Strange Labyrinth: Outlaws, Poets, Mystics, Murderers and a Coward in London's Great Forest - Hardcover

Ashon, Will

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783783435 ISBN 13: 9781783783434

Verlag: Granta Books, 2017

Über diesen Titel

Críticas

'Strange Labyrinth, a reckoning with the 'outlaws, poets, mystics, murderers' of Epping Forest, is interwoven with other elements in an account that soon shifts from documentation - a cultural guidebook [...] - to a delirious fiction of doctored memory and free association... [A] timely survey [that] honours some of those [characters of Epping Forest]' -- Book of the Week Review, Guardian by Iain Sinclair

'An anarchic hymn to the scruffy edgeland of Epping Forest, the ancient wood that sits on the boundary between London and Essex... Fascinating... [A] glorious book you'll enjoy getting lost in' -- Observer

'[A] twisting, [...] deeply satisfying exploration of the intellectual terrain covered by artists, writers and performers who share a connection to this place... with remarkable scope, unconstrained by boundaries of genre or style... a clever piece of work, a joy and an education... This is at heart a book about anxiety and fear, and our prospects of breaking through the enclosure our fears impose upon us... [Ashon] shows courage in taking on this ambitious project and deserves acclaim for pulling it off in such style' -- Spectator

'Ashon [writes] with verve and a winning candour about his own fearful nature, as he makes his meandering way between the trees' --New Statesman

'Ashon's acclaimed book ranges far and wide, from poets to punks, from the sculptor Jacob Epstein to the highwayman Dick Turpin... Roaming from memoir to nature writing, cultural history and psychogeography' -- Best Summer Books, Financial Times

'I can't begin to tell you how intrigued I am by this book... Ashon's strange brew of nature writing, memoir, psychogeography and punk history has a very anarchic feel to it' -- Bookseller

'Strange Labyrinth is a wonderful exploration of the tangled undergrowth of the psyche. Ashon is an anarchic Green Man; a puckish punk of the forests and here he has invented a new genre: Gonzo Romanticism' -- Jon Day

'Wilder than Macfarlane, funnier than Deakin and more emotionally engaged that Sebald, Will Ashon turns getting lost in the forest into high art, and great entertainment. By the end you'll probably be looking for a berth up a tree alongside him'-- Matt Thorne

'I found it mercilessly lucid, wildly expansive yet down-to-earth, and misanthropic as only books with real heart can be. There's tendency to treat psychogeography as a form of archaeology but he bypasses anything resembling fossils for a more intriguing, irreverant and animated approach. These are fragments of the past brought to life in the present, and a fascinating, cynical yet wide-eyed and inspiring, despite itself, present set in the greater scheme of things. A journey into the dark and terrible maze that is Englang with a guide much Minotaur as Theseus' -- Darran Anderson

'From John Clare to Crass, Will Ashon unearths magic in a forest that is more than mere harbour and hide-out for dissidents, dreamers, poets and outlaws, but which represents an entire narrative strand of an ever-changing England. Here is deep questing into both person and place, masterfully delivered' -- --Benjamin Myers

'Extensively researched and hilariously self-deprecating, Strange Labyrinth takes us on a journey that is funny, moving and fascinating' -- Idler

'Unlike any book about a landscape that I have read recently; it has a certain rawness and vulnerability to it as Ashon faces his fears... [His] interviews with those that have sat on the fringes of society are enlightening as they are interesting. It was well worth scrabbling through the understorey with Ashon to discover the ghosts of the past, the sounds of the present and the possibilities of the future of Epping Forest' -- Halfman Halfbook

'Magnetic reading... There's a joy to the book's outrage against systemic control' -- Minor Literature

'I was hooked, enchanted even... [An] intensely personal, magpie's jewel box of a book... Extraordinary and entertaining... a splendidly erudite but engaging book. Ashon is a self-deprecating and discursive guide, often very funny... A wonderfully idiosyncratic, somehow very British book which delighted me from start to finish' -- A Life in Books

'Strange Labyrinth treads its own path. It is a literary provocation, a defence of the disorderly narrative, and a call to get more lost' --Caught by the River

Reseña del editor

In litter-strewn Epping Forest on the edge of London, might a writer find that magical moment of transcendence? He will certainly discover filthy graffiti and frightening dogs, as well as world-renowned artists and fading celebrities, robbers, lovers, ghosts and poets. But will he find himself? Or a version of himself he might learn something from? Strange Labyrinth is a quest narrative arguing that we shouldn't get lost in order to find ourselves, but solely to accept that we are lost in the first place. It is a singular blend of landscape writing, political indignation, cultural history and wit from a startling new voice in non-fiction.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Granta Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1783783435
• ISBN 13: 9781783783434
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Sprache: Englisch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 416