Introduction

During the class seminar we will look at a wide range of quotations from novels of the 20th C.You should give particular attention to the role of air pollution as:

1. a back drop (accurate and inaccurate visions)
   
2. a symbol for corruption, confusion, ill-health
   
3. up to the minute commentary of the politics of non-attainment
   
4. yielding the word smog as an interesting literary word, often to break cliches.

Our groups in February 2007 were a little smaller than usual, but we did have some good discussion. There were as always lots of reference to TSEliot and DHLawrence and some of the issues discussed in previous years. However Virginia Woolfe, Ted Hughes and JB Priestley were introduced, particularly in relation to the closure of factories "Many chimneys have stopped smoking...". There was James Joyce on the spectacle of Dublin commerce "... the barges signalled from far away by their curls of wooly smoke". The recent Novel and Film The Perfume was a great example of focus on odour in past urban environments. However some of our best discussions seemed to centre about Los Angeles and the notion of non-attainment and the accurate representation of smog...

Our seminar class of January 2006 discussed many of the issues of other years with key features being T S Elliot's Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock, discussions of late 20th C novels more difficult to find, DHLawrences writings became particularly associated with the "burning bings" (coal waste) a huge but almost forgotten problem of the 1920's and 30's (if you wish to know more there is an excellent article (J. Sheail , J. Historical Geography, 31, 134-148[2005]). We touched on apocalypse in both Lawrence and other writings. Some excellent songs presented - in one case even sung to raptuous applause. However detective novels won the day because of the polluted poorer urban areas where detectives work, along with comment about the pyramidal society pictured in Blade Runner. The focus of seminars seem to be the differences between pollution in Victorian detective fiction and that of photochemically polluted Los Angeles. The role of the primary smog was related to "covering" or perhaps "uncovering" in London's fiction, while the seconmdary smog seems to be more an explanation of evil/criminality in the more thoughtful LA novels. We also mentioned the use of "smog" to jazz up cliches.

In February 2005 the class discussions focussed on a number of key issues evident in the UK literature:

1. It seemed easy to find references to air pollution in novels from the industrial north, but London also there in the early 20th C.
2. Comment in late 20th C novels more difficult to find - some argued that the pollution was more visible in the past
3. Much discussion of Sherlock Holmes, fogs there but not as common as cold winters - fog as a symbol for confusion
4. D. H. Lawrence, much as 2004 below.
5. T S Elliot's Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock a very popular image of the London smog. We thought about it as a comforting diversion within an otherwise gloomy poem about a failed proposal (see below also).
6. Older references certainly captured the key elements of coal burning England - a sense of nostalgia seemed to mean that this iconography lived on
7. Air pollution in detective novels from Los Angeles seemed quite different (see quotation list below)
   • smog as a source of evil
   • smog and witty one-liners
   • very up to date cynicism over non-attainment
8. Talked about smog at the wrong time of day in Los Angeles novels... accuracy an icons.

There was no shortage of interesting material. In particular I was stuck by a quote from London Irish Zane Radcliffe " a small coal fire burned illegally... " - reminding us that coal was banned under the Clean Air Act 1956 - this is reminiscent of Elizabeth Gaskill's novel North and South (1855) which talks of "unparliamentary smoke" following the Health of Towns Act.

A delightful little comment from Sylvia Plath in the 1950's "I feel even if I washed myself all day in cold clear water, I could not rinse the sticky, unholy film away" - great description of experience of smog, but also uses a taboo-religious word much as in Lady Chatterly's Lover.

In John Wyndham's science fiction novel The Day of the Triffids it is the absence of pollution, after everyone goes blind, that draws comment: " ...what struck me most... was the sharpness, the clear definition of everything- even the distant housetops... no chimney, large or small, was smoking... "

In January 2004 the class discussions of UK literature covered some of the same topics, most notably (i) and (v).

