The architecture magazine Icon reviews Psychogeography
The Book Of Dave – Guardian Review
M. John Harrison, 27th May 2006
“It’s hard not to put Riddley Walker at the centre of The Book of Dave, if only because, like Self’s novel, it is written in a constructed post-disaster dialect, with its own glossary. But the difference between the two men is anger, and how anger manages the comic sensibility. Typically, Hoban’s amused gaze hunts and pecks from place to place and, though it never settles anywhere for long, eventually assembles a sort of magpie nest of cultural items from which the possibility of humanity can hatch. Self is obsessive. His intellect swings across its subjects like a headlight, and, once it locks on, won’t let go until it’s seen what it wants us to see. There’s a great rationality – it’s almost as dismissive as J G Ballard’s or John Gray’s – and great rage, but is there any of the tenderness Hoban always achieves? Well, in a weird way, this time, there is. Michelle and Dave aren’t caricatures. They’ve messed up their lives, but they’re encouraged to stumble towards some sort of self-knowledge. This time even the psychologists – Zack Busner makes a predictable appearance – seem benign, and achieve something like a cure.”
Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys – SpikeMagazine.com review
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.”
Cock And Bull – Amazon.com Reader Reviews
7 reader reviews
“Not one for the faint-hearted (if you’re easily offended, better steer clear of this one)! Self’s Londoners live weird existences that I feel would fit in very well with Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights”. Probably Self would treat any attempt at analysis of his work with some disdain, but nevertheless I felt that (as usual) he was attempting to challenge the reader’s view of morality and sexuality. Self seemed to me to be saying that human sexuality (for that read sexual roles) is both ambiguous and mutable: the commonly-held view that all is black-and-white is nonsense, rather it’s all various shades of grey. I enjoyed the book immensely – it’s challenging, funny and disturbing……” – Mr. G. Rodgers
Cock And Bull – Amazon.co.uk Reader Reviews
7 reader reviews
“Very, very funny. The problem with Will Self is that he cannot write without being ultra-ironic and cool, but here it works. The stories (2 novellas), about a woman who grows a penis and rapes her husband, and a man who develops a vagina, could have been merely vulgar in the hands of a lesser writer. But Self writes with such linguistic variety, panache and humour that he lifts these stories to the level of highly intelligent satire. They are shocking, obscene and hugely enjoyable (plus they make some very interesting observsations about gender along the way).” – A Reader
My Idea Of Fun – Amazon.co.uk Reader Reviews
7 Reader reviews
“I think the previous two reviews are evidence enough that this book needs to be read…anything that can sway opinion so widely demands attention. It’s a dirty, smart, sickening, hilarious book, and no matter which (if any) of these four descriptions you agree with you have to admit that it is a brilliant piece of work. I read it a few years ago and it is now in the possession of an acrimonious ex girlfriend, so I’m just here to buy it again. I strongly urge you to also. ” – A Reader
Cock And Bull – New York Times Review
Michiko Kakutani, September 1999
“His first book to be published in the United States, “Cock & Bull,” consists of two comic novellas, both based on the time-honored theme of metamorphoses. The result, however, owes less to Ovid or Kafka than to William Burroughs and scores of naughty schoolboys caught snickering in the lavatory about sex and bodily functions.
Just what sort of metamorphosis occurs in “Cock & Bull”? To put it bluntly, the first story features a woman who sprouts a penis; the second concerns a man who grows a vagina behind his knee. What is the point of these peculiar transformations? Presumably Mr. Self intends to satirize a “world in which social and sexual characteristics were already being tossed and dressed like salad,” a world in which politically correct graduate students drone on about “phallocentrism” and “waitrons,” a world in which women try to run with wolves and men are told to find their inner children. “”
My Idea Of Fun – New York Times Review
New York Times, September 1999
“Mr. Self’s “Cock & Bull: Twin Novellas” and the story collection “The Quantity Theory of Insanity” were prologue. Although he is British and this novel is set in England, it has family resemblances to the work not only of Nabokov, but also of Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis and Don DeLillo. For intelligence and ambition, for inventiveness, comedy, heartbreak and ferocity, for his representation of the human interior as occupied and vandalized by science and business, Will Self belongs in their company.”
The Quantity Theory Of Insanity – Amazon.com Reader Reviews
11 reader reviews
“Will Self’s ‘The Quantity Theory of Insanity’ overflows with (unsurprisingly) dark humor mixed with academic flair. The stories often seem to lack a clear and definitive finishing point, as if one is reading a manuscript of a story half-written. This, of course, may be a purposeful attempt; that by not offering conclusion, Will Self is in essense prodding the reader into personal deliberation over the concepts presented. Unfortunately, if this be the case, these same concepts have seen so much activity in modern psychology that for the author to not thoroughly conclude his own insights leads one not into pondering personal beliefs in the matter, but what the author might have been trying to convey. A fruitless task as Self, undoubtedly, tries to be as enigmatic as possible.” – James F.
The Quantity Theory Of Insanity – Amazon.co.uk Reader Reviews
13 reader reviews
“After reading this I found it difficult to work out if Self had entered my mind and shaken it all about or if I had entered his and lost mine somewhere within the process.In a similar way that Burroughs expertly projected his subject matter in Naked Lunch, Self takes us on an hilarious, nerve-wracking and exhausting journey through his mind and the minds of his characters, which ultimately leads to your head imploding around about the same time as it explodes. I have never laughed or cried so much at one sitting, nor have my ears bled for so long. Exquisite. ” – Mr Papillion
