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Umbrella #2
Shark
May 4th, 1970. A week earlier President Nixon has ordered American ground forces into Cambodia to pursue the Vietcong. By the end of the day four students will be shot dead by the National Guards in the grounds of Kent State University. On the other side of the Atlantic, it's a brilliant sunny morning after an April of heavy rain, and at the "Concept House" therapeutic community he has set up in the London suburb of Willesden, maverick psychiatrist Dr Zack Busner has been tricked into joining a decidedly ill advised LSD trip with several of its disturbed residents. Five years later, sitting in a nearby cinema watching Steven Spielberg's Jaws , Busner realizes the true nature of the events that transpired on that dread-soaked day, when a survivor of the worst disaster in the US Navy's history - the sinking of the USS Indianapolis - came face-to-face with the British Royal Air Force observer on the Enola Gay's mission to bomb Hiroshima.
Set a year before the action of his Booker-shortlisted Umbrella , Will Self's new novel Shark continues its exploration of the complex relationship between human psychopathology and human technological progress; and like Umbrella , weaves together multiple narratives across several decades of the twentieth century to produce a fiendish tapestry depicting the state we're trapped in.
Set a year before the action of his Booker-shortlisted Umbrella , Will Self's new novel Shark continues its exploration of the complex relationship between human psychopathology and human technological progress; and like Umbrella , weaves together multiple narratives across several decades of the twentieth century to produce a fiendish tapestry depicting the state we're trapped in.
480 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
48 people are currently reading
1300 people want to read
About the author
Will Self
175 books1,010 followersWilliam Self is an English novelist, reviewer and columnist. He received his education at University College School, Christ's College Finchley, and Exeter College, Oxford. He was married to the late journalist Deborah Orr.
Self is known for his satirical, grotesque and fantastic novels and short stories set in seemingly parallel universes.
Self is known for his satirical, grotesque and fantastic novels and short stories set in seemingly parallel universes.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
March 28, 2015
What do the movie Jaws, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and the sinking of the USS Indianapolis (followed by the loss of over 500 of the surviving sailors who were eaten by sharks) have to do with one another? Find out in Will Self's follow-up to the fantastic Umbrella. Told in a constant current of prose (the whole novel is one, 466-page paragraph) that flotsams from one stream of the consciousness to the next, Shark is an impossible to synopsize (well, just incredibly difficult) but tightly plotted and immensely rewarding panoramic of the profound trauma delivered to the collective human psyche following the inception of the atom bomb into all of our lives. From cover to cover, Self demands his reader feel this hurt with his technique of seamlessly switching between the POVs of Dr. Zach Busner, a professionally compromised experimental psychoanalyst; Kins and Michael D'eath, two aristocratic brothers who take very different paths during WW2; Claude Evenrude, a shark-minded psychotic who swears he was there to see the souls of the dead rise to the sky with the detonation of Little Boy; Genie (sometimes Jeanie), a deeply damaged woman who struggles with a lifetime of drug abuse; and (most memorably of all) her awful, drunken Mumsie. Conventional plotting, chronological pacing, and many other window dressings of your typical novel are given the boot for bravura storytelling. Demanding Shark may be, but once you get a feel for the waters, the novel makes for a compelling, immersive, haunting, suspenseful, jaw-dropping swim.
December 8, 2016
Can't wait for Will to get this shit out his system so he can go back to writing good stuff people can understand.
Also never, NEVER call someone a genius if they write something you don't enjoy or can't understand, idiot!! What the fuck is genius about that?
Did you know I was a genius? Yeah I wrote this: sj.rfwebvgywelnirgvn;oecgeghsn,fgnksugtvlo5nwcgnekghaverlighvenpw5ghwsgkhvelrsvlewi
Send my award to Leo Robertson, Norway. There's only one of me here and they all know me so they'll know how to get it to me thx.
Also never, NEVER call someone a genius if they write something you don't enjoy or can't understand, idiot!! What the fuck is genius about that?
Did you know I was a genius? Yeah I wrote this: sj.rfwebvgywelnirgvn;oecgeghsn,fgnksugtvlo5nwcgnekghaverlighvenpw5ghwsgkhvelrsvlewi
Send my award to Leo Robertson, Norway. There's only one of me here and they all know me so they'll know how to get it to me thx.
