From: angelina
Category: Books
Date: 30 November 2003
Iain Sinclair. Started reading his "Radon Daughters", seems like it was ages ago and I still carry the heavy hardback in my bag, to and fro, from home to work, trying to read on the tube but daydreaming down the District line, past the graffiti daubs of Whitechapel, pigeon shit covered Aldgate East then down to darkness at Tower Hill, the brooding nether worlds which Sinclair writes about, I encounter daily. The book was a recommendation from an ex which I borrowed from the library after being promised it “pre-split-up”, Newham council accommodating when he buggered off. So what’s all the fuss about, I thought, indeed, can anyone tell me what all the fuss is about…? The dark twisted prose, drug-like, gnarly, is fascinating but annoying, poetic but overly complicated…? I hate leaving books unread, without getting to the end, but I have exhausted my patience with this one…The central character, a cripple, a writer and police informant who has an addiction to X-rays, his lover who enters the world of female boxing (ample description is given to their sex life), her friend who is a photographer and also happens to have been a nude model (ample time is spent on the details) plus various other misfits and unbelievable characters. And they go about their business, Xraying and shagging and fighting and stuff. So the blend of fantasy and reality, nightmarish visions, are they interesting? Feels like a middle aged writer’s fantasy world to me…or is that unfair and am I JUST NOT GETTTING IT??? There is some kind of a plot, though hard to decipher as the prose is dense with metaphor ananlogy description etc etc, and I KNOW that this is what he is famous for, but it gets a bit tedious…Someone please explain, as I do know that he is a highly acclaimed writer and I do like bits of his book - though I couldn’t eat a whole one.
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