• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Iain Sinclair

Spookdaddy

Cuckoo
Joined
May 24, 2006
Messages
7,901
Location
Midwich
I have to admit that I’ve started reading more books by Iain Sinclair than I’ve actually finished. Lights Out for the Territory is one of my favourite books but I couldn’t get on with Landor’s Tower or indeed much of his earlier stuff. Having said that I love the idea of Iain Sinclair and the subjects that drive him and I think he is possibly one of the few authors who can truly be called a Fortean. (Anyone who believes that Margaret Thatcher is an evil witch - not in any symbolic or metaphorical sense but actually an evil witch driven by a “demonic vision” definitely has my vote).

For anyone not familiar with him there is an interview and profile of him here from the Guardian website. I’ve always thought of him as Peter Ackroyd on acid and it was unsurprising to find out that Sinclair, Ackroyd and Moorcock were all well acquainted.

It strikes me that for someone whose subject matter is such a ripe foraging ground for Forteans his name is notable by its absence on this message board (apart from a few mentions on the Jack the Ripper thread) and I just wondered if anyone else had any views on the man and his books.
 
If you're interested in psychogeography then you could do worse than check out my site - Manchester Area Psychogeographic

Also of note is a new series on TV by Peter Ackroyd (Iain Sinclair not on acid) starting this Friday on channel 4 that looks like a promising psychogeographical history of London.
 
Iain Sinclair has great ideas but they suffer somewhat in the execution. Wading through the leaden prose of "Slow Chocolate Autopsy" was an ordeal; I had to keep telling myself "I am enjoying this, really"
 
Throw said:
Wading through the leaden prose of "Slow Chocolate Autopsy" was an ordeal; I had to keep telling myself "I am enjoying this, really"

Funnily enough I have just given up on Slow Chocolate Autopsy after about fifty pages for the third time and it's partly what inspired me to start this thread.

I know exactly what you mean. It's easy as a reader of Sinclair's work to feel a little neglected by the author. Sometimes you feel like you should be shouting "Oi, Iain. I'm over here mate," at the top of your voice just to remind him your there.
 
pi23 said:
If you're interested in psychogeography then you could do worse than check out my site - Manchester Area Psychogeographic

Also of note is a new series on TV by Peter Ackroyd (Iain Sinclair not on acid) starting this Friday on channel 4 that looks like a promising psychogeographical history of London.

Don't seem to be able to access your site pi23, but that's probably down to the slothlike and schizoid demeanour of my PC.

Thanks for the heads-up re the Peter Ackroyd series. I don't watch a lot of TV these days but I'll definitely have a bit of that. Always liked Ackroyd - reminds me of a very well-read, camp gangster of the old-school.
 
I seem to be into an Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd thing too at the moment and have a few books lined up. "Lights Out For The Territory" by Sinclair was brilliant, and I also really enjoyed "Dan Leno And The Limehouse Golem" by Ackroyd.
But I'm currently on a detour into "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco. Intriguing, but not really what I'd call a light read.
I'm looking forward to Ackroyd's London TV programme. I thought that book was marvellous.
 
Coppertop said:
I seem to be into an Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd thing too at the moment...

You might also enjoy Michael Moorcock’s Mother London. He has the same preoccupation’s and travels some of the same ground as both Sinclair and Ackroyd but is far more accessible than the former. A fantastic novel - One of his protagonists, Josef Kiss, is in my opinion, one of the great unsung heroes of modern Engish literature.
 
Alan Moore, especially in his performance work, tackles London psychogeography in a very evocative way - I can heartily recommend his, "Highbury Working," "Angel Passage" and "Snakes and Ladders" CDs.

His graphic novel "From Hell" also explores these themes in relation to the Jack the Ripper story.
 
You might also enjoy Michael Moorcock’s Mother London.

Funny you should say that - I bought a copy two weeks ago and I have it lined up :)
 
I'm not a huge Sinclair fan but he seems to be on form here in a Guardian piece in which he goes in search of the obscure 1950's novelist Roland Camberton.

Enjoy :)
 
I've recorded an Iain Sinclair lecture recently and I've written out some fragments. I like the lizard idea and how he applies it to William Burroughs:

http://uair01.blogspot.com/2011/11/iain-sinclair-lecture.html

I'm reading "London Orbital" for the second time and I like it much more than the first time. Strange ...

"Downriver" is almost unreadable with some masterly fragments.

"Rodinsky's room" is a very interesting and even Fortean book.

His newest book "Ghost Milk" is mostly very good, with only two weaker chapters.
 
I'm a big fan of Sinclair, have read Lud Heat, Landor's Tower, White Chapel Scarlet Tracings, Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein) and the wonderfully named Slow Chocolate Autopsy. I've dipped into Lights Out for the Territory as well. Have seen him speak a number of times too, most recently about his most recent book Living with Buildings and Walking with Ghosts.

I discovered him when FT did an article/interview on Landor's Tower, I found the book incredibly hard going but the final section was transcendent. His prose and approach is unique and powerful, if extremely difficult. As a general rule, the main difference between his fiction and non-fiction is that the latter is easier to read. I had read Ackroyd a long time before Sinclair and was shocked to the extent he has ripped Sinclair off.
 
Back
Top