December 10, 2014
A dazzling and maddening soup of full-fanged characters, rampaging inner lives, and complex skeins of thought and discourse—at once clear-headed and torturous, blissful and painful—Shark is a stupendous and traumatic achievement. Summarising this intellectually rigorous novel is best left to the experts.
February 5, 2023
The best I can describe this is if you've seen the film Trainspotting. There is a brilliant scene where Spud is forced to go for a job interview and takes speed beforehand. He spews out gibberish at 1000 mph to the interviewer's question. In the movie, it's hilarious. Imagine the same incomprehensible nonsense for 466 pages without the timing or wit. That's this one. I imagine this works on a literary purists level, but I didn't get it and it didn't engage enough to bother trying.
If you are looking for a Will Self book, I'd recommend you read 'The Book of Dave' instead - that one I do think is satricial genius, which is what keeps me coming back to his books. Sadly, this one was nowhere near at that level for me.
If you are looking for a Will Self book, I'd recommend you read 'The Book of Dave' instead - that one I do think is satricial genius, which is what keeps me coming back to his books. Sadly, this one was nowhere near at that level for me.
December 10, 2016
This is much! It is. It really is. Not as tight as its precursor, Umbrella, but still within the D, right below the hoop. Yet not such a slam-dunk for many goodly Goodreaders with impeccable taste who have opted to jump the Shark.
Why so? Well, there are a few rubbish bits. Let’s consider those first, you shameless Self heretics.
In the olden days, Self brandished his vocabulary like a burnished sword and it became a distinct barrier to entry for most. I don’t think he does that anymore. I really don’t. Bear with.
Willie obviously doesn’t want literature to be ‘easy’; some half-engaged, sectarian process. In Shark, rather than torture admiration or engagement out of us via Latinate word salad (his words here are digestible, they really are!), he instead goes for structural hiatuses (haitii? Haiti?), aping a post-modernist, surrealist, broken stream of consciousness jag that coquettishly fluffs you into maximum concentration. You know, a bit of Joyce and rejoicing in the luminary achievements of 20th century literature.
All of which means Shark gets a tinsy bit complicated as in, he switches the interlocutor MID-SENTENCE. And the dialogue isn’t linear. 4-D chess springs to mind. But if you can wade through Thomas Bernhard, why not this? Why not, damn you?!
Sure, when the POV switches to Camera 2 halfway through a parenthesis, you don’t realise you’ve wandered off the trail for a fair few paces, by which time you’re in heavy jungle, the compass has been dropped and you can’t retrace your steps because Mowgli has mischievously uprooted the last signpost. You don’t know how far it is to the next border and are stiffed and stuffed IF you lose interest in the current geography rather than faithfully traipsing on.
And on a couple of occasions I DID lose interest in my surroundings…mostly when the main Kins character was blathering on. That was bad. Literature as endurance and a challenge is all very well if it’s pretty along the way. The Kins & Co ramble over the Second World War left me cold.
In contrast with the titillating detail of the Concept House ensemble and the knocked-up smack addict’s back-story, Kins was a vacuous stereotype. His wartime reminiscence was creaky and fusty and contained daguerreotypes of village priests, Home Counties’ Committees, the Bosh and the Tommies and veered towards dry polemic. Come on – let’s leave that kind of thing to Ben Elton when he chooses to write his first serious novel.
My interest waned and I became hopelessly lost. The public school, stiff-upper lipped, Oxbridge conscientious objector just wasn’t appealing or different or vital enough. So the soufflé sagged. Maddeningly.
So there was that.
Also, the finale was…waspish. The TS Eliot hooks were a little gauche. The homage to Celine, the Goodnight Ladies, Finnegan’s Wakesy, tricksy bits…not so much. Having super-slalomed down the preceding 200 pages to suddenly have to stop/start as though my skis had hit black ice with juddering stumps of tarmac showing through the glistening track, was…erm…yeah, juddering. But so what?
