How many screws is Ian Sinclair missing?

The most remarkable thing about Iain Sinclair's writing is not the words themselves (more about them later) but the fact that, in our wonderful consumer-led market, they got published at all. Pick up any of his books, specially his earlier ones, and take a peek: This stuff is unsellable.

UNSELLABLE. Words which no one in his/her right mind is gonna want to toil through because it's so densely layered up, a near-impenetrable plaid of verbiage.

That's why I'm hooked on Sinclair: I'm fascinated by the sleights and tricks -- the loops and hoops -- he must have sprung to get this stuff paper-published. I bet he gives a good handjob.

Perhaps this aspect of Sinclair as the bigtime salesman has jaundiced my perception of his oeuvre. I'm sure he ain't. I'm sure he's shy and retiring and leaves it all to his agent, but I think a decent dose of speculation is a healthy thing. Specially when talking about someone who writes like Sinclair -- bloated metaphors that stick like burrs in your brain, one-liner quips that hint at secret knowledge or at least an intense obsession with desolate icebergs of human experience long left by the wayside (or so we had hoped), neologisms that appear to've been filched from dictionaries of dead bastard languages. This man's head is not a very nice place to be , the exit signs are painted red on red.

'Messaniacal', 'maniacal', 'searingly prophetic', 'authentic visionary'. This is the kind of blurb they print on the backs of his books -- the ones that've been published. I wonder what Sinclair makes of this. I wonder indeed why he publishes his books at all (in his writing he displays considerable contempt -- rightly so!! -- for the diasporic culture industries). I wonder a lot about Sinclair. I can't help it.

SUMMARY: Iain Sinclair's books, as far as I can tell, are all (d)elucidations -- vague, peripatetic travelogues -- on the following loosely-connected themes:

1) Swedenborg

2) The Ripper murders (London 18th century)

3) Psychogeography of various 'resonant' sites, especially in London (alright, this is sounding distinctly dodgy but believe me this is not new age bullshit at least I refuse to interpret it as such)

4) London as a fait accompli

A FAIT ACCOMPLI: London (one gets the impression it could be any city) as the sum -- paying yearly dividends -- of all the people and all of their fanatasies, obsessions, thoughts, actions, played out acrosss the whole of history. Important for Sinclair are the ways various technologies have shaped people's patterns of life. For example, a major theme in his sprawling opus 'Radon Daughters' is one ravaged cripple's addiction to dosing himself in X-Rays. This craving is laid out in successive waves of scientific cum poetic/delirious jargon so that the reader is unaware where the X-Ray ends and the onset of madness begins.

RESONANT SITES: In Sinclair's tortuous, tortured world there are various sites which, because of the sum of twisted events which have occurred in them over the years, gain particular 'resonance', or some kind of implied hieratic (that's a very Sinclair word) pertinence. Sticking to our 'Radon Daughters' example, Sinclair spends more words than might appear expedient elaborating on the London Hospital -- the site of the X-Ray dosings. It's all this history shit: Why was the building sited here? What multitude of suffering flowed through this corridor -- what undercurrents of petty gossip -- nurses taking junior doctors in the lifts -- which accrued mass of human seepage contributes vitally to our poor ravaged cripple's relationship to his X-Rays, the kicks he gets out of his habit.

UNSELLABLE: The key I think to approaching Sinclair -- at least to approaching any of his books -- is that they are completely unsellable. This is the watchword to hold at the back of your mind. If you attempt to read any of his works as a conventional cultural good -- something packaged in order to make cash -- then you will fail, not least cos of the karma. I am most comfortable considering his tomes as lost dead sea scrolls -- found artefacts stumbled upon during walks through parks.

An entirely inappropriate analogy would be to compare his books to a walk through a park in some city at dawn when you're feeling completely shit after staying up/out all night, but can't yet bring yourself to hit the sack. You're sure that if you keep walking, keep looking, something will happen that will complete the circle (make it worthwhile). So you keep walking, keep looking for hours. But all you see is a mediocre sunrise, fatal cloudburst, a pair of tramps arguing over dustbins, and a stray dog licking festering genitalia. And you wonder: Was it really worth it?