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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Did I only imagine this private eye?

Ruchbah me, Armaduras

10:10 / 02.04.04

I've never actually finished "White Chapel Scarlet Tracings," even though it looks fantastic. But I feel so sure, too sure perhaps, that when I was reading it about three years ago, Iain Sinclair wrote about a fictional private eye who was obsessed with paperback novels and clairvoyancy. Just recently I've tried flicking through the bit of the book I'd read, and I can't any reference to it, but I really want there to be. Did I only imagine it? Or is it actually in there somewhere?

Alex's Grandma

21:25 / 02.04.04

I don't know if it was in White Chapell, Scarlet Tracings, but this is a pretty typical Sinclair theme. Have you read anything else ? Only I was thinking it might by in Downriver, or maybe Slow Chocolate Autopsy, ( part novel part graphic novel done with Dave McKean, though possibly, arguably, not as good as it sounds. )
Otherwise, have you tried Lights Out For The Territory ? It's a sort of non-fiction, satirical travelogue through " alternative " London, street culture, MI6, the City and so on, completely original, beautifully written, and you'll never see the old place quite the same way again. The Jeffrey Archer section's worth your eight quid alone.

Ruchbah me, Armaduras

09:04 / 05.04.04

That's a point - I was certain it was in WCST but it could have been somewhere there in Lights Out... I have a very strange relationship with Sinclair - he's an absolutely brilliant writer whom I adore, but I've only read one of his novels all through - Landor's Tower, and Christ was that a slog. I should have a month of reading his books, one by one, till I'm sure there's nothing about a psychic private eye there.

Alex's Grandma

11:38 / 06.04.04

Yeah, I haven't tried Landon's Tower ( and " try's " definitely the word when it comes to a lot of his fiction, especially the later stuff - I read Radon Daughters, and was frequently reminded of the fictional novel in Martin Amis' The Information, the one that gives people migraines, drives them to tears, has them sat in blacked-out rooms with a cold compress pressed to their aching foreheads, that type of thing. ) I don't know if you'll find your PI in Lights Out... though, what with it being non-fiction ( which I just think he's better at, at least these days anyway, ) but as I recall anyway, Downriver's full of charcters like that, so I'd give it a whirl. It's easily the most accessible fiction he's done

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