Matt Thorne
Anatomy of Four Lobes
Liver
By Will Self
Viking 288pp £18.99
Although I’ve reviewed most major British and American literary novelists over the last ten years, until now I’ve always steered clear of writing about Will Self. This is largely because the temptation to trash him stems from an initial admiration: as a teenager I wolfed down The Quantity Theory of Insanity and Cock and Bull, and even went to see him read (when I rarely went to see writers read) from My Idea of Fun. But halfway through reading my inscribed copy back at home, I suddenly realised that, like many others, what I most admired about Self was the pose, not the prose. Self (like William Burroughs, a writer he admires) is perfect for adolescence, but as soon as you pass twenty, it’s impossible to read him.
But, of course, it’s equally impossible to avoid reading Will Self. It’s perhaps easier now, when he mainly confines his journalism to waffling on about nothing in the Evening Standard and Saturday’s Independent, but in the 1990s he was everywhere. He was like a persistent case of athlete’s foot: no
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
How to ruin a film - a short guide by @TWHodgkinson:
Thomas W Hodgkinson - There Was No Sorcerer
Thomas W Hodgkinson: There Was No Sorcerer - Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey
literaryreview.co.uk
Give the gift that lasts all year with a subscription to Literary Review. Save up to 35% on the cover price when you visit us at https://literaryreview.co.uk/subscribe and enter the code 'XMAS24'