Where everything is connected to everything else and anything is possible - London in Peter Ackroyd's Three Brothers
Abstract
In his London novels, Peter Ackroyd creates a distinct and original fictional world with a number of idiosyncratic features, such as presenting the city as a reflection of its dwellers' minds, a belief in the power of its genius loci, the concept of mystical time challenging the traditional notion of temporal linearity, a focus on the dark sides and heterogeneous tendencies of the city, the theme of crime and criminality, an exploration of the city's irrational manifestations such as mysticism and occultism, its essentially theatrical nature, and its literary, particularly intertextual and palimpsestic, texture. This article demonstrates the various ways in which Ackroyd presents and explores London in his latest novel, Three Brothers (2013), and attempts to establish its position within the overall body of his London writing, arguing that it bears a notable affinity especially with his first novel, The Great Fire of London (1982).