It just didn’t quite come off but but but - full marks for having a go. It was a close run thing and damned well worth the attempt.
The rest is stand-up brilliant. Mr Self tinkers, strokes, prods and palpates until he induces a splendiferous, multiple bibliogasm.
Will has sedated his self-confessed ‘Everythingism’, choosing now to express his desire to know ALL through surgically precise regional idioms rather than technical schadenbangers of polysyllabic brick walls. The man had done his research…I was gobsmacked by his lobbing Hemel into the text and ‘Berko’ and Little Gaddesden and the Rothschild’s estate – this isn’t a fantasy travelogue leeched out of a lazy Google search for local authenticity.
Don’t underestimate the lengths of his research – there are probably dozens of unwritten books and notes that form the lexical, factual foundations of his novels. Now that he’s not so showy or preening like the clever kid in class, he’s still keen to show off his knowledge and his ‘workings’. Who wouldn’t be? But the text is far easier to swallow than previous outings. Perhaps this does him a disservice as epic harmonies and clever diminished fifths slip past unnoticed?
Self now chases an idiomatic dragon and it’s delicious. The bloody man has visited Hemel, trawled about and probably retraced the exact fictional car journey one of his characters takes. His interminable rambles around the Chilterns bear fruit. W.G. Sebald receives drool points for such excursions. Why not Will?
And there’s meat on them there bones. The shark conceit is strung taut, menacingly running through the novel, rigid and primary like the stave of a bass clef. Self’s soufflé rose again triumphantly for me as soon as Kins faded into the background.
I used to think Self was brilliant. Now Self has a new self, I can begin that journey of discovery over again and come over all giddy as his confidence increases and as he continues to iron out a few malingering wrinkles. I sense that Self has embarked upon creating a whole new vintage. His cheeky Beaujolais days are behind him.
The Emperor’s new clothes fit rather well and there’s now a non-fussy pair of robust clean knickers with a sturdy white cotton gusset in place beneath the fur coat.
It’s rare that an author totally reinvents himself whilst putting demons to rest. It’s not simply a revival because he was at full steam before. It’s a reinvention but the voice is just as strong, the subject matter just as depraved with Self’s arms still flashing those filth-encrusted tidemarks up to his elbows.
It’s been years since Will has been spotted down a piss-drenched Soho back alley indulging in a heroin-fuelled, furious knee-trembler with a refugee from the Golden Lion. I think his writing is all the better for it so hope he continues with the broccoli colonics, familial wholesomeness and pure, serene serenity of his mature wilderness.
Umbrella was a mood; Shark is a feeling so, presumably, the final part of the trilogy will be an ode to touch or taste printed in Braille…or on edible rice paper. Can’t wait for the next one. Go Will!
Why so? Well, there are a few rubbish bits. Let’s consider those first, you shameless Self heretics.
In the olden days, Self brandished his vocabulary like a burnished sword and it became a distinct barrier to entry for most. I don’t think he does that anymore. I really don’t. Bear with.
Willie obviously doesn’t want literature to be ‘easy’; some half-engaged, sectarian process. In Shark, rather than torture admiration or engagement out of us via Latinate word salad (his words here are digestible, they really are!), he instead goes for structural hiatuses (haitii? Haiti?), aping a post-modernist, surrealist, broken stream of consciousness jag that coquettishly fluffs you into maximum concentration. You know, a bit of Joyce and rejoicing in the luminary achievements of 20th century literature.
All of which means Shark gets a tinsy bit complicated as in, he switches the interlocutor MID-SENTENCE. And the dialogue isn’t linear. 4-D chess springs to mind. But if you can wade through Thomas Bernhard, why not this? Why not, damn you?!
Sure, when the POV switches to Camera 2 halfway through a parenthesis, you don’t realise you’ve wandered off the trail for a fair few paces, by which time you’re in heavy jungle, the compass has been dropped and you can’t retrace your steps because Mowgli has mischievously uprooted the last signpost. You don’t know how far it is to the next border and are stiffed and stuffed IF you lose interest in the current geography rather than faithfully traipsing on.
