Strange Labyrinth

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"Strange Labyrinth tells the story of a man in midlife, wandering in London's forest. It is a personal account of one writer's search for meaning, and also a narrative that skips from detailed expositions of the history of enclosure to the dynamics of Jacobean court society by way of punk rock, murder, poaching, sculpture, cardiac arrest, sexual repression and even a bit of tree-climbing. It's also a meditation on revitalising one's professional and personal life with some kind of quest narrative. In a litter-strewn forest on the edge of London, might the writer find magic in the middle of the fake nature and the real nature? He will certainly discover filthy graffiti and frightening dogs, but also Jacob and Margaret Epstein, Ken Campbell, Penny Rimbaud, Mary Wroth, as well as robbers, lovers, ghosts and bandits. But will he find himself, or a version of himself he might learn something from? Strange Labyrinth argues that that we shouldn't get lost in order to find ourselves but solely to accept that we are lost in the first place. It is a book about contingency, about using a forest-inspired 'radical indeterminacy' to slip loose of the boxes within which we enclose ourselves. It is beautifully crafted, woven from biography, memoir, social history and landscape writing, and simmering with a subtle political indignation." -- Provided by publisher.