Perhaps rather different was a stronger interest in poetry songs and ballads and we mentioned the rhythm achieved by chemical terms such as "sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide,benzo(a)pyrene... ". As usual T.S.Eliot was much discussed, especially his Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock that tells of a failed journey to propose to a woman. There was disagreement as to whether the pollution here was nostalgic and cosy or reflected the loneliness inherent in the poem. Lots of thoughts about detective and mystery fiction. We had an argument about why "pea-soupers" were called such and few seemed to entirely trust my thought that pea-soup would be yellow. On this matter I can only appeal to Delia Smith.

There was a very nice quotation from a modern Chinese novel set in Beijing, which identified petrol fumes and yellow spring-time dust - processes of very recent importance. Someone wisely looked at Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which is the book that became Blade Runner. Some disappointment at the lack of comment on pollution in D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, but I guess some of Lawrence's ideas on pollution can be found on the openning page of Lady Chatterly's Lover, with all its sense of apocalyptic finality. We also talked about Jack the Ripper and the modern links of fog to the ripper story and the sense of Jack as a messianic figure. Also along the apocalyptic vein was the recent book Dead Air by Iain Banks. It has llttle on air pollution, but the cover is amazing. It has the smokeless chimneys of Battersea Power Station (see reading list) and a plane symbolic of the Twin Towers collapse - the cover designer was clearly inspired...

In February 2002 the class discussions of UK literature ranged over:

1. the transition from the coal burning - smoky chimneys of the early 20th C pollution - the images were so frequent that there was a hint of nostalgia particularly noted in the comments of an Irish writer returning to his small town that had not been a victim of Victorian smoke
   
2. visitors to towns seemed more sensitive to pollution
3. the modern prevalence of petrol fumes and photochemistry, only occassionally commented on in UK fiction, but certainly beginning to be evident in London fiction of the 1990's notably Lisle, J. A Perfect Match 1996. Oddly in Rayner, R. A Murder Book 1999, Los Angeles emerged more like London than LA, although a little reminiscent of Blade Runner - was this an attempt to return to a detective fiction where air pollution related to concealment? Take a peek at the 2001 exam paper question, below. It looks like the novelist may have made the same mistake as the Dreamworks team!
   
4. Although there are some fiction of the 1990's that seem to have the CO2-greenhouse effect and air pollution forcasts - not so common
   
5. images tended to be from poorer industrial parts of towns and therefore novels about detectives, industrial work had more on pollution
   
6. pollution sometimes seemed associated with more than just unhealthiness, but evil
   
7. there were often apocalyptic visions associated with air pollution Lady Chatterly's Lover, Heart of Darkness &tc. We wondered why no Utopian visions
   

2001 Exam question

Quotations

1. G. Davis Silk Lady, Warner Books, NY Co.
   
   • "In the mornings, Miranda would wake up very early.... Running from Doheny Drive... to the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard the path was lined on either side with lacey-leafed Brazilian elm trees that feathered over like a spikey arch, pieces of smoggy sky visible between the branches".

2. Campbell, R. 1986 In La-La Land We Trust, The Mysterious Press, NY.
   A Chandleresque detective story with rain throughout much of the early parts of the novel.
   
   • p. 91 "...listening to the measured beat of the wipers as they smeared fog and road shit across the windshield."
   • p. 120 "...the wrought-iron tracery looming so high above the hood of his car that it shredded the midnight fog. A smell filled the Chrysler like the sharp smell of battery acid and onion fields. The smog never seemed to blow away anymore these days, as it used to even ten years ago. When the Air Pollution Control Board couldn't bring down the level of emissions they raised the limits. People kept on breathing thicker and thicker poison and fooled themselves that the air was getting cleaner. He smiled wryly. A sour taste rose up out of his belly and stung his throat. A testament to old compromises."

3. Cohen, S.C. Marital Affairs
   • "It was hot and smoggy in the city today and even the interior of the usually bright gallery looked hazy to her."

4. Dick, P.K. 1985 Puttering about in a Small Land, Academy Chicago Publishers.
   • "You aren't wheezing, you haven't since we left L.A. Evidently it is the smog. How do you feel?"

