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/lit/ - Literature

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6679260 No.6679260 [Reply] [Original]

Can someone explain this guy's prose to me?

> see this guy in debates on youtube
> witty, eloquent, insightful
> google him, it's a guy called Will Self, he's a novelist
> interest piqued
> buy a collection of his short stories - Quantity Theory of Insanity - which won some national award
> entirely unimpressed

I mean it's somewhat entertaining but I'm not blown away or anything. Am I missing something?

>> No.6679325

>>6679260
I've never read his stuff but there's some lying around my parents house.

He appears quite smug and sanctimonious on his TV (BBC Question Time) appearances and his voice is irritating. But yes, supposedly quite acclaimed.

Saw him on the tube once, he stared at me; he knew I knew.

Sorry that my post is devoid of meaningful content.

>> No.6679340

The Tough, Tough Toys collection is pretty good. I quite like him as an author but his longer works can get a bit dry.

>> No.6679347

>>6679325
>He appears quite smug and sanctimonious on his TV (BBC Question Time)
that's actually what i saw on youtube. that and some other stuff (he's in a debate round discussing 'We've never had it so good', it's pretty amazing, he wrecks the opposition)

I agree he's often smug, but he's also often insightful. I think he might be like DFW in that to some people, his essays will be the most interesting part of his work because mere observation / insight is his strength rather than prose itself.

>>6679340
I'll check it out, thanks.

>> No.6679367

>>6679260
Read Umbrella

>> No.6679469

>>6679347
Wonder how he'd feel about being compared to DFW lol

>> No.6679498

Will Self is a dimwit who will be forgotten the moment he dies (hopefully soon). He is fashionable among the trendy, liberal, metropolitan London literary establishment because he's left-wing and a crack addict. His prose is mediocre and his opinions on nearly every topic are worthless. He got a third in PPE at Oxford. As somebody with a first-class degree from Cambridge, I can confirm that getting anything less than a 2.i in an Arts subject at Oxbridge requires somebody to be functionally retarded.

>> No.6679503

>>6679498
You are magnetically drawn to every Will Self thread, aren't you?

>> No.6679505

>>6679498
You sound upset.

>> No.6680993

>>6679260
>I mean it's somewhat entertaining but I'm not blown away or anything. Am I missing something?

The impossibility of genius in modernism.

>> No.6681008

>>6679498
my god pure ideology

>> No.6681039

>>6679498
Fuck off Cantab peasant

>> No.6681089

I'm sorry but I don't need to listen to anyone who says a country like Britain is better off with less white people.

>> No.6681740

>>6679260
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySpCpFFPw_o

>> No.6681752

>>6679260
Prose is a social construct.

>> No.6683087

>>6681089
lmao fuck off

>> No.6683202

>>6679498
>He got a third in PPE at Oxford.
To be fair, he was injecting heroin everyday at university and still graduated.

>> No.6683208

ugh Will Self

>> No.6683222

>>6679260
nah he's bad

read Cicero

>> No.6683239

>>6679367
This. Umbrella is a masterpiece. Bloom even called him one of the most gifted writers alive.

He's also a master-troll. He wrote some very snarky articles for the major tabloids, speaking out against postmodernism, how shit the concept was, made some comments about DFW, and declared that postmodernism doesn't even exist. Then he wrote the most postmodern book imaginable, out-postmoderned Pynchon, wrote another series of articles claiming that we are at the peak of modernism and got every literally scholar flustered. Master ruseman.

He also smuggled heroin onto the UK prime ministers private jet and snorted it in the toilet. When caught, all he said said was, "a little heroin on a plane, so what?"

>> No.6683267

just watched a question time with him.

Seems like a retard, does he have brain damage?

he might be a fine writer though.

>> No.6683307

>>6683239
It was cocaine not heroin

>> No.6683331

>>6683307
>It was cocaine not heroin
It was definitely heroin.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/self-admits-taking-heroin-on-pms-jet-1268111.html

>> No.6683431

>>6683239
Is it hard to jump into if I've never read anything by him?

>> No.6683717

>>6679260
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCdsKcDY1gQ

I haven't read any of his books, but I love his debates and his opinions in general. This video is a good one.

>> No.6683734

>>6681740
VICTORY FOR THE FORCES OF DEMOCRATIC FREEDOM

>> No.6683775

>>6683431
Umbrella? Well, all of his novels are very different. If you read Dorian then Shark, apart from both being quite good, you'd never guess they were from the same author. With Umbrella, he deliberately went all out and created a "postmodern" mindfuck of a novel. There are multiple perspectives merged, multiple time streams merged, sentences with hundreds of clauses, and lots of extremely clever wordplay.

