Hybridity and the third space, baby

[alexsarll]

Over the past week I have spent time among some strange tribes - the rats and bats and strange throat-clearing old folk of the Richmond riverside, the rollerbladers and riders of Hyde Park, even the little lost sliver of Central Europe that is Mayfair (it even has the slightly substandard police - though there's maybe a hint of India to it as well; I've never seen a library with so many Wodehouse books, not even my own). And this combined with an article from the previous weekend about the death/rebirth of travel writing and set me thinking, has anyone ever done a London travel book? By which I mean, one where writers from one part of London write pieces about other areas as the foreign lands they so clearly are. It seems like an Iain Sinclair kind of project, but I think I've read all his London prose and I don't recall anything quite like this. Arthur Machen's London Adventure has something of the spirit I mean, but as one would expect from a man of a more imperial age, his project was much more centred - he spoke of "the London known to Londoners" and the lands beyond, whereas I think more in terms of separate but equal principalities under London's aegis.

There was something about the light - and later, the quality of the darkness - on Saturday night. So walking to The Melting Ice Caps/Soft Close-Ups/Soft Ice Caps (no Melting Close-Ups this time) show at Gloomy (played to a rightly rapturous crowd, some of whom I don't even know personally), I didn't necessarily want any music in my ears. Except that I had the chorus of 'We Are Golden' by Mika stuck in my head and I sure as blazes needed something to shift that, because even as someone who rather liked (most of) his first album, I find the new stuff irksomely hollow.

Comments

[ultraruby.livejournal.com]

We (by which i mean some folk we know that like London and writing) should totally write that travel book. I reckon it'd make an excellent collaborative project.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes, just as soon as I get enough people telling me it doesn't already exist, which I still can't quite believe...

[ultraruby.livejournal.com]

Ach well, novels about love exist but people still write more of 'em. Even if there are already London travel books I reckon ours would still be top.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

That's the thing, though - I often see books and think 'Why did this need to be written?' - some authors are no better than people who need to say their bit in every conversation even when someone else has already said the same thing.

[ultraruby.livejournal.com]

Aye, true enough. It's one of my big reasons for not doing any non-lj non-work writing really, the fact that so many books and stories and projects exist already. But then! Where would we be if everyone thought like that? There is often room for more stuff, even (perhaps especially) if it's done on a DIY self-publishy basis.

[charleston.livejournal.com]

I agree with all the above. And Alex, I love this post. And given that you are a gentleman of leisure, why not write it yourself?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

In my head it's an anthology but I'm certainly tempted to do bits and pieces.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

As with eg attempted chat-ups, the problem is that the very people who so seriously need to think 'hang on, is this wanted?', and then stop, are precisely the people who never will.