Some other character ‘s the more youthful and you can ignorant Roman exactly who, armed with an alcohol can, grumbles regarding London’s Victoria Route:

Aleksander Kropiwnicki, former personnel of one’s Polish embassy for the London, states have acquired unhappy migrant tales at heart as he penned London area Route (Zajezdnia Londyn) (2007). Composed of 7 make believe portraits of Gloss migrants residing Britain’s capital, the ebook musical a cautionary mention and you can palpably aims at tempering the latest criterion prospective Polish migrants may have away from London. There isn’t any area for success stories: an effective sham work agencies betrays an earlier lady that is then taken advantage of and you will raped up on their coming on Uk floor; a bus driver longs for his child if you find yourself being exposed so you’re able to insults from United kingdom guests; a center-aged lady enjoy total heartache and you will loneliness and therefore she simply suffers to provide for her family members in the Poland.

There is a large number of all of us milling doing at that route. I happened to be milling as much as here, also. And you can someplace else. London’s a fucking shithole. It is said one here these are typically employing people every-where. Better I don’t know, I was finding really works, and work’s been looking for me, but for some reason i missed each other. (91)

Incidentally, Victoria Coach Channel try an important topos (in a geographic and a literary feel) in the Shine London narratives. During the early post-war fictions out of migration, Waterloo Station supported while the an identical for the-between place having reports away from coming and departure (Basketball, Picturing 133). Often it is the latest first rung on the ladder of an urban ‘rite of passage’ according to research by the trust your urban area having the enhanced mobility now offers a heightened freedom towards individual to follow his or her chose street. It looks since if being required to go back to Victoria you to definitely big date constitutes possible you to preoccupies and you can alarm systems imaginary Polish migrants. So it will get obvious out of Roman’s situation described above including out of Tomasz Plachta’s defeatist description out of Victoria given that place ‘in which everything first started, and you may where that which you were to end’ (Koziarski 284). The fresh narrator away from Ozaist’s ‘The fresh new Guaranteed Island’ similarly announces up on reaching Victoria: ‘I understand this new unfortunate destinies about which station of television and the push, thereby I’m swinging in addition to the crowd having much heart’ (25). New identity out of Aleksander Kropiwnicki’s publication, London Route, demonstrates tall in this regard: inside the or other texts, an individual’s profits within the London was partially measured of the one’s ability to decide freely whether or not and how you to definitely makes they. Needing to quit London otherwise, having said that, being unable to leave once the one cannot afford it, end up being two markers out of ‘failure’.

To avoid Polish migrants from becoming closed inside the or expelled of which metaphorical ‘station’, Kropiwnicki has actually additional an enthusiastic appendix so you can their book named ‘Amicable London, otherwise Just how to Tame It’, that has practical information about the city. He starts which instructions into the taming new urban beast with the comment:

Up to London, obtain it?

An individual keeps indeed noticed that a number of the protagonists of the latest stories integrated right here made some grave error and other when it entered new Channel. Some of them repaid dearly for it. Before leaving getting London, you need to make the needed preparations in order to prevent the type of skills Patrycja and you can Roman had. (123)

Even though, inside the Gloss messages, Victoria is actually a place where coaches away from Poland appear, it does not connote pledge therefore the guarantee of a separate birth, but alternatively prospective inability

From inside the London area Route, up coming, british money is actually portrayed as locus out of overstretched criterion and you will prospective miscarriages whose outcomes the publication attempts to mitigate owing to form and therefore, it ought to be noted, appear some patronising and you may anachronistic.