Psychogeography by Merlin Coverley

The word psychogeography has become common coinage; well, at least in London literary circles. Merlin Coverley informs us that the word was first used by the Letterist group (forerunners to the Situationist International), in Paris in the 1950s. But no one seems sure exactly what it means. In the introduction, the author asks, "Are we talking about a predominantly literary movement or a political strategy, a series of new age ideas or a set of avant-garde practices?" Predictably, of course, Coverley goes on to tell us that it's a bit of all those things, "resisting definition through a shifting series of interwoven themes and constantly being reshaped by its practitioners."

Oh dear, my heart sinks, and I feel very tired. Thankfully things do improve, and the author states his intention to focus mainly on the literary traditions engendered by psychogeographical theories and ideas. Among this mélange of psychogeographical ideas and activities, Coverley identifies walking as the most crucial. Particularly in London or Paris. "This act of walking is an urban affair and, in cities that are increasingly hostile to the pedestrian, it inevitably becomes an act of subversion."

In the chapter "Paris and the Rise of the Flaneur", Coverley refers to a book, Paris Peasant, written by Louis Aragon, a friend of the Surrealist André Breton. It is Aragon's account of two walks undertaken in Paris between 1924 and 1926. Coverley comments, "If there is one book that may be identified as the handbook for today's breed of psychogeographer, then this is it. With its casual and seemingly unplanned combination of local history and biography. Political and philosophical debate and digressive style." The author highlights Aragon's disapproval at the destruction of the arcades of Paris, blaming America for the new trend of city planning. Coverley notes the parallel between 1920s Paris and London in the 1980s, when "writers railed in similar fashion against the banalisation of the city under Thatcherite redevelopment."

This protest against banalisation continued into the 1990s, via people like Stuart Home, and the London and Manchester Pyschogeographical associations. The Manchester Area Pyschogeographic's website makes clear how they felt about the new developments of the 1980s and 1990s: "The talk was all about loft apartments, gentrifying 19th-century warehouses, and so on. We preferred it in its sordid decrepitude. Perversely, because no one else was saying it, we launched the first MAP newsletter, sending copies anonymously to anyone we thought mattered, setting out our case: no to gentrification, no to museumification. We were saying, let the buildings fall down, if they must. We wanted to walk unregulated, unrepaired, atmospheric streets." MAP claim to have used their psychogeographical occult powers to levitate the City's Corn Exchange "very slightly". Apparently, people working in the chippie on the ground floor bore witness to this act.

Both those associations are presently, to all intents and purposes, defunct. The political aspects of psychogeography, in the UK at least, have declined, whereas the literary side of things has gone from strength to strength, and has crossed over into the mainstream. After years of obscurity, Peter Ackroyd and Iain Sinclair have become the doyens of the scene. Coverley seems to have misgivings about Sinclair's new-found popularity: "Psychogeography, at least as far as it is applied to London, increasingly comes to resemble an institution with Sinclair at its head and this has inevitably blunted its impact, as what was once a marginal and underground activity is now afforded mainstream recognition."

However, Coverley does acknowledge that "so successful, so recognisable and so ubiquitous has Sinclair's method become that he appears to have inaugurated an entirely new genre of topographical writing centred upon London which has gone some way towards displacing Debord and Situationism as the official psychogeographical brand." Of course, the idea of "brand" is an anathema to the traditional, subversive ideology of psychogeography.

Rather refreshingly, Ackroyd hates the term pychogeography. Coverley thinks that Ackroyd is wrong to see the city, similar to the way William Blake did, as "eternal". Coverley sees Ackroyd as being fundamentally at odds with Sinclair, as well as with the whole situationist aspect of psychogeography. However, I think that Ackroyd can be as subversive and entertaining as any situationist - for example, his theory that England is still, fundamentally, just under the surface, a Catholic country is both funny and thought-provoking. Ackroyd never misses an opportunity to attack rationalism or Puritanism (both deadly enemies of psychogeographers).

To be honest, I'm not that fussed about psychogeographical literary traditions; I think it's the concepts and ideas behind the books that tend to be of more interest than the books themselves. The exception is J G Ballard but, then again, he's a great novelist and storyteller who knows how to use and develop psychogeographical themes and ideas in his narratives. I tend to think that compared to literature, film and TV are, generally speaking, far more effective mediums, in terms of translating subversive psychogeographical ideas. The three films on London that Ackroyd made for the BBC, plus Patrick Keiller's classic London, illustrate that perfectly. Whatever, I suppose you will always find marginal blokes walking in marginal (urban) places. All these theories have done my head in. I'm going for a walk.