A real time-sensitive novel of 1960 from the very complex pen of gay & 'constitutionally racist'? malcontent MacInnes, which 'peels back the foreskin' of London's world of barely-disguised vice & seedy, symbiotic relationships between the prostitutes,ponces & policemen & the moral majority,who turn a blind-eye to the oldest profession's insistent stamina & indominatability.This short novel, the last of a loose-lipped trilogy about post-war London,has an almost 'fly-on-the-wall documentary' feel to its banal,metropolitan set-pieces...MacInnes was perhaps ahead of his time...1960?...pre-Beatles & 'The Avengers'? or 'Play For Today'??!...but fails to blaze too fiercely in a literary way, as none of the well-sketched characters are 'fictional' in any real sense. A curious book then...but a good,if slow,read which catches the last moments of the post-war greyness & drab morbidity of a shattered city - a key scene takes place with a 'courting couple' in a bombed-out house! - before the revolutionary changes which cascaded down on London in the years to come. MacInnes left mixed reviews both of his work & of his personal relationships, much of his reputation tied-in/tied-up? with the arrival of 'colourful' new denizens of Notting Hill & Earl's Court,the new liberal consensus on homosexuality & a debatable interpretation of personal liberties.
Interesting and uncommon book crossing the footsteps of two main and symbolic characters. Mr. Love and Mr. Justice represent the two faces of the same coin: prissiness. A sort of urban prissiness that rhymes with hypocrisy and leads both Love and Justice to collide into each other thanks to a clockwork mechanism.I appreciated the structure of the novel, alternating Mr. Love with Mr. Justice before the two plot lines are juxtaposed. Many dialogues are very well written and the way MacInnes investigated on a certain mankind in London is admirable and impartial. Yet, this book got old very quickly. It's incredible how far may look this late 1950s London nowadays. That is why "Mr Love and Justice" suffers of precocious senility. And it's a pity.
Do You like book Mr Love And Justice (1980)?
lackluster entry in macinnes' london trilogy. the parallel narratives are at first interesting but become rather tedious in the long run, perhaps because both central characters lack a certain reality - characterization is a bit flat, a bit too jokey. they would be better served as supporting characters in a larger, wider, richer novel. or maybe i was just looking for another Absolute Beginners, surely one of the most vibrant novels ever written. here, the canvas is black & white rather than blazing technicolor - which is a pity. the writing itself is not at fault - macinnes is a master. the problem is in the rather forgettable characterizations and the surprisingly unconvincing narrative.
—mark monday