And on a couple of occasions I DID lose interest in my surroundings…mostly when the main Kins character was blathering on. That was bad. Literature as endurance and a challenge is all very well if it’s pretty along the way. The Kins & Co ramble over the Second World War left me cold.
In contrast with the titillating detail of the Concept House ensemble and the knocked-up smack addict’s back-story, Kins was a vacuous stereotype. His wartime reminiscence was creaky and fusty and contained daguerreotypes of village priests, Home Counties’ Committees, the Bosh and the Tommies and veered towards dry polemic. Come on – let’s leave that kind of thing to Ben Elton when he chooses to write his first serious novel.
My interest waned and I became hopelessly lost. The public school, stiff-upper lipped, Oxbridge conscientious objector just wasn’t appealing or different or vital enough. So the soufflé sagged. Maddeningly.
So there was that.
Also, the finale was…waspish. The TS Eliot hooks were a little gauche. The homage to Celine, the Goodnight Ladies, Finnegan’s Wakesy, tricksy bits…not so much. Having super-slalomed down the preceding 200 pages to suddenly have to stop/start as though my skis had hit black ice with juddering stumps of tarmac showing through the glistening track, was…erm…yeah, juddering. But so what?
It just didn’t quite come off but but but - full marks for having a go. It was a close run thing and damned well worth the attempt.
The rest is stand-up brilliant. Mr Self tinkers, strokes, prods and palpates until he induces a splendiferous, multiple bibliogasm.
Will has sedated his self-confessed ‘Everythingism’, choosing now to express his desire to know ALL through surgically precise regional idioms rather than technical schadenbangers of polysyllabic brick walls. The man had done his research…I was gobsmacked by his lobbing Hemel into the text and ‘Berko’ and Little Gaddesden and the Rothschild’s estate – this isn’t a fantasy travelogue leeched out of a lazy Google search for local authenticity.
Don’t underestimate the lengths of his research – there are probably dozens of unwritten books and notes that form the lexical, factual foundations of his novels. Now that he’s not so showy or preening like the clever kid in class, he’s still keen to show off his knowledge and his ‘workings’. Who wouldn’t be? But the text is far easier to swallow than previous outings. Perhaps this does him a disservice as epic harmonies and clever diminished fifths slip past unnoticed?
Self now chases an idiomatic dragon and it’s delicious. The bloody man has visited Hemel, trawled about and probably retraced the exact fictional car journey one of his characters takes. His interminable rambles around the Chilterns bear fruit. W.G. Sebald receives drool points for such excursions. Why not Will?
And there’s meat on them there bones. The shark conceit is strung taut, menacingly running through the novel, rigid and primary like the stave of a bass clef. Self’s soufflé rose again triumphantly for me as soon as Kins faded into the background.
I used to think Self was brilliant. Now Self has a new self, I can begin that journey of discovery over again and come over all giddy as his confidence increases and as he continues to iron out a few malingering wrinkles. I sense that Self has embarked upon creating a whole new vintage. His cheeky Beaujolais days are behind him.
The Emperor’s new clothes fit rather well and there’s now a non-fussy pair of robust clean knickers with a sturdy white cotton gusset in place beneath the fur coat.
It’s rare that an author totally reinvents himself whilst putting demons to rest. It’s not simply a revival because he was at full steam before. It’s a reinvention but the voice is just as strong, the subject matter just as depraved with Self’s arms still flashing those filth-encrusted tidemarks up to his elbows.
It’s been years since Will has been spotted down a piss-drenched Soho back alley indulging in a heroin-fuelled, furious knee-trembler with a refugee from the Golden Lion. I think his writing is all the better for it so hope he continues with the broccoli colonics, familial wholesomeness and pure, serene serenity of his mature wilderness.
Umbrella was a mood; Shark is a feeling so, presumably, the final part of the trilogy will be an ode to touch or taste printed in Braille…or on edible rice paper. Can’t wait for the next one. Go Will!
October 26, 2018
JUROR: We, the jury, find the defendant, Marc Hendriks, to be guilty of uncultured behavior in the first degree.
JUDGE: Mr. Hendriks, what do you have to say in response to this verdict?
