Psychogeography

One of the things I like about Apple Books is the ability to download a sample of a book that it usually includes the entire first chapter or two or an introduction if it is a non-fiction book. It’s the closest I can get electronically to what Michelle and I always called The-First-Sentence-Test. It made book shopping always fun because we would read these to each other trying to gauge the other’s reaction. Other on-line retailers sometimes offer you a preview, but it’s often not helpful because it shows you the first few pages of the book that don’t necessarily contain text, but rather title, author and publisher’s information or blurbs, which is not helpful at all.

All that to say that I am working on a couple of pieces of writing and I thought I would read Merlin Coverley’s Psychogeography. And now that I have read the introduction, I am not sure I want to keep reading because it got me swearing twice already. Also, I do want to because that’s the kind of creative outrage I quite like. But then Michelle will have to suffer through my outbursts. Now, if, and it’s a big IF, I could keep those to manageable frequency and intensity, she might enjoy that, too. Oh dear reader what to do… what to do…

Also, Squarespace mobile app is so frustrating to the point that it is almost not usable. Sigh…

Okay, fine. I’ll tell you what outraged me. In his introduction, Coverley traces the literary origins of British psychogeography and he manages to do that without once, not once, mentioning Virginia Woolf’s Street Haunting. And then he does one better and makes a bold and ridiculous claim that “The act of walking is principally an urban affair…” What??? What??? He writes that sentence in English of all languages. You can pick up almost any random Jane Austen or Brönte sisters novel and people will be walking all over the place. Never mind lake poets if you really want to stay within the distinguished airs of a men’s club although I guess you would have to mention Dorothy Wordsworth - or maybe not if you can leave out Virginia effing Woolf… Arggghhhh… I better get that book.