White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings

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White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings

Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Media: Specific Titles: Fiction : White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings

Author: Ken Whiteway Monday, 02 August 1999 - 11:16 pm
Has anyone read Iain Sinclair's 1987 novel White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings? I've always considered myself to be reasonably intelligent, but this book is over 200 pages long and I understood (maybe) 40 of them. Could someone with a better grasp of this type of literature please give me a clue as to what the heck the book is supposed to be about?
Author: Judith Stock Tuesday, 03 August 1999 - 12:54 pm
The book is supposedly about a group of antiquarian booksellers searching through London's bookshops for "finds" and becoming involved with the mystery of which we all find ourselves so interested; I found, however, that as in all Sinclair's books, it appears he's been standing a liiittttttlllle too close to the hash pipe. Have a couple of beers and try again--it MAY make more sense this time, but I wouldn't count on it. For a better read, try "Night in the Lonesome October"; it's a lot of fun and suitably weird as befits the areas into which we all seem to have wandered lately.

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