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Better than Will Self

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Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

08:13 / 13.03.02

Elsewhere, Planet of Sound wrote:

Will Self is the finest writer in English today

Now, the interestign thing about this comment is that it is not intrinsically absurd, as, say, "Dick Francis is the finest writer in English today" or "Robert Rankin is the finest writer in English today" might be.

Will Self. Writes a bit. Clever. Strong media presence. Sells a fair few books. "Literary" author. The sort of person you might think of when somebody mentions modern writers.

So, who is a finer writer in English today than Will Self? And why have they not got the same sales/profile/sense of perceived "fineness"?

Who is your Selfemon?

PP Hartnett - I choose you!

I first became aware of P P Hartnett with "Call Me", a quasi-journalistic examination of love, bereavement and personal ads. The descent of Liam, the central character, is heartbreaking and beautifully measured - half the pleasure is feeling the cracks growing in the authorial voice.

Subsequently, after a dip in form with "I Want to Fuck You", "Mmm Yeah" was a blinding collection of short stories, themed by country in, I suspect, imitation of a Spartacus guide and providing a far more varied look at the same liminal concerns that infected "Call Me". The closest thing I can think of to compare it with offhand is Black Box Recorder, in a funny sort of way.

Haven't read "Sixteen" yet, but really should.

Why isn't he as successful as Will Self? Queer. Very very queer indeed. Chosen subject matter includes queer sex, perversity of various kinds, paedophilia, rape, child murder...less comfortable, on the whole, than a bit of lovable smack use.

Next?

08:13 / 13.03.02

Harlan Ellison is always my choice of finest writer currently both breathing and writing (although Ellison’s so prolific, the two words appear to be synonymous for him).

Much-admired by his peers (I believe that he’s won more Hugo/Nebula/etc awards than any living writer), but since his work gets categorised as SF/Fantasy, I fear he’s been genre-overlooked a lot.

DBC

08:13 / 13.03.02

Interesting; having read all his stuff (and just finished 'Sixteen') I was thinking of starting a PP Hartnett thread myself. In many ways, I think he's the bravest writer around.

But this is probably derailing things already...

10:12 / 13.03.02

I think a great deal of Will Self's profile is due to notoriety, and his success as a journalist and occasional pundit. Which leads me to the disturbing conclusion that it is hard for someone to be simply an author (rather than an author/celebrity) and attain a similar level of success.

My Selfemon - help. I choose... Russell Hoban.

Haven't read all his stuff by a long shot, but I have loved everything I *have* read. His work is beautiful, every book polished - beach pebbles spring to mind. They're always quite confined in terms of plot and space/time concerns, but they manage to include a great deal of food for thought - I find myself thinking back to them time after time.

I suppose some people might find him either precious or pretentious, or indeed limited - and his books are positioned at the edge of the mainstream by their fabulistic character; but I think he is definitely better than Will Self.

The Planet of Sound

10:59 / 13.03.02

I've never heard of PP Hartnett or Russell Hoban. I guess that goes to show the importance of maintaining something of a media profile, if you're a writer who actually wants people to read your books in these illiterate times.

I've just finished Mr Blettsworthy on Rampole Island by HG Wells, though. That's an interesting book. And a well-known author. Now, where's that Jackie Collins I was looking for?

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

11:14 / 13.03.02

Sound seems to be struggling with the rules of the game. The whole point is that these writers do not have to have columns in national newspapers or be friends with Vic Reeves, but rather be good at writing. "Better than Will Self" is a shorthand for same. And HG Wells obviously doesn't count, due to being dead.

Anyway.

Selfemon ho...

Dennis Cooper - I choose you!

A successful columnist in his own right, Cooper brings an incredible fascination with details coupled with a flat sense of meaninglessness, in which emotions seem to self-generate and self-destruct. His masterwork, the "Guide" series (five books, beginning with "Frisk" and ending with "Period") is a semi-autobiographical examination of his own obsessions - young men, indie music and sexual violence - where the boundaries between what can be seen as the solid narrative and what is the view of the unreliable but impassive narrator are constantly unsafe.

Cooper writes beautifully and often very sweetly, about very disturned and disturbing people.

Why not more famous: See above, really. Queer, uncompromising subject matter...I can see why he might be something of an acquired taste. Not exactly obscure, but very Serpent's Tail-ish.

