very different font of city. My city is all about rush, all about complaining, all about getting from A to B quickly. In London, I smile as I pass someone by on the street, I laugh loudly on the tube, I eat when I want and I wear whatever I want. In London most conversations begin with a complaint – ‘the weather is just awful today – there are too many tourists in the summer – the traffic is such a drag.’ This is bog-standard London; we really like to complain.

To me, London is a melting pot; my family are German, my left-side neighbours are Italian, the right -American. My school was sprinkled with different languages, different opinions, different people. My first boyfriend was Swedish, and my best friend was Russian. And yet, we were all Londoners at heart.

A map of Paris’ Arrondissements

Paris is different. Rather than a melting pot, I’d call Paris more of a salad bowl. There are lots of different people here but they’re very much separate. The system of Arrondissements does a good job in keeping it this way. My understanding of the various neighborhoods is as follows: the first and second are for the extremely wealthy to live and the tourists to visit. The third and fourth – ‘Le Marais’ – is for the younger people, full of bustling bars and cute shops; it is also known as the Jewish quarter, as well as the largest LGBT area of Paris. The fifth is the Latin quarter, the sixth is home to the existentialists. The eighth is the sanctuary of the fashion houses, the chicest shopping streets, and luxury hotels. The sixteenth is perhaps the most residential area, and where I am currently staying. It is a far more homely than the other areas I have mentioned, full of little playgrounds and vast apartment blocks. There are some nice restaurants, but the scene is mainly older and far more expensive. That was a very brief run-down of the city, but I think it serves to show something about Paris. Here, they like to keep things separate.

Paris in the rain

While I have lived in Paris, I never became Parisian. Not for lack of trying, I did everything I was told to do, but I am not from Paris and so I can never be. Edmund White writes about the ‘Flâneur’ and what it means to be Parisian and as I walk around the city I can see everything he wrote come to life. Intriguingly, he explains that Paris is ‘a mild hell so comfortable that it resembles heaven… The French have such an attractive civilization… that the foreigner is quickly seduced into believing that if he can only become a Parisian he will at last master the art of living.’ There is something uniquely beautiful and romantic in the idea of Paris. Paris is a dream, an aspiration. Paris is love, elegance, beauty and history, Paris is its monuments, its people, its food. And yet, to me, Paris is often unfriendly and cold and hard to become part of.

Something I have noticed is that Paris doesn’t change with the rest of the world. My mother lived here from 1990- 2001; 19 years later , I moved here. When she came to settle me in, she took me to all the same restaurants she loved at my age, and almost every time she would exclaim in pure joy: ‘Ah the menu never changes!’ Unlike her, I like change, I like watching the cities I love change. London is constantly changing; I leave for a semester in LA to come back and find everything different. My favorite coffee shop replaced by my new favourite nail salon, my favourite restaurant has become a cool new thrift shop and so on… Change is exciting!

A lone flâneur

As I reflect on this I realize that maybe it is my mind-set that has to change. I have a love-hate relationship with this city. Having lived here during the year of lockdown, I am used to a very different Paris than the one we get to explore during these three weeks. For me, Paris meant strict regimes, armed policemen, and curfew. It still feels wrong every time I walk out of my apartment and into shops, cafes, and bars. Gatherings were strictly ‘Interdit’ [forbidden] and here we are, a group of 17 walking around the now densely populated streets. The fact that we can saunter in and out of galleries and museums, take the metro, drink a coffee, and have a baguette in a café and really enjoy ourselves still feels so new to me here. And yet – Paris has changed! In the aftermath of the Covid years, things are different, and it’s exciting!

Maybe I will never be Parisian, but that does not mean I cannot love this city. I have realized over the last week how so much of my perception of Paris is based on a time where nothing was as it should be. My idea of Paris is polluted with the Covid years. There is so much to love here, and yes – it is different to what I know, it is nothing like London. But there is beauty in that too, and if I cannot see that then I am just as bad as the Paris I was criticizing. 

Liberté, fraternité, ÉGALITÉ or death

When does a revolution end? How does a revolution end? Can a revolution end?

‘Revolution or what?’

In November of 2020 Le Place de Bastille was set ablaze before my eyes. That month, during a time of serious civil unrest and a general disillusionment with authority, President Macron passed ‘Article 24’, making it illegal to disseminate images or videos showing the face of a member of the national police. In the weeks leading up to this, France had been subject to targeted terror attacks and Islamic fundamentalism was seen as a national crisis. Shortly after, accusations of police brutality began to emerge.

This coinciding with the news of a second lockdown, France was angry. In the height of the Pandemic, there was already pressure building in the streets of Paris; we were under a strict regime of complete lockdown: masks were obligatory even in the streets, we were allowed only an hour’s walk within a one-kilometer radius of our place of residence and were subject to a ‘couvre-feu’ [curfew] between the hours of 6PM – 6AM. Any breach of these rules and you would be paying fines north of fifty euros.