You don't need to have read anything else by him to get umbrella, but you have to be quite well read in general to appreciate it. It's fairly similar to Ulysses in that regard. Self actually makes numerous references to Joyce in the book.

>> No.6683805

>>6683717
He should be writing philosophy.

>> No.6683829

currently reading something called 'The Butt' - have to agree entirely with OP - WTF (exactly) has Mr Self written thats worth the hype, or, indeed, a fuck at all?

- because, whatever it maybe.. it sure as hell aint this, no, Sir.

>> No.6683831

>>6683775
I thought Shark was a sequel to Umbrella?

Anyway I'm reading Ulysses right now actually and am enjoying way more than I thought I would. I really like "difficult" stuff so I'll probably just jump into Umbrella after.

>> No.6683839

>>6683831
then why did you ask if it's hard to jump into?

>> No.6683866

>>6683775

In fact the name of the book itself is from a quote from Ulysses

>> No.6684465

>>6683087
I'm not even against immigration.

If anyone says less of indigenous race x to y country is a good thing then your scum plain in simple.

Also he seems like a giant social democrat fag

>> No.6684574

>>6679260
>Look up a short video to see if he's smart or not.
>Talking about hoffman's drug abuse
>The first thing he fucking says is "part of the reason why we...(pauses, looking for word) cleave to hoffman is because he keeps his personal life out of the public eye."
>In context he meant to say "cling"

Cleave: split or sever (something), especially along a natural line or grain.

>This motherfucker used a word that meant the literal opposite of what he meant in an attempt to sound smart.
>He fucking thought about it too first.

>> No.6684581

>>6684574
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rhyJaK6obU

>> No.6684588

>>6684574
>Definition of CLEAVE
>intransitive verb
>: to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cleave
Cleave has two meanings which are oppositional because it has two etymologies, Old High German meaning to stick to and Greek to carve.

>> No.6684602

>>6684574
>uses the first definition given by Google
Yeah, Self is way smarter than you

>> No.6684621

>>6684602
>>6684588

I stand corrected. I had often heard cleave in the sense of taking apart, and just used the first result to back it up.

On the other hand though, since the word has two meanings and the one I assumed seems to be by far the more widely used, does that mean that we shouldn't use the germanic, or is the context adequate to clarify?

>> No.6684627

>>6684621
I think the context is adequate.

>> No.6684691

>>6684621
I think you should quit bein a little bitch

>> No.6684730

>>6684621
Might be what gave the guy pause

>> No.6684738

My favourite novel is his "My idea of Fun"

>> No.6684765

>>6684621
This is literally what you get when you peruse the dictionary.

>> No.6684771

>>6684738
I read out the bit about the baby and the razors to some people, I don't think they approved.

>> No.6684840

>>6679498
At Cambridge maybe- Will went to Oxford.

>> No.6684858
File: 47 KB, 300x300, will.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6684858

>>6679498
>His prose is mediocre

"‘So what's your idea of fun then, Ian?’ It was the woman diagonally opposite me, the one with the Agadir tan. For a half-second or more I thought I hadn't heard the question right but then she repeated it. ‘So what's your idea of fun then, Ian?’ It's often things like that that really claim my attention, the things that happen twice. The first time she said it, it sounded to me like, ‘So wus yernidee f'n, ‘n?’ Only the rise in pitch at the end indicated the interrogative. The second time, however, I took it in fully, I sopped up sound and import like intentional Kleenex. And then it pulped me – my idea of fun – took all my layers, my multi-ply selves, and wadded them into a damp mass. I sat there clutching the edge of the table, feeling the linen twist excruciatingly over the polished wood, with everything pushing together, melding inside of me.

Then Jane looked at me from across the table. Looked at me with her special look, the little moue that means total intimacy, total us-apart-from-the-world, and said, ‘Oh I don't think Ian has much of an idea of fun at the moment, the poor old sod's too bound up in his work.’ But by then the group conversation had passed on; someone further around the table – he'd been introduced to me when we arrived but it hadn't taken – was giving us the benefit of his idea of fun. As I remember it was crass in the extreme, utterly befitting his Silkience hair and onyx spectacle frames. You can imagine, all centred on nude teens, cocaine and a hotel suite in Acapulco. It was adman crap, slick-surface kicks for a magic-screen mentality. But I wasn't paying any, I was lost inside myself, caught up in my own horror show, my private view."

>> No.6684865

I think his prose sucks and I've never gotten very far into anything I've tried to read of his. I don't really like the kind of wanky stuff he does though (pretentious over-written bullshit with no heart) and I don't really understand his voice. It sorts of skips around all over the place just sucking up nice sounding words and phrases so that it's just clear it's some very confused Oxford boy writing for literary dipshits.