MH: Um, well, I s’pose the jury is sorta kinda right, Your Honor. I know I’m not exactly a Rhodes Scholar, but I did earn my stripes in the field of challenging art. Fer Chrissakes, I read Moby Dick in college for extra credit, watched David Lynch’s Inland Empire in one sitting, sat through videos of Marina Abramović’s performance pieces, and listened to both sides of the Ono/Lennon album Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins. I found merit in all these works!
JUDGE: Yet you refuse to sing the praises of Will Self’s experimental masterpiece, Shark.
MH: That’s correct, Your Honor. I … I just can’t. It’s 400 pages worth of barely coherent streams of consciousness, monologues intérieur, flashbacks and flash forwards … all this without chapter breaks, indents, or quotations marks. It’s just one humongous paragraph that begins and ends midsentence. Shark is insufferable!
JUDGE: Could you at the very least provide me with a satisfactory summary of the book?
MH: Um, it’s about this lauded psychiatrist who drops acid with his patients. I think. Not all respond well to the drug. I think. There are vivid descriptions of people’s bowel movements. I think. Some sentences are in French and Mandarin. Some words are neologisms … at least I think they are. Oh, and the book also contains an erroneous plot summary of Spielberg’s Jaws. I guess that’s why the book’s called Shark. I think. But listen, I’m glad a book like Shark exists. I’m glad I read it. It’s sui generis, you know, so it has that going for it.
JUDGE: It’s not sui generis, Mr. Hendriks. Two years before Shark, Will Self released Umbrella, which utilizes the exact same literary devices. Umbrella, in turn, was inspired by the works of Irish scribe James Joyce.
MH: Run that name by me again?
JUDGE: James Joyce.
MH: I’ve heard of him. I think.
JUDGE: Props. I hereby sentence to you to a life without High Art—it simply doesn’t befit someone of your limited intellect. Those prints of paintings by Edward Hopper and Salvador Dali that adorn the walls of your subsidized unit? I order you to replace them with Amadio’s The Crying Boy and Dielman’s The Widow. I will allow you to hang on to your Stephen King books, but your copy of Aldous Huxley’s Collected Works is to be substituted with a Dean Koontz omnibus.
MH: The hell, dude.
JUDGE: Case closed.
JUDGE: Mr. Hendriks, what do you have to say in response to this verdict?
MH: Um, well, I s’pose the jury is sorta kinda right, Your Honor. I know I’m not exactly a Rhodes Scholar, but I did earn my stripes in the field of challenging art. Fer Chrissakes, I read Moby Dick in college for extra credit, watched David Lynch’s Inland Empire in one sitting, sat through videos of Marina Abramović’s performance pieces, and listened to both sides of the Ono/Lennon album Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins. I found merit in all these works!
JUDGE: Yet you refuse to sing the praises of Will Self’s experimental masterpiece, Shark.
MH: That’s correct, Your Honor. I … I just can’t. It’s 400 pages worth of barely coherent streams of consciousness, monologues intérieur, flashbacks and flash forwards … all this without chapter breaks, indents, or quotations marks. It’s just one humongous paragraph that begins and ends midsentence. Shark is insufferable!
JUDGE: Could you at the very least provide me with a satisfactory summary of the book?
MH: Um, it’s about this lauded psychiatrist who drops acid with his patients. I think. Not all respond well to the drug. I think. There are vivid descriptions of people’s bowel movements. I think. Some sentences are in French and Mandarin. Some words are neologisms … at least I think they are. Oh, and the book also contains an erroneous plot summary of Spielberg’s Jaws. I guess that’s why the book’s called Shark. I think. But listen, I’m glad a book like Shark exists. I’m glad I read it. It’s sui generis, you know, so it has that going for it.
JUDGE: It’s not sui generis, Mr. Hendriks. Two years before Shark, Will Self released Umbrella, which utilizes the exact same literary devices. Umbrella, in turn, was inspired by the works of Irish scribe James Joyce.
MH: Run that name by me again?
JUDGE: James Joyce.
MH: I’ve heard of him. I think.
