Merlin Coverley

This is a fine overview of a confusing concept, but there are some issues.

First, Coverley describes everything he is going to talk about in his introduction, so by the time you get to the detailed sections you feel like you've already read everything. A general overview of the figures and concepts he presents would be more useful.

Second, this:

"If the flâneur celebrated by Baudelaire and Benjamin is merely a passive observer detached from his surroundings, then his female counterpart, the flâneuse, is ascribed a quite different role, that of the prostitute"

"Ascribed" is a troubling word here, but the worst part of this assertion is that it's only used to, again, bring the subject back to the men Coverley writes about. We hear no more about the flâneuse. In fact, she's only mentioned twice, in the introduction and when the information is repeated in the section on surrealism.

So, the city is erotic because men pursue women there. What about those women? Who are they? What is their experience of the city? Prostitute or not, women existed in the city and they wandered the streets and observed daily life. For example, Rebecca Solnit in her book Wanderlust describes George Sand's choice to eschew female clothing because male clothing was better suited to her walks of the city streets.

George Sand aside, I know that the number of women writing on these issues in the 19th and early 20th century was probably small, but that brings me to a related but separate issue. Coverley quotes Solnit to bolster his history, but completely neglects her when covering the modern psychogeographic landscape. I guess she doesn't fit into his London/Paris dichotomy, but if I had the energy I could argue that her work is of more relevance to the vague thing that is psychogeography than JG Ballard's is, and I'm a huge fan of JG Ballard. But right now I don't have the energy.

I know this book is a short introduction, but an edit of that unnecessary intro would surely allow some room for women, or at least more than a reference to unnamed prostitutes and named fictional characters like Nadja, who "is an embodiment of the city as the eternal female."

gross.… (mere)

First, I don't recommend the audiobook. The reader, while fine on the main parts of the book, insists on speaking in different accents when reading excerpts from authors. So for Freud, he uses a ridiculous German accent. For Derrida, a ridiculous French accent. And so on. This is ludicrous. If he were quoting from Stephen Hawking, would he use a computerized voice? And even though his British English voice narration is pleasant, he misreads "psychical" as "physical" more than once. Put him out to pasture and hire someone else please! He can't even pronounce Jorge Luis Borges' name! And the accent he reads Borges' work in is also ridiculous. Did he bother to watch Borges speaking English on YouTube?

The audiobook also makes it harder to note all the references to authors and places the reader may want to follow up on, which is easy to do when reading an actual book or an ebook.

Now for the book itself. First, it is very Britain-centric, so may not appeal that much to an American reader, although the concept of hauntology is valid here as well. Coverley also provides good introductions into a number of authors such as M.R. James, Nigel Kneale, and Susan Cooper. The idea, that we are so haunted by the past (mostly in the form of nostalgia) that we're stuck in sort of a time warp (my explanation, not Coverley's) seems somewhat valid. In any case, this is too difficult to explain in a short review. Read the description anywhere the book is sold, and you'll know if it's for you almost immediately.… (mere)

Reading Iain Sinclair and books like London Incognita made me interested in this subject in general, so when I saw this volume in a London used book store (not used, but selling for less than half-price), I snapped it up. It isn't the most scintillating of reads, but it does provide a good introduction to the various aspects of psychogeography and its related subjects. It is a bit dated--2010--but otherwise mentions the usual cast of suspects from Defoe to the present. It serves an an excellent entry point to further exploration, and the list of references in the back is still helpful.… (mere)

This book wasn't what I expected from reading the description. I was expecting a look at actual ghost stories and tales of haunting, and how the spectral influences the corporeal. Instead, I found myself introduced to a fascinating philosophy that I was wholly unfamiliar with. This notion of how the past 'haunts' the present resonated with me. Concepts such nostalgia, retromania, cyclical history and more gave me much to ponder, leading to it taking much longer to finish reading than it might otherwise have.

This seemed eerily prescient given current goings on both world-wide, and within my birth country. The past is certainly haunting us right now as history has cycled around, bringing situations we should have been prepared for/ could have avoided. A global pandemic and the rise of the Tangerine Tyrant are events repeating themselves, echoing into the present, yet no-one seemed prepared at all. I wonder- will we ever learn from the dead past or will it always haunt us?

****Many thanks to Netgalley and Oldcastle Books for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.… (mere)