A travel writing classic, with a new preface by the author and an afterword by Geoff Dyer. Can you be a pilgrim without leaving your life behind? How
does it feel to approach everyday places with the same reverence as grand
cathedrals? And how are we changed by even the smallest of journeys? James
Attlee asks these questions and more in his thoughtful, streetwise, and
personal account of a pilgrimage to a place he thought he already knew: the
Cowley Road in Oxford, right outside his door.
Attlee’s Cowley has little to do with the dreaming spires
of his city. Leaving tourism and student life aside, Attlee instead presents a
vital and delightfully motley collection of places, people, languages, and
cultures. From a sojourn in a sensory-deprivation tank to a furtive visit to an
unmarked pornography emporium, from halal shops to Brazilian art dealers to
reggae clubs to quiet churchyards, Attlee celebrates the appealing and
homegrown eclecticism that so often comes under attack from predatory
developers.
Drawing inspiration from sources ranging from Robert
Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy to
contemporary art, Isolarion is at
once a charming road movie, a battle cry raised against creeping
homogenisation, and a love song to the gloriously messy real life of the city
he calls home. 'The attraction, for Attlee, is that Cowley Road 'is both unique and nothing special'; the resulting book is unique and very special...Residents of East Oxford can be proud to have this eccentric advocate in eloquent expolrer in their midst.' Geoff Dyer, The Guardian