Laura asked me a question: “What should I read that would improre my writing. She gave me two less than promising options: a Lacan book and something called the Libertine Reader (nothing, thank Christ, to do with Pete Doherty). Rather than pass comment, I scanned my own shelves looking for something better.
Ballard? Too clinical. Home? Too wild. Schopenhauer? Too arch. Sinclair? Ah, Iain Sinclair’s Lights out for the Territory. Perfect. He is the perfect modern author of poetic prose: every sentence is soaked with allusions, his command of language is superb, visceral and unique. No one could fail to be inspired by lines like this:
“The notion was to cut a crude V into the sprawl of the city, to vandalise dormant energies by an act of ambulant signmaking.”
Sinclair is radical, uncompromising and wry. Alas, Laura chose the Libertine and I wrote this.
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