[ 13-03-2002: Message edited by: The Haus of Horror ]

The Planet of Sound

11:28 / 13.03.02

quote:Originally posted by The Haus of Horror:

Dennis Cooper
[ 13-03-2002: Message edited by: The Haus of Horror ]

Who?

11:37 / 13.03.02

Oh, go and look him up on Amazon or something. You should be able to find his stuff in most decent bookshops or libraries, and a good one to start off with is Try.

Tsssk.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

11:42 / 13.03.02

Try here.

Or here.

The Planet of Sound

12:03 / 13.03.02

"Never heard of Dennis Cooper? Not surprising..."

At least I'm not alone then. Sounds interesting, though.

Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island shares many structural and metaphorical parallels with Great Apes (and indeed Gulliver's Travels and Animal Farm) but is sadly unlikely to be ever published again, due to some (on the surface) rather crude stereotyping of South American islanders. Good read, though.

Cock and Bull's exploration of gender issues is good, too.

I also like Mr. Bump.

13:17 / 13.03.02

quote:Originally posted by The Planet of Sound:
Cock and Bull's exploration of gender issues is good, too.

... and from what I can remember, about as subtle as, well, a brick to the forehead.

The Planet of Sound

13:34 / 13.03.02

Aaah, but is 'subtlety' inherently worthwhile, I ask, in much the same way that Haus has questioned the validity of 'scope' elsewhere?

And Mr. Nonsense.

13:37 / 13.03.02

On topic, please...

14:02 / 13.03.02

So far this thread seems like an opportunity to examine who has the most obscure literary taste.
I personally love the books of Johnny Quinn. His short novella about pornography and it's links with the 1929 Wall Street crash, 'Three May Keep a Secret', is a perfectly rendered examination of the strange links that govern 20th century life, and his characters are always so richly drawn...

14:14 / 13.03.02

Well - I know that at least two of them have been mentioned on here before, and their books are available and easy to get hold of; if you haven't heard of them perhaps you should think about why this is the case (which is actually the point of the thread: writers who are better than Will Self but who are less well known).

I don't think anyone here is being unnecessarily pretentious, so take the mick elsewhere, please (like the Will Self thread in the conversation...)

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

14:30 / 13.03.02

I wouldn't say any of the authors mentioned so far are particularly "obscure", just not necessarily blessed with their own little exhibition stands in high-street bookshops. I am becoming actively bewildered by the idea that this makes something obscure...

So, new Selfemon.

Derek Walcott - I choose you!

Any arselip attempting to make out that Walcott is obscure is for it. With more than 50 years of work under his belt, and the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature Fish in his small-holed net, the man has a rep.

Of particular note in his large body of work is "Omeros" - an epic cycle describing the postcolonial tensions of life in St Lucia through the lens of the Odyssey, and the play "Odyssey", memorably performed at the RSC some years ago, which manages to update the Odyssey completely and present it for the stage without making an abaolute pig's ear of the whole thing.

Why isn't he as successful as Will Self: Well, actually, he could be said to be more so. Why is his profile not so high in Britain as to occult the Selfster? Well, they work in very different areas. Also, because he teaches at Boston University (last I heard, anyway - may be retired by now), and holidays in Saint Lucia, leaving little opportunity for appearances on "Never Mind the Buzzcocks". Also, you know, black.

[ 13-03-2002: Message edited by: The Haus of Horror ]

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:44 / 13.03.02

Biz, it's ridiculous to suggest that anyone would nominate Dennis Cooper as an attempt to be obscure - he's actually got a pretty high media profile as novelists go...

The Planet of Sound

14:45 / 13.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Village of the Bizunth:
[QB]So far this thread seems like an opportunity to examine who has the most obscure literary taste.
QB]

Roger Hargreaves is indeed a little known occultist poet living in the Outer Hebrides.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

14:54 / 13.03.02

Oh, for fuck's sake.

This isn't the conversation, children. Now, a truly pusillanimous fucker might suggest that an almost total lack of interest in writers might hamper one's attempts to become one. I will instead ask nicely that, if you have not read anything good, you keep the threadrot down to the minimum. Sound, since you believe Will Self to be the finest writer in English today, and are thus poorly-positioned to hand that wreath to others, feel free to propose a few of his equals. Biz - tell us more about your Franklin-quoting Mr. Quinn, on the off-chance that he is not a hilarious "Lady Don't Fall Backwards"-style confection.