It's clearly not for me but I can't help but feel that it's just lazy to be too clever and difficult to read (my early drifts read more like Self's brand of pomo stuff) and I think it's dire storytelling. It's like I'm just watching someone jerk off and they just sort of pretend that they wanted to tell a story instead of a piece of creative writing.

>> No.6684866

>>6684858

They rounded a low bank, which as far as Ian could make out was composed of tumbleweeds of swarf, dripping with oil and frosted with sawdust. Behind it there was a bloody baby. Doug's torch gave the baby's head a weak yellow halo. It was around nine months old, wearing a terry-towelling Babygro and sitting solidly on its broad-nappied base. Its chin, its hands, its Babygro, even the beaten floor beneath it, were all covered in blood. Something glinted in the baby's tender pink paw, something bright which travelled towards its budding mouth.
‘Jesus!’ cried Ian. ‘That baby's got a razor blade!’ But immediately he saw the stupidity of saying it, for scattered at the baby's feet were ten or fifteen more razor blades, all within easy reach. While they watched the baby raised the blade to its mouth, opened wide and inserted it vertically. The baby's blue eyes twinkled merrily at Ian as it bit down on the blade, which straight away sliced through lip and gum at top and bottom. Ian could see the layers of flesh and tissue all the way to the bone; he screamed weakly and Doug squeezed his hand as if to reassure. Thick plashes of blood gave the baby a red bib, but it continued to sit upright and was even happily burbling.
‘What's red,’ Doug asked, ‘and sits in the corner?’
Up above them some sort of dawn had begun to break. In the vaulting of the high ceiling Ian could descry rhubarb girders bursting from a piecrust of concrete. ‘Come on.’ Doug tugged at his hand. ‘There's someone else who wants to meet you.’

>> No.6684870

>>6684840
Cambridge is significantly more demanding than Oxford. Cambridge is a serious seat of learning whereas Oxford is a training house for future members of the inbred, back-patting political and media elite. Failure to perform respectably at Oxford is even more embarrassing if anything.

>> No.6684874

>>6684858
>>6684866
ffs who are these hack writers who still write in a realist/naturalist style

that was already old by the early 20th century you damn hacks.

>> No.6684887

>>6684874
I guess he must be doing something that you're unable to see because he is one of the most critically acclaimed authors of literary fiction alive today.

>> No.6684889

>>6684858
>>6684866
Mediocre.

>> No.6684895

>>6684870

>source?

>> No.6684896

>>6684887

Who? Self? I don't think so. Most people on /lit/ have won more awards than him.

>> No.6684913
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6684913

>>6684896
>Most people on /lit/ have won more awards than him.

>> No.6685078

>>6684874
>who still write in a realist/naturalist style
Someone clearly hasn't read Umbrella.

>> No.6685164

"London is less than 50% percent white and I think that's lovely." - Will Self

>> No.6685172

>>6685164
lol at this concept i found out about because of your post:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_White_%28classification_of_ethnicity_in_the_UK%29

>> No.6686342

>>6684574
>>6684588
#REKT

>> No.6686354

>>6679325

>Saw him on the tube once, he stared at me; he knew I knew

Are you a Chinese citizen engaged in any litigation at the moment?

>> No.6687840

>>6679260
I'm listening to him on Bookworm right now and he actually just used the word "synecdochic" correctly.

>> No.6687866

>>6686354
'no'

>> No.6687884

Did anyone else listen to that radio show he did where he walked around the Large Hadron Collider and bodied scientism?

Shit was so cash

>> No.6687889

>>6684858

The prose is okay. It's the content that's mind-numbing. How fucking boring do you have to be to enjoy reading this?

>> No.6687916

>>6687884
Could you give me a summary? Reading about something is much faster than listening to something.

>> No.6687921

>>6687916
He walked around the Large Hadron Collider and bodied scientism.

>> No.6687922

>>6687921
>bodied scientism.
How so?

>> No.6687926

>>6687840
That's not hard to do if you've taken even a single Comp 101 course tbh

>> No.6688280

>>6683717
Really good video.
Thank you for sharing.

>> No.6688292

>>6687884
>scientism

Truly the greatest of of all /lit/ memes right now

>> No.6688296

>>6688280
Hey, twinshia, have people ever told you that you are extremely cute?

>> No.6688431

>>6683717
>when the internet is down in my house there is a lot of baying
Will Self has an 18 year old son with some sort of ASD, a sperg iirc. Clearly he likes the internet. Chances he's ever visited /lit/? I wonder if he's more or less likely to be interested in books with an author for a father.

>> No.6688438

>>6684870
Sounds like that <50k salary is getting you down, mate.