3 reader reviews
“This collection of short stories was so brilliant, it took my breath away. I agree with the last reviewer that Self’s stories are better than his novels. And I think of all his short story collections, this is the best. It is dazzling but also Self at his most accessible and readable.” – A Reader
Read all Amazon.co.uk reader reviews
CW, March 1996
“Speaking on the phone from London (“inner suburbia”), Self says of his new neighborhood, “It’s pretty grim, but it’s my spiritual home,” before going on to describe, as if it were the Piazza San Marco, the view from his roof terrace: “I can see the Westway slicing through like a river, leaving behind a great oxbow. In terms of Grey Area I’m at the navel of the world. The absolute beginning of the M40.”
Raised in an “effortlessly dull” London borough (“If we wanted to be posh we called it Hampstead Garden, and if we wanted to be honest we said East Finchley”), Self describes a “peculiar obsession with suburbia” that informs his work: “I have a tricky duel lineage: my mother was a Jewish American, so I was raised by somebody who every day was reshocked by the fact of the privet-lined precincts. On the other hand she was quite an Anglophile. So I have an ambivalence and an acceptance of it.” This mixture, says Self, has helped him make “something outrageous out of the dull.””
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.”
7 reader reviews
“Will Self borrows a gimmick used by Kafka, Borges, and in one not-very-succesful story by Fitzgerald (A Diamond as Big as the Ritz) and, to some extent, used in all science fiction. An impossible or supernatural event is treated naturalistically, or accepted deadpan without comment by the characters.(Isaac Asimov Magazine stories do this well).
Another trademark, reminiscent of the dirty Scottish shock-writers, is descriptions of drug and alcohol use from the point of view of the user. He also favors effects that used to be called Grand Guignol and are now called splatterpunk.
These devices are used as the hinges of his plots and the entertainment values of his stories often depends on how compelling you find them. Apart from them he is a witty and perceptive satirist with some wonderful prose such as his description of the small Suffolk town “landlocked by the shifting dunes of social trends” where “the landlords of the three desultory pubs on the main street drew pints for themselves in the cool, brown, afternoon interiors of their establishments.” – D.P. Birkett
1 review
“As the blurb describes, it centres around the concept of masculinity. The role of the male in the modern world. After forty years of feminism, Will Self and David Gamble seem to suggest that not only has traditional male-gender roles been virtually erased, but there does not seem to any sufficient replacement. The ‘New Man’ seeming to be something of an optimistic sociological euphemism for the empty shell which rests in its place.
However, through the beautiful black-and-white images of David Gamble. A wide variety of different men, from different countries, races, social background and occupations: Gamble seems to establish a fair cross-reference of the everyday world. From children, to transvestites, to artists, to writers, to people selling batteries in New York, to nuclear physicists (Stephen Hawking is included), Gamble finds a place for all of them. His photographs are beautifully naturalistic, and are a pleasure to look at. Subtle, yet powerful.” – Rhys Tranter
48 reader reviews
“Great Apes was a waste of time to read. The author was obviously trying to comment on modern society through a “Planet Of The Apes” type gimmick, but the payoff isn’t worth the effort. The author really doesn’t have much of anything important to say, and comes off as more interested in painting a picture of what the world would be like if chimps were dominant, rather than saying anything new about what humans are like. It would have worked better as light reading sci-fi where the fantasy setting *is* the story. When I got to the end I thought “Is that it?”. Self thinks he’s pretty clever but the gimmick gets in the way. In the end, it wasn’t worth my time.” – Curran Filer
17 reader reviews
“Lily is a cynical character. Little is spared her criticism, especially England and the English. There’s great fun in all of this – Lily, despite her cynicism, or perhaps because of it, becomes a sympathetic character, and many of her observations about England rang (uncomfortably) true. There’s lots more to enjoy in this novel, as Self is an imaginative writer, despite the fact that for lots of the time the reader is in familiar “Self country”, where Jewishness, drug culture and hospitals figure prominently.
However, I felt that at times Self was struggling to keep the plot from flagging: at various points, he abandoned the first person narrative in order to develop sub-plots centred on the private life of Lily’s two daughters. It almost seemed as if Self became more interested in these sub-plots as the book develped, but he couldn’t cover them by continued use of the first person narrator. The result is that, at times, the book had a patched-together, over-extended feel to it. Cutting a hundred or so pages might have made it a tighter, more enjoyable read.” – Mr G. Rodgers
23 reader reviews
“Once you get over the opening of the book – which will put you off enjoying sex for a goodish while – and move into the London of the chimps, the humour really kicks in. Really the joke is no deeper than a PG Tips commercial – the juxtaposition of putting chimpanzees in human clothing in a human world – but it is superbly realized. You’ll come to love the terms ‘pant-hoot’, ‘knuckle-walk’ and ‘go bipedal’. The way Self handles this anthropomorphising of chimps, and primatomorphising of humans, is just genius. The chimps are civilised in all ways, but their chimpness is retained and manifested is hilarious ways; sub-adults (teenage youths) are still sullen and insolent, the eminent professor will arrive home to his Group and discuss his day at the office whilst all around is vigorous inter-generational incestuous mating and casual displays of swollen anuses (perhaps the unpleasant human sexual behaviour at the start of the book was intended to contrast with the innocent and functional mating of the chimps, to show what dark shadows we humans throw on what is essentially the same act).” – Nigel Collier
