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Edgelands (2011)

by Michael Symmons Roberts(Favorite Author)

3.89 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0224089021 (ISBN13: 9780224089029)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Jonathan Cape

review 1: For someone who has always been scared of abandoned cars on the side of a-roads, this book was always going to at least hold my attention. The authors are fascinated by the spaces between the urban and the rural and do well in attempting to break down this particularly prevalent binary by focusing on all the bits that don’t fit. Given that the authors are poets with university affiliations rather than geographers, this is more about imaginative space than physical.This reads more like a poetry collection than a sustained polemic, which is a good thing in my view. The authors flit between ideas and ponderings effortlessly, using the single worded chapter headings (Wire, Ruins, Woodlands, Canals, Containers etc) as springboards for thinking about what these non-spaces mean... more, what they symbolize, what they do, how they make you feel. The authors draw on a range of poets, artists and architects to prop up their own ideas, but dodge po-faced intensity for foolish, often tongue-in-cheek romanticism. Tellingly the authors are often scathing in their off-hand criticisms of “so-called psycho-geographers”; they are poets with little to no interest in meaning.This book is at its strongest in its evocation of the English landscape. If Wordsworth lived in modern-day Wigan and was charged with sending occasional editorials from the car park of the abandoned Big W warehouse on the edge of town, he may have produced something like this book. The authors are less convincing however when any actual people trespass in their imaginative wilderness. In one chapter they pay lip service to an ‘interview’ with a night warden, but seem less interested in him than what he represents. In another chapter, a receptionist at a pallet yard on the edge of Birmingham is bemused by the authors’ request to have a wander around. The authors’ inability to understand the receptionist’s confusion, speaks volumes about how obtuse and how irritating artists can be. In another part of the book, the authors tell a story about how Auden would get excited about meeting minors, but found it difficult to sustain a conversation with any of them. This is a unique and personal collection of meandering and often beautiful, poetic prose. The authors find transcendence in the most mundane of landscapes, but fail to make a connection with the lived experience of those who pass through them.
review 2: One of the best and most unexpected books of the year, a book that sounds ridiculous when described but becomes magical when read.It is slightly difficult to review this book as it doesnt have a plot or a viewpoint to express. It is a musing and possibly a love-letter to a forgotten area of Britains geography, the term "psychogeography" has come into vogue recently and maybe this is one of those books.The two authors act as one voice to discover, describe, understand and celebrate Britains "Edgelands" - areas of space mainly between urban conurbations and the countryside. This could be anything from retail parks to sewage farms to storage depots to motorway underpasses. This is the unseen landscape we regularly travel through but never really look at.Our relationship with these areas is shown to be ambiguous on the one hand they contain all the things we want out of site such as rubbish tips, quarries and sewage works but they are also places that we need for our everyday living. Further Edgelands are becoming increasingly used for retail parks, hotels and conference centres places which we are visiting in ever increasing numbers even though the areas they are in do not appear to support much in the way of housing and communities these places are only visited when we need to.The book is divided into chapters focusing on differant aspects of the "Edgeland" landscape- Cars (for transport to Edgelands), Gardens (an attempt to impose order on the wild Edgelands) etc.The authors then muse on each of these subjects moving through in a free associative way whether by reminiscing about childhood den-building, photographing transport pallets or collecting signs discarded by hitchikers. Each subject is examined to see what our role is to these forgotten places and what their role is to us.The authors are poets by trade and do an excellant job of showing poetrys ability to discuss the humdrum everyday world. They also mention other artists mainly photographers who take their inspiration from these places.There are some fascinating bits in this book discussions on birdwatching, graffiti, the geographical distribution of wildplants and the use of storage depots and allotments amongst them.Overall this is a wonderful and fascinating book containing lots of factual nuggets and most importantly will make you look at those Edgelands areas you pass through in a differant way. less

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