Umbrella
In my reviews of Man Booker Prize long listed novels, I now turn to: Will Self has always been one of those writers whose work I hear about. His novels all sound tricksy, clever and comic – three qualities I adore in fiction, and yet, somehow, I’ve managed to avoid reading his fiction all these years. This is not to say I’ve not read his other work – his occasional pieces in British newspapers have been interesting, insightful, if occasionally sending his readers to their dictionaries. This later quality is often seen as a negative to the Self-bashers – why does he see fit to exclude the majority of his readers by using words not in common usage? It’s a crap question, and only an idiot would ask it. That said, he is not going to win many over with his new novel, Umbrella, which will not only have them rooting out their dictionaries, but also their medical encyclopaedias. This, as I see it, is a good thing. Self has ...