The volatile ‘Pays De Greve’, [The country of strike / protest] as France has been less than affectionately dubbed, has somewhat of a reputation of public protest and strike. I had seen Le Gilets Jaunes [the yellow vests] during their demonstrations in Paris before, yet the protests during my first six months of living in Paris were utterly sensational. Usually happy to just watch the drama unfold from behind a screen, I thought to myself – No, this time I want to be part of the action. And how wrong I was.

Le Place de Bastille

Around 9PM on this November evening, me and my three roommates arrive at the Place de Bastille. Nervous, excited and in way over our heads, we think we’re ready. A hot red glow is ascending from the center of the swarm and a thick grey smog is settling in above us. Above the sea of protestors, half torn posters and ravaged French flags fly low. Rows upon rows of the Gendarme are trying desperately to contain the anger to the Place but the protestors are doubling in size and in anger. Eventually something in the atmosphere starts to change, the cries for political change are becoming increasingly lost within the chaos and screams for help. The crowds begin to break up as if under siege, and I realize we are being shot at by rubber bullets. The acrid smell of tear gas becomes thicker, heavier and I see fellow protestors being beat by police batons.

In the fiery frenzy, I turn to make sure my friends are still close by me. One of my roommates is crying; I quickly realize he’s been tear gassed and is desperately trying to remove it from his eyes. I go to rally the others and realize that my best friend has been hit by a rubber bullet and deep purple bruises are beginning to set on her arms and back. We come quickly to the conclusion that is probably best to bow out now and frantically, we try to escape the mob.

233 years have passed since the French Revolution and the storming of the Bastille. Yet, standing on the Place this quiet July afternoon in 2023 I can’t help but recall my own version of events. I look for any evidence of the protests I witnessed, and of those just passed, the marks of the fire, a flag, a broken poster – but nothing.

The remains of Bastille

It was something else that caught my eye – small bronze circles forming the shape of an obscure rectangle surrounds me – the remains of the Bastille. Far smaller than I had imagined, the perimeter of the Bastille encloses where we were stood. Straight away, I think to Dickens’ Madame Defarge: exasperated, furious, vengeful, and thirsty for blood. She would have stood right where I was, full of the desire to destroy. Looking back to the book, as her husband rallies the men to storm the Bastille, she tells him: ‘I go… with you… you shall see me at the head of the women.’ She is leading these women into the siege and exclaims: ‘We can kill as well as the men!’ And so, she proves as she stands firmly of the chest of the dying body of Sainte Antoine and gruesomely decapitates him. The storming of Bastille was a triumph for the revolutionaries – the seven prisoners were released, seven guards’ heads were placed on spikes and the governor, killed. From then on it was ‘Liberty, fraternity, egality or death.’

Had it not been for the hundreds of armed Gendarmes, huge police and military tanks, and the lack of a Bastille to siege that evening in 2020, I really wonder how the events would have unfurled. I can still feel the anger and passion that night, it was completely overwhelming, and I remember thinking that without the military confinement it could so easily have spiraled out of control.

There is still so much unhappiness harbored here in France, so much injustice unaccounted for, and so many people feeling let down by the government – there is a reason that France is the ‘Pays de Greve.’ Only a few weeks ago, Paris saw a very similar unrest. Nahel M, a 17-year-old boy in Nanterre was shot and killed by a police officer. In similar fashion to the US during the BLM protests, the French took to the streets in demonstration. Cars were set alight, the police were attacked, a moment of huge civil anger and fear manifested itself in violence all across the nation.

I remember reading Les Misérables earlier this summer only to look up from the book at a Sky News broadcast and see exactly what Hugo was describing superimposed on contemporary Paris. Fireballs were hurled through the streets and French flags were used as a symbol of the new revolt.

Paris summer 2023, Sky News

I called my friend who lives in the banlieues [the suburbs] – where the protests were especially potent - and I asked her to talk me through what was going on. She flipped her FaceTime camera around and showed me the streets below her apartment. The streets were pilled meters high with rubbish and the bins were literally on fire. Carcasses of burnt cars remained hauntingly on the streets and the remains of DIY weapons were sprawled across the pavements. People were either rushing to get safely home or running towards the heart of the movement. I could hear the rumble of chaotic chanting through the phone. Shops and cafes were boarded shut and public transportation was closed. My friend had been told by her university to not leave her apartment. A revolt was in full swing.

I then turned back to Les Mis and had to remind myself I was, in fact, not reading a news feed – no, Enjolras, Marius, Courfeyrac, they’re characters attacking the French aristocracy from behind a barricade in 1789. And yet, on the news the citizens are fighting the government, the police, the whole system. It was honestly chillingly uncanny to read Les Mis and watch the News in unison.

In the aftermath of all of these Protests, I find myself walking the streets of Paris today wondering to myself ‘did the revolution ever really end or are we just witnessing iterations of the past?’

A Matter of Perspective

Much like Charles Darnay, until recently, mine was a tale of two cities. While born and raised in London, I spent the first two years of my life in Paris, only to return there for my first year of university. By twenty I had moved my life out to Los Angeles, confusing the mix even further. However, firmly European at heart, this is about me and the two cities I love most.

