London Orbital

What a discovery. if anybody had told me that a book could make we want to explore the M25, I would have thought they were mad. But this book did. Sinclair, on the surface seems to be cynicism personified, but this book is imbued with an affection and love for the sub-ordinary found in the secret and not-so-secret places surrounding London. Very funny, full of information and insight, a real pleasure to read.

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 grit and presence here.

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 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 show more eyes on the object of his anti-worship. show less

★★★★.5
The M25 is a roadway that circles around London and it is generally considered to be a road to nowhere. Sinclair decides that he will walk the M25 (or paths next to the M25) through various neighborhoods and passing abandoned buildings, closed mental institutions, polluted neighborhoods, beautiful gardens and estates, and much more. Multiple "characters" accompany the author as he makes the walk around the entire circuit.

This was a fascinating book for me but it is clearly not for everyone. Despite the fact that it took me months to finish this book, I really enjoyed it. I have no idea why it is on the list. It's not a novel. It's non-fiction and reads like a series of footnotes with some narrative thread loosely show more connecting the various threads. This typically is not the sort of book I would enjoy but I tackled the book as a journey. I printed out maps of the M25 and surrounding neighborhoods and I read slowly looking up pictures of all the locations. I used to live in England up until age 12. We lived in Surrey and Sinclair described many towns I knew and I loved the amount of detail provided. Reading the book in this way over the course of months, made it an enjoyable and fascinating read. I think it will be a more enjoyable book for people who are either from London or have spent significant time in London and surrounding areas.

The best way for me to describe this book is to liken it to a museum guided tour where you go from one point to the next with a group of people and stop at various locations to learn a little about each destination point and while on the way you chat with your neighbors about a variety of topics. And the sheer number of literary references are fun to read. show less

I feel a bit cheating writing a review when I didn't make a huge dent in this book (out of 500+ pages, I made it up to 87). But, damnit, I read 87 pages, that has to count for something.

One day, Iain Sinclair and some of his friends decide to walk the London Orbital, the M25, which circles London and divides it into the city and the not-city. I even remember getting lost on it once, many years ago! But this is an exercise in "psychogeography", not a travelogue or a history.

I've been giving this a try on-and-off for a few months now. But I think I might have to give up hope of actually finishing it. I'm finding it half fascinating, half frustrating. I like the writing style (reminiscent of the newspaper headlines he so admires, it is show more short and punchy in the extreme), I like the idea, I like finding out these interesting things about a London I certainly know very little about.

But my deity, a bigger bunch of wankers I have never met. Sinclair and his friends are the sort of people who, if you met them in the pub, you might be tempted to kill if only they hadn't lulled you to sleep with their arrogance and artsy-fartsy wankery.

I mean, one of them buried 100,000 pounds in his fields. As art. Now, I often leap to the defence of modern art, but this one just pissed me off. What a waste of money, when the world is full of poverty. Hell, not even the world, London itself. And the most annoying thing? I'm sure if this mate of Sinclair knew I was pissed off at him, he'd be chuffed, because outrage is probably part of the response he's searching for.

I may return to this at a later stage (but don't hold your breath waiting). As I said above, I did like quite a bit of it: it's a very dense read, where you have to pay attention to each word; and the content was really rather fascinating, with such an unusual view of modern London, unlike anything I'd ever read before. Maybe this just isn't the time for me, and in a year or two I'll be up for it. Then again, maybe not. show less

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 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.

I started this book 2 weeks ago. Ages ago. It felt like I was the one doing the walking on the M25 around London! And yet, I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Sinclair's British walkabout. I began with the intention that I was going to understand everything that was going on - I read the first two parts while sitting at the computer and looking at London and the M25 on Google maps, with extra windows open in Safari so I could check up on all the fast-flowing and random references that were being strewn about, but it just became too much. For the last three quarters of the book, I settled for living vicariously through Iain Sinclair's words, using my imagination to picture it, and cheering at the few tidbits of information I caught and waving like show more one of his dear asylum dwellers at the ones that flew over my head. It really was a fascinating book, but long and wordy and with the unfortunate tendency of putting me to sleep. Now that I'm finished I can say that it was a great experience, but one I'm unlikely to repeat in the future - unless I suddenly move to London or surrounding area and have an itch at hiking around it. Then I'll bring it along for ballast. show less