JUDGE: Props. I hereby sentence to you to a life without High Art—it simply doesn’t befit someone of your limited intellect. Those prints of paintings by Edward Hopper and Salvador Dali that adorn the walls of your subsidized unit? I order you to replace them with Amadio’s The Crying Boy and Dielman’s The Widow. I will allow you to hang on to your Stephen King books, but your copy of Aldous Huxley’s Collected Works is to be substituted with a Dean Koontz omnibus.
MH: The hell, dude.
JUDGE: Case closed.
January 16, 2015
Let me be frank here: I guess I am a fuddy duddy traditionalist who likes her novels with a plot, characters she can recognize, and maybe some coherent storytelling. The book's description was intriguing, the style was one I haven't had much experience in (only done a minimum of Joyce and other stream of consciousness writers), so I thought it was high time to try something new. Wow. What a waste of 400 pages.
If merely dragging you, the reader, down to the depths of human pettiness, misery and despair is somehow "high brow" then by all means, this is the book for you. This isn't even a novel about grief or the human condition. It wallows in human excrement, in fact, I think it strives to smear you with the filth that his characters are soaking themselves in. I am serious: there will be detailed descriptions of human beings relieving themselves, describing how disgusting they are for not sleeping, plenty of gory descriptions of drug use and prostitution. Most the novel revolves around an acid trip so I guess this is how he justifies wandering in and out of characters thoughts with little or no transition. You will end up jumping from one point of view to the next, sometimes decades apart, then leap back and forth from past reminiscence (or is it a hallucination? who knows?) to current conflict.
Overall it was an unpleasant, exhausting read. I was particularly unimpressed with the "art" that makes up the last 10 pages of the book. It was pretty much as if he had vomited up random phrases. . . most incomplete. . .All phrases. . . separated by . . . . ellipses. . .for ten pages. . .no sentences. . . no coherence.
If this is art, I will join the camp of the old fashioned philistines who has neither the time nor the patience to embrace this self-absorbed crap. Hey, I can honestly say I finished the damn book because I really wanted to give it a chance. Now I know not to make that mistake ever again. Good luck to the next poor fool who tries.
If merely dragging you, the reader, down to the depths of human pettiness, misery and despair is somehow "high brow" then by all means, this is the book for you. This isn't even a novel about grief or the human condition. It wallows in human excrement, in fact, I think it strives to smear you with the filth that his characters are soaking themselves in. I am serious: there will be detailed descriptions of human beings relieving themselves, describing how disgusting they are for not sleeping, plenty of gory descriptions of drug use and prostitution. Most the novel revolves around an acid trip so I guess this is how he justifies wandering in and out of characters thoughts with little or no transition. You will end up jumping from one point of view to the next, sometimes decades apart, then leap back and forth from past reminiscence (or is it a hallucination? who knows?) to current conflict.
Overall it was an unpleasant, exhausting read. I was particularly unimpressed with the "art" that makes up the last 10 pages of the book. It was pretty much as if he had vomited up random phrases. . . most incomplete. . .All phrases. . . separated by . . . . ellipses. . .for ten pages. . .no sentences. . . no coherence.
If this is art, I will join the camp of the old fashioned philistines who has neither the time nor the patience to embrace this self-absorbed crap. Hey, I can honestly say I finished the damn book because I really wanted to give it a chance. Now I know not to make that mistake ever again. Good luck to the next poor fool who tries.