5. Lynds, D. (pseudonym Saddler, M.) 1986 Deadly Innocents, Walker & Co. NY.
   • on the view from office windows. "In New York, walls and masses. In Los Angeles, space and distance, except for the few tall buildings like distant islands in a sea of haze."
   • difficulty in climbing stairs "The smog," I said. "In New York we have clean air."
   • "...a large corner office with a much better view of the high rises jutting up out of the haze all across the vast sweep of Los Angeles."
   • "The real meaning of a city that is built around the automobile can't be understood until you live in it. Everything is at least an hour's drive away."

6. Gerber, M.J. 1978 The Lady with the Moving Parts, Arbor House NY.
   • p2. " a really neat place, twenty acres in the foothills just north of Pasadena... If it's clear, we'll have a view of the lights of Los Angeles at night, and if the smog isn't heavy, we can see Catalina Island in the daytime."
   • p31. "He undressed casually...pausing to put some eyedrops into his eyes, which were easily irritated by smog."

7. Stinson, J. 1986a Double Exposure, Charles Scribner Sons NY.
   • Ch.1 "As I rattled through the smog..."
   • Ch.2 "Santa Ana light the next morning on the way back to Pasadena, as desert winds drove out the smog and sucked the air dry."
   • Ch.3 "...on this bright new morning, which was indistinguishable from yesterday's because L.A. dispenses weather in job lots, often weeks as a time."
   • Ch.3 "Standing on the sullen Malibu beach, amazed as always that Los Angeles offers three weathers at once: crisp autumn on Candy Wishbourne's mountain, smoggy summer in the flats below, and grey winter at the water's edge."
   • Ch.13 "Freud retreated into his Cuban smog"

8. Stinson, J. 1986b Low Angeles, Charles Scribner Sons NY.
   • Ch.1 "No helping the palms, though: reluctant little smog-shot fronds high in the air..."
   • Ch.1 "I roared home through the ozone, boxed in by eighteen wheelers..."
   • Ch.5 "...filling the air with a palpable smog of discouragement."

9. Gregory, M.L. 1986 Equal to Princes, Doubleday & Co. Inc. 1986.
   • "...in the hot glow of an August morning. The smog was already coalescing into a solid sheet, burying the Hollywood Hills in a blinding pall that would remain for weeks as the foul summer air compressed itself into a burden on the lungs, the mind and the human heart."

10. Kincaid, D. 1986 The Sunset Bomber, The Linden Press, Simon & Schuster, NY.
    • p.72 "From the top floor of the Criminal Courts building the perspective. The vast, smokey industrial area, incongruously punctuated with towering palms....this was not a clear day. The smog was heavy, even in the early morning."

11. Glasco, G. 1981 Second Nature, St. Martin's Press, NY.
    • "On the last hairpin curve, the entire San Fernando Valley came into view behind them, a flat checkerboard of shopping centres and tract houses stretching northwards to the Santa Susana and San Gabriel mountains. He had last seen the Valley from this height the afternoon he and Stephen took a drive in Stephen's new sportscar. The afternoon he first kissed him. Now through the ochre-coloured layer of pollution the landscape looked desolate and overcrowded."

12. Schopp, M., 1985, St Martins Press, NY.
    • "The ford was gasping like an asthmatic on a smoggy day."

13. Lochte, D. 1985 Sleeping Dog, Arbor House, NY.
    • Ch.2 "she pulled the blinds and let in the smoggy-filtered evening glare"
    • Ch.8 "the evening smog at Burbank was thick enough to skate on."
    • Ch.9 "...into the evening smog of the valley"
    • Ch.11 "It's nice and peaceful up in Laurel this time of year, high up above the smog and noise." (summer vacation)
    • Ch.13 "He squinted through the smoggy white sunshine..."

