Status
Available
Call number
Publication
London : Granta, 2002.
Description
In this volume Iain Sinclair sets out to map the vast stretch of urban settlement outside London bounded by the M25. His long journeys - from the Lea Valley to Uxbridge, from Staines to South Mimms - are flanked by the black clouds of smoke from burning carcasses as the foot and mouth panic takes hold. Here he uncovers a history of forgotten villages, suburban utopias and hellish asylums, now transformed into upmarket housing, all the while walking a disappearing landscape, as the countryside is engulfed by commerce.
Media reviews
... with its incessant detours and constant diversions into the socio-political, architectural, or artistic implications of the terrain, it can hardly be called a travel narrative.
So, what is it?
Somewhere around South Mimms, Sinclair himself dubs the journey a fugue, "transient mental illness.
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Madness as a voyage." Psychological fugue. Characterized by a loss of awareness of self in combination with a flight from one's home. Sinclair revels in his mad fugue. "You didn't walk to forget, you walked to forget the walk." The payoff lay "in the heightened experience of present-tense actuality." In American: Zen and the Art of Walking around London. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member Seajack
First of all: the author is brilliant. The bon mots fly faster dust motes in a tornado; to fully apprec iate them, the reader needs a *very* strong grounding in (somewhat obscure aspects of) English history and culture. I didn't get into the groove of Sinclair's style until nearly the end of this
P.S. I really, really could've used at least a simple map of his route
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500-page opus. Don't give up, but I don't blame those who do. Getting through this book is a similar tyo finishing a mental marathon.P.S. I really, really could've used at least a simple map of his route
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LibraryThing member John_Vaughan
An attempt to write in the free-form style of Joyce or Kerouac’s "On The Road" that fails. Unlikely friends, unrealized form and over-worked turgid sentences too full of jargon and name dropping to fulfill the purpose of a book ... communication.
Meh- Abandoned.
Meh- Abandoned.
LibraryThing member Steve38
Iain Sinclair's extended anti-Millenium Dome ramble should certainly be recognised as an imaginative form of protest march. Disguised as a grumpy old man complaining about a younger generation's flawed vision of the future he sets forth to exorcise his temper by circling London in close proximity
He hops from suburban asylum to industrial edgeland with equal enthusiasm. In close keeping with his adopted character he condemns the vast out of town shopping centres and the manufactured estates of new ticky-tacky houses. And in the end as a final self-sacrificing gesture he trecks from the fringe, through his beloved but bespoiled Hackney, to a riverside viewing point to cast his furious but becalmed eyes on the object of his anti-worship.
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to its orbital belt of the M25 motorway.He hops from suburban asylum to industrial edgeland with equal enthusiasm. In close keeping with his adopted character he condemns the vast out of town shopping centres and the manufactured estates of new ticky-tacky houses. And in the end as a final self-sacrificing gesture he trecks from the fringe, through his beloved but bespoiled Hackney, to a riverside viewing point to cast his furious but becalmed eyes on the object of his anti-worship.
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LibraryThing member jonfaith
Tremendous. The narrative arced as a measure of validation for all the bookish types minding themselves on the margins. I cannot praise this book enough. London Orbital remains anecdotal and poetic. It has a charm and understatement. Consider the blurbs from Will Self and Russell Brand. There is a
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grit and presence here. Show Less
LibraryThing member charlie68
It was kinda fun joining the author and his friends walking around London on the M25 and environs. But there's a lot of digressions and references that a lot of readers might not get or get tired of. The place I'm writing from Edmonton, also has a ring road ( The Anthony Henday) and lot of the
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issues of the M25 could also be applied here. But generally I think it's magnificent being able to get to places faster and avoid traffic lights. Except during rush hour. I liked the history that the author presents on his walk and the lay of the land he manages to convey. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Orwell Prize (Longlist — 2003)
Language
Original publication date
2002
Physical description
482 p.; 25 cm
ISBN
1862075476 / 9781862075474