Review - London Orbital

And though I find myself confounded on nearly every page by Sinclair's arcane references, I am mesmerized by his turn of phrase, as Zen as his physical approach to the landscape. Verbs are often foregone for entire paragraphs:

Alongside Wembley stadium. Pre-war optimism. Post-war austerity. Football, science: the new Elizabethan World. Eagle comic, helmed by an ex-Revd, with its sliced-through sections of technological wonders. The hippie researcher blasting in the attic. Beagles in the basement.

Sinclair, with his professorial vocabulary, runs me ragged, confounding me at odd intervals with words like "gobsmacked," which leave me, well… gobsmacked. His description of the terrain is enough to provoke me onward, as he paints the M25 as another might a pastoral countryside: "In a novocaine winter morning, the motorway sleeve is suspended like a Chinese scroll painting. Wooden fence. Bare trees. Electricity poles."

The only thing that could possibly be more entertaining than Sinclair's topographical diversions is his choice of traveling companions. He is joined at various intervals on his journey by photographer Marc Atkins, writer Chris Petit, journalist Kevin Jackson, painter, Renchi Bicknell, and musician and promoter, Bill Drummond. The presence of all of these individuals in varying doses gives the journey a varied and colorful spirit.

"London Orbital," with all its socio-cultural meanderings and its arcanely informed exploration of London's outskirts and the psychogeography thereof is a must-read for British subjects, London residents, or any serious Anglophile, and while intellectually arduous, is a worthy adventure for the rest of us.