14. Maremaa, T. 1978 Studio, William Morrow & Co., NY.
    • "At times I'm so afraid of being vulnerable that I don't see things very clearly. Decisions scare me, I go numb. My thinking gets fuzzy, thick as fog... Maybe the air has something to do with it. I don't know. We're buried in smog (we call it ';morning haze';, but it's smog), smog that burns your eyes, throat, lungs, smog that burns your insides.... (The smog even comes in colours, depending on where you live: soot black in town and all the way out to the Valley, dark brown to the east and green to the west, as you go out to the ocean.) Only in winter is everything clear. The winds from the ocean blow the city clean, and you're stunned because you can see for miles in very direction.

15. Parker, T.J. 1985 Laguna Heat, St Martin's Press, NY.
    • "Robbins lead Shephard across the lab to a long table that lay against a wall of windows overlooking the smoggy city. In a quick glance, he could see the heart of the country's government and the bowels of its poverty.... The Santa Anna Civic Centre sprawled from behind the jail, and in the milky smog that seemed to hover everywhere..."

16. Petievich, G. 1983 To Die in Beverley Hills, Arbor House, NY
    • "L.A.'s permanent layer of smog was hidden by darkness."
    • "Because the altitude was slightly below the smog layer, the view of the suburbs was hazy as a midday poison-air view from a freeway overpass."

17. Wambaugh, J. 1983 The Delta Star, Periogord Press, NY.
    • "The detective's eyes started to ache even more. Was it the smog? Or the ever present smoke in Leery's Saloon?"
    • "I've gotta get some fresh smog in my lungs or I'm gonna die..."
    • "feeling pretty bitchy that day....And it was smoggy..."
    • "The wind gusted that smoggy afternoon."
    • "the frustrated, smog-burned, crazy drivers on the Hollywood Freeway..."
    • "The marbled flesh was precisely the colour of the Los Angeles smog-layered sky at dusk."

18. See, C. 1981 Rhine Maidens, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, NY.
    • "It's always foggy out on those bluffs by the airport, and all the kids who ever lived out there are always going to have colds.... Every couple will have kids, and a hedge and bronchitis, and the fog..."

19. Babitz, E. (1974) Eve's Hollywood, Delacorte Press, Seymour Lawrence.
    • p.46 "-the ordinary smoggy afternoons.'
    • cf p.134 "(I) felt the uncut dullness of another L.A. afternoon with the sky casually smoggy and the temperature its usually 75°."
    • p.196 "I dressed and went for walks remarkable for their tranquility when you realised that the day that was to follow with smog and a kind of brazen unholiness..."
    • p.284 "Watts isn't Harlem, but it is ugly and smoggy and flat and plantless... a major tribute to the God of Despair, immovable in the low dismal smog."

20. Babitz, E. (1982) L.A. Woman, Simon & Schuster, NY.
    • p.45 "If the mornings were hot during some of those September days, Maurice held his auditions outside and the sky was unnecessarily turquoise, not yet toned down by smog."
    • p.75 "The sky still hangs overhead with smog which nothing Molly ever did could expel from the listless days of summer.... We were only ten years old when we'd come from an indoor pool with eyes inflamed from chlorine and be blinded by smog, enough to force us to just go straight home.... What I really liked to do, unless a layer of smog covered the sidewalks so badly that you had to go straight home on the bus or die, was to dawdle along Hollywood Boulevard and walk the entire mile or so home. The hotter it was, the better I liked it although if it rained I liked it too."
    • p.78 "I was pretty sure Hollywood was doomed long before the smog killed off all the pepper trees north of Hollywood Boulevard, which had created rosy clouds overhead before the smog, but after the smog, well.... People in their thirties would shake their heads and sigh, remembering how beautiful things had been before they went downhill."
    • p.103 "I'd seen her (Marilyn Munroe) when I was ten, cutting through the smog."
    • p.132 "The sulphury-smelling air from the misty oil wells now cut through the past forever..." Not sure I understand this phrase. It may be set in Santa Monica, but not clear.

21. Susann, J. 1969 The Love Machine, Simon and Schuster, NY.
    • "She has a sore throat - must be from the smog."
    • "Jerry stared at the smog-laden sky, at the pale sun trying to burn its way through. It wasn't like the summer sun in Greenwich - or the sparkling orange sun they had in the fall. Amanda would never see that sun again..."