Having absorbed much of these two, very different, cultures throughout the course of my life I naturally felt very confident going into our first week of book packing London and Paris. While I definitely had a head start in the explorations of London, I came rapidly to the conclusion that I really am a Notting Hill girl through and through. I realized how much of my perception of London was based solely around my home turf. When, in fact, Notting Hill houses a mere 3.5% of London’s population. By day one it had dawned on me just how much of London and London’s history I had yet to explore. In all honesty, this week has humbled me.

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On our first day of exploration, we walked through a part of London I knew relatively well – the quintessential tourist’s side of the city. We hit Piccadilly Circus first and then walked down regent’s street, through Pall Mall and into Green Park. We stopped at Buckingham palace; where the flag was flying high – this was the first time I visited our new King at home. We then moved down towards the river, visiting Westminster Abbey, and passing by Parliament and 10 Downing Street. Having spent much time away from the UK in the past few years, the first day for me, was an opportunity to reconnect with the roots of this city. There is simply no better way to take in our history than to literally walk right through it.

Westminster Abbey had been a Year Four school trip destination, but it was far more appreciated this time around. As a creative writing major and an aspiring poet, Poet’s corner was especially exciting for me. I spent a few minutes looking around for Charles Dickens’ memorial plaque only to look down and realize I was standing right on top of him, comfortably nestled between Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy. Having now visited the man of the hour, I was ready to begin my immersion into Dickensian London.

Day two had Fleet Street, the Inns of court, Temple Church, and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on the agenda. We emerged on Chancery Lane and made our way through the roaring hustle and bustle of London onto Fleet Street. As a Notting Hill native, I am used to the quieter and quainter side of the city, and this was quite the opposite. Our first stop was lunch at Dickens’ favorite Pub: ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese’, also the believed location of the conversation between Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton after Darnay’s trial. As promised, we got to see a first edition of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and the chair ‘most frequented by Charles Dickens’. It was striking to see how fast the city faded into 18th Century London just by turning down a small alley and entering this pub. This was the first time the words contrast, and perspective played on my mind. We refueled here briefly before our afternoon exploration into the heart of Dickensian London.

Our next mission was to locate Tellson’s bank and the original site of Temple bar – two crucial locations in the opening chapters of Dickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. Both located on the teeming Fleet Street, it was challenging to imagine Dickensian London between the red buses and the swarms of tourists and corporate soldiers. In Temple Bar’s place, between the Royal Courts of Justice and ‘Tellsons Bank’, now stands the sculpture of the Griffin – the mythological creature we use to symbolize London. On the Tellson’s bank side of Temple Bar stands a closed ‘Child & Co’ Bank, which we might assume was the original inspiration for Tellsons.

Nevertheless, Temple Bar can still be found today, but in a very different part of London. Around the side of St Paul’s Cathedral on a small side street the reconstruction of Temple bar still stands, and it is quite spectacular. It felt almost as if a small fabric of Dickensian London had been unfurled under the newly sewn dress of the modern London I know. This seemed to be a continued theme in our explorations this week.

Just as I had been silently criticizing the busy Fleet Street, we were led into Middle Temple Inn, and everything seemed to halt. Suddenly there were no big red buses, no hordes of people and no rush of the city streets. It was all replaced by an acute sense of serenity. Just behind Fleet Street the Inns of court offered us a walk through 18th Century London. We passed through ‘Kings’ Bench Walk’ and the ‘paper buildings’ where Sydney Carton and C.J Stryver work as lawyers.  

This leg of our Book Packing experience was critical in my forming a new perception of London. It is easy to forget even the richest history when you are accustomed to a modern metropolis of a city, but these little sanctuaries that are the Inns of court forced me out of that perception and allowed me to take in the original beauties of my hometown. From then on I began to look for contrast – for those parts of London where the roots and results of modernization intertwine.

This theme of contrast was particularly salient on day three. We got to visit the Tate Modern (my favorite gallery in the world) and we spent an hour walking through their contemporary collections. There was one piece that really caught my eye: ‘reborn sounds of childhood dreams’ by El-Salahi. Contrasted to its yellow canvas, dark, abstract figures hold the center of the piece. There was something innately haunting in the piece – perhaps the menacing faces composed of hollow eyes and shallow cheeks, or the indistinguishable ghostly bodies, or perhaps because it took me to a place I hadn’t visited for some time – my childhood nightmares. This piece, reminiscent of post-colonial modernism, managed to transport me into a world similar to that of the revolution Dickens describes. Themes of destitution, vengeance, violence, and death came powerfully through and made me reflect on the French Revolution Dickens describes. Then, I turn around and am faced with a contemporary piece of aggressive installation art, blinding me with pink and purple strobe lights, pulling me back into the abrasive and flashy world that we live in.

On our final day, we began at Bank; the site of the Royal Stock Exchange and The Bank of England and walked only a mile or so down Whitechapel. We very quickly found ourselves immersed in the heart of the Bangladeshi community of London. Within the hour we saw the soul of old London and the heart of new London intertwine. This was my main takeaway from this week – how quickly things can change and how with a little bit of perspective London’s identity can deepen, encompassing its past, its present and its future.