August Flânerie

A guide to and an account of ambling in town

The summer this year is relentless, mediterranean, parching the lawns, and so during a balmy Saturday evening alone in town there is little else to do than to go out. Ah, but where? It is on evenings like this that one longs to be in the countryside, away from the expectation of being socially engaged, taking in the landscape in solitude as it falls into darkness. Out there one can be alone with one’s thoughts, unselfconscious, anonymous, disregarded. Strolling around town aimlessly on a weekend evening does not come naturally; it injures one’s pride to be seen unaccompanied, one begins to slouch, fumble with one’s hands, avert one’s eyes lest some compromising awareness be communicated. To amble in town is an art: the art of flânerie.

I’ve seen plenty of people call themselves flâneurs on social media and in polite company, many of them scholars of some kind, some of them contributors to the substantial secondary literature on the canonical flânerie of Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin. But how many of these people, I wonder, have actually practised this art they claim for themselves as the basis of an identity or area of ‘expertise’?

Last year a young New York playwright wrote that the flâneur, his ‘preferred role, was dead – absurd’, a realisation he had had while walking around Florence, finding he ‘had almost no ability to merely exist, merely be; without artificial, pre-planned fun, [he] was at a loss as to how to enjoy [him]self’. I suspect this is a common opinion and a common problem, such a need to be busy and together with others. But it strikes me that this tragedian has got things the wrong way around: the aloof and leisurely existence of the flâneur is not ‘mere existence’ but one of the most sophisticated, most artificial ways of being, one which one must practise in a big metropolis on important days, not while on holiday in little Florence.

The crowd is the flâneur’s indispensable counterpart: the crowd turns people into observable objects. In Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Man in the Crowd’ the protagonist pursues an intriguing figure through the streets of London for a whole night without ever being able to see his face: in big cities, one can stroll through busy streets without recognising anyone or being recognised in turn. This condition of mutual anonymity is exploited by the flâneur, who regards people as a delightful landscape which thinks nothing of him.

The flâneur insists on his solitude, and this insistence makes possible a peculiar kind of freedom. The appetites which a walk through town usually inspires, the feelings of envy and hatred, flashes of sexual attraction and moments of affection give way to intellectual enjoyment. The city becomes a kind of gallery, except one cannot stare at the exhibits, one mustn’t circle back to have a second look: one must take everything in at once so as not to become a nuisance or a creep. The discreet nature of the flâneur is what distinguishes him from the vulgar tourist who stops and stares, takes photos, and expects some pre-formed fantasy to be gratified.

It starts cautiously, walking in some direction, this one or that one, they’re all familiar, with their own familiar delights and detractions. Walter Benjamin spoke of the skill required to get lost in a town one knows well, though as he could attest, certain psychoactive drugs may help induce the required jamais vu. It was after smoking a spliff that I discovered I live on a hill, one that slopes too gently for me to have noticed on my usual comings and goings. Psychedelics mute the busy, neurotic ego, and dissolve the habitual defences that render much of what we see and hear uninteresting – they are the flâneur’s best friends.

I end up walking through Mile End park. I’m preoccupied with the familiar sense of disgust at my surroundings, the littered streets, the useless men cruising around in their cars, the little women on their way to the discount supermarket, the drab buildings and general atmosphere of decay. On the Green Bridge across Mile End Road something starts to change. A group of Germans – an unfamiliar sight – walk up the bridge from the other end, but turn back in the direction from which they came: a couple in their late thirties, a man in his early fifties, and a child, perhaps ten or eleven years old, with thick, frizzy, blond hair that trailed him like a meteor flame while he rolled downhill on his scooter. At first I thought they looked like stereotypical Green Party voters, but the sight of that feral-looking child made me think this is what barbarians look like: I felt like a civilised Roman frightened at the sight of invading Vandals.

From hereon I could take neither my identity nor historical age for granted: I was to experience parts of the accumulated lore of human types – Romans, Vandals – rather than dwelling solely among those the media is kvetching about. As I let go of my middle-class anxieties, the city which ordinarily appears crowded with objects of disapprobation becomes a delightful living picture full of unexpected sympathies.

On the towpath, two lads are spraying graffiti on a brick wall: nothing interesting, just a tag, but I admire the simplicity of this pastime, its boyish energy the way it appropriates a piece of the city for a few days. I want to join them, or at least speak to them, but must insist on my inchoate occupation. Being a flâneur takes determination. One must combine a nonchalant gait with acute observation; one must remain detached, indifferent to company; one must choose to remain alone.

