London Orbital
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Paperback, 592 pages
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.co.uk ReviewOne might be forgiven for thinking that the only thing more boring than spending a year walking around the M25 would be reading a large book about walking around the M25. Yet Iain Sinclair's London Orbital is a fascinating and curiously haunting read. Part of the reason is that Sinclair brings to the project an immense literary talent, an intense and lifelong interest in the history of London and some extremely interesting travelling companions.
The walk was taken in several stages, from Waltham Abbey to Shenley, Abbots Langley to Staines, Staines to Epsom and Epsom to Westerham before going on to Dartford, the river and Carfax and arriving back at Waltham Abbey. Each stage fills a chapter and the reader is advised to take a leaf out of Sinclair's own book by taking one stage, one chapter at a time. This is a large book of 450-odd pages and by the time the journey gets under way--about 60 pages in--even Sinclair's dazzling prose is not enough to offset the gloomy prospect of taking a second-hand trip around the London Orbital. And yet after the first trip one finds oneself being sucked in and thinking about some of the grey, ugly images, or being angered by the grasping and philistine approach of developers and copywriters and the cynicism and hypocrisy of government.
The history of London has long been Sinclair's great passion but he populates this strange excursion with flesh-and-blood people as well as literary and mythic figures: there's John Clare watching Byron's funeral procession before embarking on his epic three-day journey back to Northborough, "chewing tobacco and gnawing grass torn up from the roadside"; then there are tales of Dracula, of lost lunatic asylums, of passionate political activists crying out against toxic land and of meetings with ex-members of London's criminal underworld.
London Orbital gets under the skin. What looks at first like a dull and deeply unappealing journey is actually a multi-layered, lyrical, ugly, mythical, engaged and engaging excursion from the present into the past and back again. --Larry Brown
Reviews
(Rated 3 out of 5)
London Orbital deserves the praise it's received - it's well-written, interesting and stays in the mind beyond the last page. However - it's not always an easy, comfortable read. Sinclair paints a realistic, harsh picture of the environment he encounters on his trek around the M25 - there is little light relief to the darkness of urban sprawls, murky property deals, criminality, insanity and retail parks that seems to form the bulk of the book.
I know part of his route very well - living quite close to Junction 9 of the motorway and knowing something of the history and geography of the Epsom/Leatherhead area. Even here, in what I consider to be pleasant surroundings, there are dark deeds to be uncovered by Sinclair and his band of wonderful eccentrics who trek around the motorway with him.
At the end of the book, I felt as if I'd literally done the journey with him. A worthy, intelligent book - but not your average skim read in terms of travel writing. It's much more intense than that.
(Rated 1 out of 5)
I am afraid I have to agree with the reviewers who didn't like "London Orbital". I originally skimmed through the book in a bookshop and it didn't appeal to me. However, a friend bought a copy for me as a gift and so I ended up reading it.
Firstly, "London Orbital" says surprisingly little about the M25 itself. Anyone interested in the history of how a major motorway came to be built in the green belt surrounding London or seeking an analysis of the effect it has had on local communities in terms of transport, economics and the environment will be disappointed. Instead, Sinclair uses the general location of the M25 as an excuse to write about anything in the area which takes his fancy.
Unfortunately this includes a lot of things which are speculative or just gossip. A good example is Sinclair's account of the housing development at Enfield Island Village. For nearly 200 years the land was previously occupied by the Enfield Royal Small Arms Factory. Sinclair drops dark hints that the land the housing is built on may be contaminated with chemicals or even radioactivity from the factory. However, it appears that the only source for this information is a conversation with a local resident who once knew someone who worked in the factory. Sinclair doesn't actually seem to have done any proper research into this subject, which is disappointing.
The Island Village issue is typical of the negativity and cynicism in this book. However, I didn't find much humour, and it all gets a bit wearying after a while. I was also wearied by the writing style which consists mainly of short sentences and missing verbs. At first this is fresh and original, but soon becomes a major headache.
Negative reviews such as this one tend to be rated badly by other Amazon reviewers, but I can only report on how I found the book. To be honest, I couldn't finish it. I thought it was terrible.
(Rated 5 out of 5)
The London Orbital, I found it fantastic. It is a great book written by a man that has so much feeling in what he does. To get full enjoyment out of this book you need to know something about the history of the country and a lot about the geography of the green belt. For me, I am lucky, I know a lot about both and maybe more than him about the geography. The research he has done, the political aspect he has added and yet not going against any political party will open up your eyes to many things. Sometimes I found it difficult to keep up with him, but it was a book I could not put down. This book opened my eyes to a lot of things I have never seen. All I say, is if you buy this book and there are times you can't keep up with it, please stay with it till the end. Go back to it and read it again. I am lucky as I understood it all. I know that Shakespear would have been proud to write such a wonderful piece as this is.
(Rated 5 out of 5)
The other reviews here left me a little puzzled, perhaps the readers found Sinclair a tad intimidating? I don't say this to be unkind, as at times, I too had to put the book down to take some respite from the barrage of information, images and references. This is more than just a piece of travel writing, it is the nexus of an almost overwhelming number of intertextual as well as geographic explorations. Iain Sinclair walked, not just through the physical locations he describes, but also through time, history and the sheer abstract. His wanderings as a modern day flaneur are inciteful, educated and hugely original. The story of a hike around the M25 really shouldn't be interesting, but Sinclair makes it so. He opens our eyes to the political and historical reality of the gradually increasing sprawl of London, as well as its psychological effects on modern life. I read this and then graduated to the even more intimidating 'Landor's Tower'. I'd recommend both highly, but unless you're widely read, you may have a little trouble keeping up with Sinclair's train of thought. He doesn't insult his readers, he assumes a high level of intelligence. A breath of fresh air in these times of trashy faddish novels and celebrity autobiographies...
(Rated 2 out of 5)
... to be evocative. The interesting information is submerged by the prolix writing. The author displays much of the Time Out-style London political bigotry (i.e. of the fashionable left rather than the lumpish right) and I found this wearing after the first chapter. In summary, the book doesn't provide much motivation to keep ploughing on. I wouldn't buy it but if my local library stocked the book I might have considered it worthwhile skimming through.