22. Cunningham, E.V. (aka Fast, H.) 1984 The Case of the Murdered Mackenzie Delacorte Press, NY.
    • " ...back in sunny, smog-laced Beverly Hills."
    • "There was a rumour in southern California that in the San Fernando Valley the months of July, August and September are hot, smoggy and unbearable, but all rumours are unreliable..."

23. Braudy, S. 198* Who killed Sal Mineo?, Wyndham Books, NY.
    • "Way up into the yellow sky."
    • "It was hot and still and I smelled smog." (Watts)

24. Kazan, E. 1967 The Arrangement, Stein and Day, NY.
    • p.11 "...the sun pouring through the smog, and she was sitting there with her yellow hair flying in the toxic breeze"
    • p.27 "...to drive alone, with the top down and all that cool carbon monoxide ruffling my hair."
    • Ch.7 "It was hot. Above me the sun was shining. There was one place in the cover of smog brighter than the rest. My eyes smarted. I could smell the industrial waste. I could taste it. There was something malignant in the air. I thought of Florence's little cellar in Indio. That would be cool and safe. But it was too far to go.... In some cities you go into a bar and get a drink to comfort yourself against the cold. In Los Angeles you go into a bar to get out of the hot lard people live in and breathe."
    • "When I got through the smog, I was at seven hundred feet and just crossing Santa Monica beach. I turned north. I could see all the acrid stuff on my right. Some of it had a yellowish cast. Sulphur.
    • Just north of Malibu Colony, the stuff thinned...
    • I turned south. Over downtown L.A. the smog looked like something antique, a gas laid down in World War 1, which had killed everyone and never blown away. A few buildings came through the stuff..."

25. McDonald, R. The Underground Man
    • "It was a bright September morning. The edges of the sky had a yellowish tinge like cheap paper darkening in the sunlight."

26. Lippincot, D. 1975 Tremor Violet, G.P. Putnam's Sons, NY.
    • "Walking over to the windows he looked out over the city, studying the cloud of light-brown smog that was settling across the nearby low buildings. His eyes smarted just from looking at the pollution, and in spite of knowing better, he rubbed his eyes to try to clear his vision."

27. Lyons, A. 1974 The Dead are Discreet, Mason and Lipscomb, NY.
    • Ch.6 "June was definitely not a good month for beach weather, but the fog was burning off exceptionally late, even for this time of year.... The house was a stucco job, small and faded and pink. As with the rest of the houses on the block, it looked like fog and corrosive salt air had taken its toll.
    • Ch.15 "The stars were visible through the smog canopy..."
    • Ch.18 "The sun was setting as I turned onto Summit View Road, a huge flattened-out fiery ball sinking into the line of grey-brown haze that has come to infect even the seashore horizons of Los Angeles. ....The sun had already sunk below the horizon, leaving the brown blanket of smog streaked with yellow. The air was..."

28. Lyons, A. 1981 Hard Times, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, NY.
    • Ch.3 "...on Sepulveda over the pass... From the top of the Pass, the lights of the San Fernando Valley wavered miragelike before fading into the haze of dusty smog that hugged the distant foothills..."
    • Ch.14 "Sure we've got smog, they would say, but what can we do when those fat cats in Washington won't crack down on Detroit? Every night you could hear those board members...whining bitterly about being hamstrung by the federal government or the administration in Sacramento. That was where Maher would step up and point out that the Local Air Pollution Control District had recently granted a variance to Standard Oil to allow its El Segundo plant to keep operating even though it was in flagrant violation of county clean air standards.... And read off some very generous contributions Standard Oil happened to have made to the reelection committees of several members of the board."

29. Ellis, B.E. 1985 Less Than Zero, Simon and Schuster, NY.
    • "And standing there on the hill, overlooking the smog-soaked, baking Valley and feeling the hot winds returning..."