A little later, in Victoria Park: on the wide pavement that circles the edge of the park groups of men are cycling for fun, a couple go past on electric unicycles, and a young woman roller skates to some private tunes on her headphones. They seemed to experience the freedom I only allow myself to experience while skiing or sailing or cycling to the beach, swimming in the lake. These are real urbanites outing me as a squeamish provincial.

Apart from skaters and cyclists there are several joggers. Many people, it seems, use a fitness routine as a bulwark against loneliness. Why else would they exercise at seven pm on a Saturday evening? These are the people who know only how to be busy. One man speaks on the phone while running, a homesick and lonely professional from some European country. Most of the joggers in fact look like deracinated Europeans, the exception being a tall gym bro running in over-ear noise-cancelling headphones.

The eastern side of the park is dominated by Bangladeshi families whose multi-generational gatherings on the lawns contrast starkly with the individualistic creatures exercising on the periphery. A group of young people celebrate something by the East Lake which appeared like an oasis amid the straw of the lawns; a female tarot reader foretells the future of another woman; an emo-girl sits alone facing the lake. I pass through the twee ‘Old English Garden’ surrounded by vivid copper beeches. A lone young homosexual smirks on a bench by the Model Boating Lake which reflects the blushing sky and the darkening foliage in a manner worthy of Monet.

I experience the freedom of delectation: I’m living all these manifold lives for the duration of a glance; I’m grateful to these people for their generous display of themselves. On the other side of the park I pass one group which I feel briefly I want to be a part of, one whose recognition I instinctively desire: they are young, no doubt wealthy, and with an advanced taste in music and clothes. An adolescent self-consciousness returns as I see myself alone and undesirable. Some time ago I would have pretended, in situations like this, to be occupied with something – fumbling with my phone, being lost in thought or on my way somewhere. Now I realised I’m genuinely occupied, doing something I’ve chosen and find worthwhile.

There will be moments when one’s solitude will nevertheless be interpreted as loneliness by others, moments when one’s contentedness won’t manifest itself and one’s humble, friendly appearance will attract undesired company. There are clear loners walking around the park. One small young man, dressed in a black hoodie and cargo trousers is plodding around the West Boating Lake in the company of a morose chord-progression playing from a little speaker. I’m sitting on a bench when he walks up in front of me, lingering for a moment, looking my way, wondering, it seems, whether I could be his friend. I look away, rejecting his pitiful overture, and he turns round as if in pain and continues on his sorrowful stroll. A short distance away, by the edge of the lake he stops, takes out a blanket and sits down in the small space between the water and a signpost, replaying his gloomy ostinato. The way he wears his ostracism on his sleeve is astonishing.

How does a flâneur remain aloof from the people he saunters past? The Parisian flâneurs of the nineteenth century were gentlemen and dressed accordingly. Today clothes may be less effective at communicating hierarchical social distance, but the right outfit can still discourage unwanted approaches. Dark forbidding sun specs, a wide-rimmed hat, a long-sleeved shirt and some mid-range trainers, preferably in dark or muted colours. Karl Lagerfeld knew how to dress to repel, as do a certain class of yuppies that combine normcore aesthetics with faces that seem incapable of smiling: the contemporary flâneur has something to learn from these hostile-looking urbanites.

Four black women – perhaps a mother, her two adult daughters and a possible granddaughter – sit on a bench apparently chatting to one another while listening to a drum machine. As I walk past the mother, who must have been in her sixties and whose haggard appearance contrasted with the prim and erect posture of her daughters, spits out a few rhymes to the beat. A young black man lights a cigarette and walks with enviable swagger to some rap, his friend having just left him. The stream of joggers does not abate as the sun begins to set; a mixed-race man in preppy shorts and a pince-nez cycles past; at least three groups of acrobats are walking on wires suspended between trees; a houseboat by the canal is selling freshly baked pizza and a Chinese couple strut in splendid isolation from the locals. It felt like I was the only one noticing all this life.

Looking up by the canal I notice a couple adjusting the television in their sitting room: they’re visible through a floor-to-ceiling window that spans the entire width of their flat. The man is very tall, somewhat pot-bellied and shirtless while the woman, presumably his girlfriend or wife, is very petite and dressed in thigh-flashing shorts. At the far end of the room one can clearly see a large and impressively stocked bookshelf, while on the floor below an identically proportioned window reveals a kitchen. The glass walls must be a deliberate alteration, as the other flats in the wood-panelled building have small mullioned windows: it is evidently the flat of exhibitionists. The man lounges on the sofa while the woman sits upright on its edge so that both may be visible from outside. I’m titillated by the sight and my occupation as a flâneur tilts briefly towards that sister art of voyeurism. At the end of my walk, it seemed to me this town has no end of spectacles to offer: what is ‘absurd’ is that there aren’t more people who care to watch.