Flytopia short film from Karni and Saul – Sulkybunny on Vimeo.
Film version of Will Self’s short story Flytopia from his collection Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys from Film4. You can read what Will has to say about it too. Flytopia was filmed by Karni & Saul, and it premiered online today.
A short trailer for Flytopia, based on Will Self’s short story from Tough Tough Toys … with music by Adrian Utley of Portishead.
To coincide with the paperback release of Liver, £7.99, Penguin is also publishing Dorian, Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys, Dr Mukti and Other Tales of Woe, and How the Dead Live, all at £8.99.
Robert Clarke, April 1998
“In his new collection of short stories, Will Self once more welcomes us to the terrifyingly trenchant world of the literary recusant. With his usual irreverent wit and unrestrained surrealism, Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys sees Self move from the ridiculous to the downright absurd through a mixture of high art and low life, leaving in his wake a darkly satirical collage of contemporary fiction.”
SpikeMagazine.com, April 1997: Robert Clarke talks to WS about Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys:
“If critics have pointed to his apparent irreverence and lack of emotional engagement towards the act of writing, he is keen to suggest that ‘I am fairly mystical about the relationship with the text . . . a posture of humility in relation to your own muse is quite important, and my personal feelings I try to keep away from that.’ Unlike what he agrees has become the lifeblood of contemporary literary discourse: ‘Self-confession as I see it is a really decadent syndrome . . . a crisis of imagination and very depressing.’ While his work is ‘nakedly personal’, he opposes any literalist interpretation of his work, and is intent in distancing himself from the idea that fiction should be pandering to the essentially regressive or escapist tendencies of the book-reading public: ‘To think that would be insane. I might as well write Mills and Boon. Every text contains within itself the idea of an objective reading . . . those who think there is a subjective reader are full of shit. Just as I am trying to break down my resistance to writing books, so I suppose at the same time, I am trying to break down people’s resistance to reading them. Books aren’t life, they are just books.'”
7 reader reviews
“There are two distinctive characteristics that make Will Self’s writing what it is : his idiosyncratic prose and his outlandish concepts. The language Self uses can be off-putting. The prose is deliberately dense in places, almost as if it is put up as a challenge – Self has publicly derided lazy readers. But his verbosity cannot be dismissed as simple posturing – it is an intrinsic part of his style. The turns of phrase and intricate metaphors he uses in Tough, Tough Toys .. are frequently delightful. In terms of Self’s bizarre, surreal concepts, the short story collection allows him to showcase more, if not taking them fully to conclusion. ‘Dave Too’ and ‘A Story For Europe’ are possibly the weak links here, with entertaining touches but a sense of incompleteness. The other stories are more forceful. The linked opening and closing stories, ‘The Lump of Crack as Big as the Ritz’ and ‘The Nonce Prize’, work strong characters and narrative around the idea of a mythical-sized lump of crack cocaine, while the title story is an intense and desperate tale of macho obsession. For me, it is ‘Caring, Sharing’ that provides the ultimate example of the vicious satire that gives Self his bite. By their nature, short story collections are often less satisfying than novels, but by the sheer imagination that Self possessess, Tough, Tough Toys.. does not disappoint. ” – Alan Rutter
Liesl Schillinger, May 1999
“There are two kinds of writer: the kind that would relish the chance to riff on gristle – updating Proust’s “madeleine” moment by calling up as many vile impressions of humanity as possible – and the kind that would not. In his coldly accomplished new book of stories, “Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys,” British writer Will Self once again flaunts his membership in the first group. In the title story, the book’s centerpiece, a misogynistic, substance-abusing misanthrope named Bill tools toward Glasgow in his turbo-charged car, slugging back whiskey and letting acid-washed memories of failed relationships slosh through his brain. He picks up a hitchhiker on the way, mostly, it seems, so that there will be someone in the car besides himself to hate.”
Read the full review
Charles Wyrick, 1999
“No, these are not bad jokes or out-takes from The Twilight Zone, these are quintessential Will Self creations. For all their outrageousness, these tales radiate a narrative charm. For every goofy plot turn you’ll find an equally well plotted character or adroitly spun metaphor. Whether dealing with nerdy parents or hardened drug addicts, Self nails his subjects with an exacting, invigorating stylistic temper like that of the truly great satirists. Surely Self is one of them — if that’s not too immodest a proposal.”
Will Self – Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
Synopsis:
A London-based collection of stories including recent Will Self stories like “The Rock of Crack as Big as the Ritz” and “The Sweet Smell of Psychosis’.