14:54 / 13.03.02

My favourite "discovery" of the last year was Jim Williams. Nice, John Fowles-ish narrative, generally set in vaguely decadent foreign locales. Recherche was about a couple in the South of France whose neighbour may or may not be a vampire, while the other one, the title of which I forget, concerned a soldier who was billeted in Italy and went back there years later with a group of free-thinkers. Good, atmospheric writing, solidly plotted, sound themes. And not at all "fantasy", despite the vampire theme in Recherche, more magical realism with the accent on realism.

15:02 / 13.03.02

Yeah, he's made up. Continue to list all your favourite writers, please.

The Planet of Sound

15:12 / 13.03.02

Fiction-wise? Well, Jonathan Coe, who I humbly ushered into the conversation, is almost as good. Gerald Suster is extremely obscure and unproductive, but marvellous; dare I say that Mark Manning (Zodiac Mindwarp) has thrown up some interesting stuff; Stewart Home's diverting in an odd way; Geoff Nicholson's 'Hunters and Gatherers' or 'What we did on our holidays' are kinda groovy. On the other side of the pond, Mark Leyner (My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist) is doing some interesting stuff, and I have a certain weakness for Carl Hiaasen.

...to be honest, my other favourite novelists are all dead; Swift, Thackeray, Wells, Orwell.

autopilot disengaged

15:32 / 13.03.02

A.L. Kennedy!

as to why - well, i'll let her do the talking - this, from the earlyish short story The Mouseboks Family Dictionary -

quote:anticipation: All Mousebokses spend their lives in a constant condition of Anticipation, principally of their own deaths. As Anticipation of their own demise maintains them perpetually on the brink of Despair while the idea of anyone else's dying makes their lives exremely pleasing, if not actually worthwhile, Mousebokses may appear to be of rather changeable temperament.

Prolonged financial, sexual, or fearful Anticipation is almost always fatal in Mousebokses. This means that all Mousebokses do effectively die of Anticipation, thus vindicating any morbid Anticipations they might have harboured of their own deaths. As all Mouseboses are painfully aware of this family weakness, each and every Mouseboks Family Member is inwardly contorted by strenuous efforts to avoid anticipating even the slightest Anticipation of an Anticipation and so on into a thankfully early grave.

Even very brief Anticipation is certainly always fatal to those inducing it in Mousebokses. See Money, Murder, Sex, Lust, Fear of Psychiatrists and What you Deserve.

and, if michel houellebecq is the Gallic Self, anyone have any opinions on him?

16:28 / 13.03.02

Houellebecq is my current favorite French pervert nihilist writer living in Dublin.

Any Tibor Fischer fans out there? Are we in agreement that he's been going downhill since 'thought gang'?

Goodness Gracious Meme

20:31 / 13.03.02

cool. I am *so* glad you started this thread.

Two nominations, as we've gone into 'writers in the english language' already, rather than 'english writers'

Arundhati Roy
Anita Desai

Big, but not as 'media visible' in the UK as Will Self for the obvious reasons that they're not nearly as similar as WS to the people who write about books/create media profiles for novelists...

also if you insist, an English one:

Neil Bartlett.

For 'who was that man' which is strictly speaking, biography but peformative biography that definitely crosses into fiction (Wilde), and esp for 'Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall' (tho' 'Mr Clive and Mr.Page' is also v.good) amd but he writes about gay male lives and lovingly recreates and examines 50s queer london so isn't presumably as catch-all aspirational/interesting as Will Self. And this is what he does in his spare time, ie when not writing plays or running a theatre, translating Racine etc...

And PP Hartnett could have Will Self with both hands tied behind his back.

[ 13-03-2002: Message edited by: Lick my plums, bitch. ]

20:45 / 13.03.02

Having just read her 'Valencia' twice in a row, I'm nominating Michelle Tea, an amazing dyke writer from the US. Her books are fast-moving, incisive, hilarious true stories about girls and friendship... um, no good at this sort of sales pitch.

As for why she isn't better known, well, she falls outside the 'wealthy white man' ghetto of big novel hype. Like most of the writers in this thread, it seems.

