Edge of the Orison - Iain Sinclair > Reviews (1)

THE AUTHOR
Iain Sinclair started as a poet in the London avant-garde fringe in the 1960s and 1970s. A fruitful period as a second-hand book dealer paid his bills before he became famous for his essays and novels such as 'Lud Heat', 'Suicide Bridge', 'White Chapell, Scarlet Tracings', 'Downriver', and 'Radon Daughters'. All his work but most explicitly his essays combine a unique take on psychogeography* with his literary interests, including 'British noir' books and films. More recently he has described travels on foot around celebrated/notorious routes eg 'Liquid City', 'London Orbital' (a reflective narrative tour of the M25), and 'Dining on Stones' (a similar tour along the A13). 'Edge of the Orison' is the latest in this series of highly unconventional tours.

EDGE OF THE ORISON
Subtitled 'In the Traces of John Clare's "Journey out of Essex"', this virtual pilgrimage retreads 19th-century Northamptonshire poet John Clare's 1841 journey home from a mental hospital in Epping Forest back to Northborough. The title comes from Clare's passage: ' I had imagind that the world's end was at the edge of the orison & that a days journey was able to find it so I went on with my heart full of hopes pleasures & discoveries … ' [sic].

JOHN CLARE?
Relatively little known poet, 1793 - 1864, son of farm labourers in rural Northamptonshire, partly educated, and later fêted for his prose and poetry. Clare's work was distinguished by his use of Northamptonshire dialect and phrases, and his refusal to obey the increasing contemporary standardisation of punctuation and spelling. Childhood malnutrition left him physically vulnerable and later he suffered from an unspecified mental illness, which at that time was barely diagnosable, let alone treatable. Sinclair contributes to existing speculation as to whether Clare's experience of the London literary scene contributed to his breakdown, unfamiliar as he was with the clamour and stews of a large city. Upon his return from London, Clare was eventually admitted to the Northampton asylum. You don't need to know or enjoy Clare to find this book interesting. It's probably a must for his fans, though hardly a conventional biography. Sinclair's interest in Clare extends to making his own transcription from Clare's original manuscripts in the Northampton public library (there is some debate about copyright).

THE BOOK
The frontispiece has a photograph of John Clare, and there is a map tracing Clare's three-day tramp from High Beech in Essex, through Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough to Northborough. The map also shows the route taken by Sinclair in 2000, which deviates slightly due to changes in access, taking in Stevenage, Potton, St Neot's, Stilton and Helpston, where Clare is buried. His tombstone reads 'A poet is born not mad'. The final E is obscured by lichen.

As usual Sinclair teams up with chums Renchi, poet/ascetic, and filmmaker Chris Petit. The latter was responsible for the sublime 'Radio On' and disappointing 'Unsuitable Job for a Woman'.

Additionally, Sinclair's wife Anna is along for the journey, as she claims a distant family connection with Clare. This book is also the story of Sinclair's love for his wife and their quest for the source and truth of this rumour. I won't reveal their findings, but a fair portion of the book is devoted to Hadman family history in and around Glinton.

Most of the tour is punctuated with accounts of not just the oddities of people and places they encounter but even litter and street furniture, especially signage. Particularly memorable episodes are the group's excursions from and commentaries on High Beech, around Stilton, and a boat trip along the River Nene. Sinclair's style is often free-associative and he is fond of Coincidence. He makes much of the fact that James Joyce's daughter was a patient at the same asylum in the 20th century: one of her few visitors being playwright Samuel Beckett. Recurring themes such as the location of major asylums around the periphery of London - a space where [the implications of] outsiders could be safely contained - the miseries of A-road services and cheap hotels, his predilection for and quest for the perfect greasy spoon café, and elements of Sinclair's own biography should interest new readers. Readers of Sinclair's previous tours, where these have also been explored, will frequently have a strong sense of déjà vu. Irritating to me. Despite this, as always he yields highly interesting snippets and more anecdotes barely related to the original topic/s, which often refer to the political/artistic/literary fringes of the 1970s.

Unlike many, I don't think Sinclair is a very good writer; like many I feel he'd benefit from considerable editing. I've read most of his books and can honestly say I enjoy the 'non-fiction' because I share similar obsessions. Thus I tolerate his (to me) irritating, highly tangential style for his revelations and quirky associations of events and places. It's not for everyone: but if the subject matter appeals then so will some of his commentary, so don't be put off. Like his other pilgrimages, this will repay re-reading.

The book finishes with a map of Clare's 'Orison', ie Peterborough's 'gravitational field'; the Hadman family tree; a bibliography, including most of Clare's works; and acknowledgements. There are various black-and-white photographs, poorly reproduced, within the text.

PUBLISHER AND PRICE
Penguin paperback, 2006, first published 2005, rrp £8.99. As ever, Amazon and other Internet and shop deals may be cheaper.

* Psychogeography [PG] has as many definitions as practitioners, but here goes. It's a combination of local geography and myth, occultism, history, literary references, Situationist politics, postmodernist cultural studies and sociology, esoterica and the accidental collisions between these and the mundanities of everyday life. My definition is as hackneyed as it is contentious. Again, if the topic and writer appeal you should find some PG works interesting. Other well-known (and more accessible) PG writers are Stewart Home and arguably the great Peter Ackroyd.

Still with me? Thanks for reading.