London Orbital

Publishers Weekly

At first glance, this may appear to be only a book of observations about walking alongside the M-25, the roughly 150-mile highway that encircles London, but it is actually a complex, literary meditation on crime, urban sprawl, the effect of automobiles, British politics, the relationship between history and modernity, and perhaps not least, the importance of good footwear. Sinclair (Lights Out for the Territory) writes in a hyper, staccato style that in a single passage can run the gamut from Beat poetry ("Narrative fractured. Verbals didn't stand up. Confessions wouldn't cohere. The motorway was loud with Chinese whispers") to the paranoid, embellished worldview of Hunter S. Thompson ("When dusk fell, villains took to their [borrowed-without-the-owner's-consent] cars. On the cruise. Tooted up with hand guns, machetes, petrol cans, monkey wrenches"). As with Thompson, one gets the sense that Sinclair's hyperbolic descriptions get at the truth better than a more conventional portrayal ever could. Sinclair is an artist with no patience for cheesy development, shopping malls or the very highway on which he walks, slicing past beautiful countryside and abandoned factories alike. The writing is often enjoyable, but at times heavy-handed and replete with references that will escape those not conversant in British culture: "An excuse to sample oysters in Whitstable (Notting Hill prices)," he writes, "to swim at Walberswick (Southwold: the new Hampstead)." The book is both fascinating and exhausting, and readers will find themselves rewarded even if they need to put it down frequently just to stretch their legs. (Nov.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

British writer Sinclair's earlier works, including White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings, have been compared to works by William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. In his latest release, Sinclair and several companions take to the road, specifically, the M25. This beltway, which circumscribes London, is considered by some to be the boundary of the city. As he walks the areas through which the M25 travels, the author delves into the past and present of places that may be overlooked in a city so large. Where Sinclair's Lights Out for the Territory explored inner London, London Orbital looks at the more remote locations once used for, among other things, asylums, hospitals, homes, and vacations from the industrialized city. The book contains both humor and interesting tidbits of history, but to reach these, the reader must wade through dense prose. Recommended only for libraries whose patrons are serious Anglophiles or are fans of the author's previous works.-Sheila Kasperek, Mansfield Univ. Lib., PA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Walking tour of the neighborhoods and communities that border London's M25 highway: amusing and evocative, but bewildering to those not familiar with the territory. Also known as the London Orbital, this approximately 120-mile beltway encircles the greater metropolitan area. Hackney resident Sinclair (Downriver, 1993, etc.) sets out on a series of one-day hikes to explore the M25’s perimeters and "celebrate the sprawl of London." In the company of various friends, he pokes into the histories of villages and developments, factories and estates, writers, artists, and murderers. But don't expect a neatly laid-out chronicle; he skips back and forth in both present and past time so arbitrarily that the head spins. The "walk proper" begins at Waltham Abbey near the grave of King Harold (a pre-Norman Conquest ruler) and continues shadowing the motorway in circular segments back to the abbey. Along the way, Sinclair encounters and eloquently digresses upon author J.G. Ballard, the films produced at Shepperton Studios, and the rather startling number of insane asylums that ringed London. Many of these have been replaced by suburban housing developments, but Sinclair recaptures the earlier atmosphere: ". . . much was cruel, much fantastic." Winston Churchill and Revolutionary War General James Wolfe are memorialized via facing sculptures in Kent; 19th-century artist Samuel Palmer and rock star Mick Jagger are commemorated along the Darent River as it parallels the M25. "Cool woodland passage" is besieged by the noise of traffic but also beset by robbery and murder. In Surrey, the fictionalized but clearly identifiable site of the extraterrestrial invasion in War of the Worlds, "the Martians of theNew Millennium have landed" at the Bluewater shopping mall. Sinclair's eccentric style works best when taken in small doses—and with the supplement of a map. (8 pages color illustrations, not seen)