My Favourite London Devils by Iain Sinclair (2016)

 Iain Sinclair has hitherto just been a name to me, and the associations suggested had a particular flavour; he seemed always beloved of what I would call 'fanboy' types. In-crowd 'boys'. Now I'm initiated, and the evidence is mixed. It was hard to go from Gene Wolfe to this one. Whereas Wolfe's calling card was labyrinthine plot and conceits, Sinclair's ramifications are in the prose, and the referencing. Where Wolfe was concave, allowing us as readers to push into his space, have some agency, Sinclair is highly convex, and we have to sit and 'listen'. These are all pieces, I think, written as introductions to new editions, or occasional journalistic pieces, about authors who treat of London in a big way. So he's excused, in a sense, for being on the plane of provision. They vary in treatment a little, from where the fascinating details of lesser-known authors' lives and publishing histories are allowed to breathe, to desperately hyperbolic coverage of the legends of 'legends' like Ballard. Sinclair in this mode (I am assuming there may be different ones for fiction and other pieces) is endlessly referential and declarative, heroising these figures almost to the point of having them leering over us, backed by a significant sunset, their rock-of-ages-like visages slaking off the sweat of greatness. It's all frankly a bit much. It's overwrought and exhausting, but the element which goes furthest to performing a saving trick is the information locked away in this convexity. I'm guessing the fanboys revere the style as poetry, loving the namechecking and dramatic, essentialist language. I feel tired.