Goodness Gracious Meme

20:55 / 13.03.02

heh. In the case of Bartlett, being white, male and comfortably middle class is still cancelled out by Big Gay Mediaprofile Death syndrome.

gah, want Audrey Lourde in there but think she's dead, anyone know?

Grr. And why no profile? american, black, female, queer novelist/poet/theorist. Need I say more?

Alice Walker.
Rita Mae Brown.
VS Naipaul.

[ 13-03-2002: Message edited by: Lick my plums, bitch. ]

01:17 / 15.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Lick my plums, bitch.:
...want Audrey Lourde in there but think she's dead, anyone know

Audre Lorde, you mean? Dead, yes. Ten years now. Cancer. Only fifty-eight, she was.

Carry on.

06:09 / 29.03.02

carole maso anyone?

07:15 / 29.03.02

Alasdair Gray is my own literary god. Lanark is the best known of his books, I think, but Poor things, 1982 Janine, Something Leather, The Fall of Kelvin Walker are all great - I've never found any of his work that I didn't like. The huge Book of Prefaces can be heavy going, but it's still worth it.

He's smart as hell, funny, often disturbingly insightful and generally rather fabulous.

Oh, and I agree on AL Kennedy. Does anyone know if she's okay, and still writing? Wasn't she having a big 'blocked' crisis?

14:48 / 06.07.05

Having just read her 'Valencia' twice in a row, I'm nominating Michelle Tea, an amazing dyke writer from the US.

Wow! I have a graphic novel by her (illustrated by Laurenn McCubbin), called Rent Girl (there's an interview with Tea about it here, which coincidentally explains to me why she is at such pains to inform us on the jacket of the book that she's living with her boyfriend - the Michelle character in the book is such a dyke-identified dyke that it seemed like a recantation to just shove a sudden boyfriend under the reader's nose, as it were, but of course gender and sexuality are more complicated than the simple opposition of dyke/boyfriend would suggest, and all kinds of crossings seem to have been involved...)

Anyway, thanks for the (belated - I wonder where I was when this thread was first around) tip, Crunchy - I'll look up Valencia first chance I get. I'm also interested in the anthology on working-class experience she edited (Without a Net - great title).

at the scarwash

15:37 / 06.07.05

before I jump in with my favorites, a couple questions: first, why is this an issue? Will Self is certainly an excellent prose stylist, but I've never read anything by him that I would call a satisfying novel, and I could list 30 or so writers, from genre fiction to Nobel winners that I find more satisfying and more capable of completion.

secondly, are we limited to fiction? Because Stephen Fry's Moab is my Washpot is probably the best thing I've read by a living author this year. I almost wrote a fan letter.

15:47 / 06.07.05

why is this an issue?

I expect it was funny at the time (look at the dates on the earlier posts on this thread) - it's been bumped after I suggested here that we should have a Book Pimping Thread, and Haus suggested using this one. The Selfamon thing is just a gimmick. Pimp away - and I don't think you should be limited to fiction, either, though that might be because I love autobiographies and want to hear about lots of them. Tell us about Moab is my Washpot!

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:53 / 06.07.05

Maybe the topic summary will help you out with that, scarwash. We're looking at the culture of reading that leads to the statement that Will Self is the finest writer in English today, who we feel might be considered as good or better, why they might not be seen as such, and what merits they have that qualify them in your eyes. So, a good start would be to tell us what you like about the writing of Stephen Fry, say, and then maybe look at why he is not generally thought of as a leading writer in English.

at the scarwash

18:08 / 06.07.05

Stephen Fry is probably not so highly respected as an author because his novels, clever and engaging as they are, read like the literary equivalent of a kir royale--elegant but unchallenging, fizzy, and quickly done with. He has a very nice style, tells a good joke, but never (in the novels) seems to cut very close to the bone. All of which works much better in memoir. His inability to avoid being arch creates a distance between his memories of childhood and his writing of them. If he had written about what was undoubtably a painful and awkward set of life-experiences in a straightforward autobiographical style, it probably would have been a painful and awkward reading experience. As it is, the remove that he creates between his written self and (at least my idea of) his biographical self creates a character that I felt much more for. Somehow the very artificial style of Moab is my Washpot coalesces into quite a direct and affecting reading.

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