Going with the flow on the River Thames
Peter Ackroyd is tirelessly inventive in describing his beloved London and its estuary, the Thames. Seven years ago, he wrote “London, the Biography,” prefacing it by saying, “I am not Virgil prepared to guide aspiring Dantes around a defined and circular kingdom. I am only one stumbling Londoner who wishes to lead others in the directions I have pursued over a lifetime.”
When I reviewed the earlier book, I wrote that Ackroyd didn’t stumble at all, limning London’s prehistory, middle age, contrasts, theater, pestilence, crime, rivers, outcasts, women and children, Victoriana, the Blitz, and the modern refashioning of the city.
Now he throttles into creative overdrive in “Thames, the Biography,” a handsome book filled with numerous maps and photographs. Immensely readable, Ackroyd spells out the river’s literary tributes through the centuries. There are chapters on its beginnings, its sacral character, the river as a worker’s place, river law, the river of trade, the natural river, a stream of pleasure, a healing spring, its art, the river’s shadows and depths, the river of death, and the river’s end.
The Thames in many ways symbolizes England. The river nourishes “elements of rusticity and urbanity ... calm and forgetfulness ... anxiety and despair.” Ackroyd says, “It is the river of dreams ... liquid history because within itself it dissolves and carries all epochs and generations. They ebb and flow like water,” a metaphor for human life. “How slight its beginning, how confident its continuing course, how ineluctable its destination.” It is a book that one can dip in and out of, casting a line as it were, into one chapter, then another.
Ackroyd, a facile writer, almost drowns us with facts about the river: It has a length of 215 miles. It is navigable for 191 miles. The Severn River in England is longer by five miles. The Thames runs along the border of nine English counties; it has 134 bridges along its length, and 20 major tributaries flowing into the main river.
Occasionally, the author quotes unnamed critics whose views differ from his. An example: Ackroyd sees the Thames as a receptor of ancient deities. He notes that the river’s gods are “part Pan, and part Shiva and part Hapi.” He thinks the presence of these demigods indicate the “holiness of the river’s presence.” This is a phrase of Kenneth Grahame’s, the author of “The Wind in the Willows.” Contrarily, he notes “there are some who would claim that these gods . . . are expressions of the natural divinity of water.” I would like to have a fuller description of what this means. I would also like to know who thinks it.
The word “Thame,” Ackroyd says, has no less than 21 variants in its Latin and Saxon forms, all containing the root, tame or teme, the putative word for darkness. The author hypothesizes in an early chapter that the Thames emerged 30 million years ago, while the British Isles connected to the European mainland, where the North Sea now runs. He thinks that the Thames was then a tributary of a much larger river that flowed across Europe, a stretch of it now called the Rhine.
Saints seem to have enjoyed the water’s beneficence. St. Birinus was the first saint of the Thames, converting the first Saxons to Christianity in the seventh century, baptizing them in the river, according to the author, at places such as Taplow, Ewen, Poole Keynes and Kemble. St. Alphege is the patron saint of Greenwich, an Archbishop of Canterbury in the 11th century. St. Alban, St. Chad and the first woman saint of the river, St. Frideswide, of Oxford, famous for saying, “whatever is not God, is nothing,” all receive their due.
Commentators about the river over the centuries are numerous. For example, when Hillaire Belloc wrote “The Historic Thames,” in the early 20th century, he argued that the Benedictines, the Roman Catholic religious order, had a large role in helping mold early Britain. How? Belloc pointed out that during the time the Saxons lived in the Thames Valley, the nascent country “was actually created by the Benedictine monks.”
The monks had skill in estate management, a commitment to scholarship, and were connected to continental learning. In fact, a Benedictine monastery was built in the seventh century on the present site of Westminster Abbey.
There is no end to Ackroyd’s erudition, fine style and interests. Do you like to read about the Royals on the river? Try this on. During the 16th century, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I sailed in state. “It was the river of pageant-gilt barges decorated with banners and streamers, awnings and tapestries, flags sewn with tiny bells that rang out in the breeze, musicians playing their sackbuts and cornets upon the water, barges and galleys swathed in cloth of gold
and arras.”
Many kinds of boats — some of whose names I have not heard before — sailed and rowed the Thames these last eons. They include wherries and clinkers, hoys and onkers, tilt-boats and shallops.
London Bridge’s history brims with foot-traffic, animals and iron horses. It begins with the Romans erecting a bridge on the site. In fact, many London Bridges have come and gone, most recently in 1973, when the bridge built in 1830 came down and was reconstructed in Lake Havasu City, Ariz. A new bridge opened over the Thames in 1970.
Finally, the Thames is a river of death, called a reliquary by Ackroyd. Ornaments and jewelry, shears and flesh hooks come from the water with the help of dredgermen. Ritual deposits, including 368 Neolithic axes have been taken from the Thames. The bottom of the river is a perpetual jumble sale for those who troll for artifacts.
About its dark side, may I offer one more cast of thought? I like Charles Dickens’ chilling description of the Thames best. In his essay, “Night Walks” (1860), he tells of the Thames as a magnet for suicides, saying, “The wild moon and clouds were as restless as an evil conscience in a tumbled bed, and the very shadow of London seemed to lie oppressively in the water.”
NONFICTION
Thames: The Biography By Peter Ackroyd Nan A. Talese/Doubleday 481 pages, $40
Michael D. Langan is a frequent News reviewer of books about all matters English.
