Liquid City

Rating:
Summary: The lack of gratitude in me is staggering
Review: IAIN SINCLAIR ON JOHN HEALY'S CRITICS: "The thing that really disturbed them was this: if the man was alive and well, chipper as a cricket, cranking out novel after novel, then the emotion they had invested in the lowlife was misplaced. An early death, coughing his guts up, was the least they could expect. The lack of gratitude in this creature was staggering. The reviews had been written under false pretences. The raves were disguised obituary notices."

Uh-huh. Well at least Wilfred Owen had the good manners to get himself croaked by Krauts. And thank God that Sylvia Plath clinched her lit cred by offing herself. But then there's Iain Sinclair. Who cranks out the sort of cartoon-paranoia fiction that's otherwise associated with Don DeLillo & Thomas Pynchon. And it's just a darn shame. Cause some of us are just plain noided out (as it were). Fortunately, LIQUID CITY is a temporary respite from Sinclair's usual subject-matter.

Rating:
Summary: The London only a Londoner can know
Review: This book told me more about London and Londoners than a million travel books or books about the legends and myths of London. Sinclair and Atkins are interested in the scenery and people that nobody ever notices. The spaces between highways, for instance, and what kind of people live in them. I read his book on Ballard's Crash and it seemed to me then that while Ballard is noticing the abstract geometry, the beautiful curve of the elevated highway, Sinclair is more interested in who lives under that curve. If you think you know London, think again. You'll know it a lot better after you've read this book. I did and it's a city I've lived in. A book which will become, I suspect, a cult classic.