May 7, 2015
You din't want any paragraphs anyway, didja, me tidgy didgeridoo? No paras, no chapters, not even any section breaks—none of that codswallop to slow down the inexorable advance of the beast—just one great honking wodge of undifferentiated text, set off only by lots of ellipses and em dashes and the like—sometimes both together...—and by occasional random-seeming emphases. Shark's got to keep moving or die, mate... can't think a wink in between the blitz-quick bits of time and space and split perspective. How the book's constructed is a metaphor too, d'you see. So if the words you're reading now make your eyes go all wobbly for lack of anywhere to rest, you might want to find another pond to paddle in. The basic plot's pretty simple, though: a half-dozen or so nutters have been moved into Concept House (est. 1970), along with a couple of psychologists—long on theory, shorter on practical matters, shortest of all on prudence—who hope to lead them gently toward sanity. Sharks—some of them even literal ones—do figure into Shark, by the way. One of Concept House's residents was one of the few survivors of the largest shark attack in history, when the U.S.S. Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese in 1945. Also in the mix: the Enola Gay and Little Boy, the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, the Bomb's effects on the Japanese—and on the airmen who dropped it; the Blitz, and its effects on the Londoners who survived it; psychoanalytical fads of the 1960s and their effects on the psychonauts who dropped acid with their patients; sex, drugs and rock-and-roll; and critiques of the upper, middle and lower classes that're often as sharp as sharks' teeth. The Twentieth Century in all its smutty glory is Will Self's blood and shit-spattered canvas, and he never lets up. Shark is relentlessly downbeat, no chance missed to wallow in death, deliquescence and decay. Like a book-length version of the toilet scene from Trainspotting, everything smeared with excrement and worse—except that Renton eventually got to take his head out of the bog, didn't he? Oh, and Self brooks no compromises with leftpondians either. There are no footnotes—you should bring your English-to-English dictionary along, just in case, but then again if you have to stop to look up words like "manky" or "wodge" or "codswallop," you'll probably drown anyway. (However: I tried really hard to believe that "ordinance" was a Britishism for ordnance, as in weaponry, and couldn't... nope, it's just wrong, and the error appears that way several times to boot. Sad, that.) But it's okay; it's okay... eventually, Shark's able to propel itself past all those shoals and into deeper waters. Much deeper... I almost gave up on Shark several times, in fact; it really wasn't what I was looking for, not right now, not this time, but... Will Self's prose does gathers its own momentum about it eventually, hurling itself into your cortex with sheer sawtoothed fury, nothing whatsoever to break the flow... until the end. Whew! After that, I think I'm gonna need a chaser...
October 25, 2019
Shark is one of those novels which begins abruptly with a sentence continuing from the last page of the novel, circling like a shark. Actually, that sentence begins about a dozen pages from the end and reads a little like the LSD-inspired hallucinatory content of some of the characters' stream of consciousness. I mention these as indicators of the novel's challenges because the headline about Shark is that the structure is a single block of prose unbroken by chapters or even paragraphs. Scenes shift without warning from London to the Pacific, from a character shaving (a nod to Ulysses) to terrified sailors adrift in the middle of a shark attack, from a young woman on the prowl for drugs to a movie theater. Often the shift is mid-sentence. It looks formidable and confusing but isn't because it reads fluidly, even lyrically. The energy of Self's style and imagery creates fun and compels the reader to keep moving just as (forgive me) the shark has to keep moving in order to stay alive.
The novel's the 2d in a trilogy about the psychiatrist Dr. Zack Busner who, in the 1st novel, Umbrella, treated catatonia in the aftermath of the Great War. That novel told the story of Audrey Death, finally helped by Busner through the use of LSD. Her brother, Albert, returns in Shark where Busner continues to use LSD to treat those suffering from PTSD. His patients include Claude Evinrude, an American who was aboard the USS Indianapolis, the ship which delivered the atomic bombs to Tinian and was later torpedoed on 30 July 1945 while returning home. The Indianapolis, in a story well-known, sank quickly spilling 900 men into the ocean where the waters they swam in became a feeding frenzy of sharks. Michael Lincoln, another of Busner's patients, was apparently a British observer in the Enola Gay over Hiroshima a week after the Indianapolis went down. Both of these events, Hiroshima and the Indianapolis sinking, are central to the novel, and Self writes brilliantly about them.
Sharks swim freely through this prose. They're most evident, of course, in the waters where the Indianapolis sinks, but they're often alluded to in other ways, in the way characters look with prominent snouts and predatory teeth or in the several recurring scenes in which Busner and his son watch the Spielberg film Jaws. Seen from the air, a shark-shaped Hiroshima boiling beneath its mushroom cloud seems to make the shark an emblem of history and death.
I've had this novel for a long time. Even remembering the enormous enjoyment I got from Umbrella, I kept putting it off in favor of easier reads because, as I say, it looks more challenging than it is. But I think this is one of the best novels I've read this year. I couldn't recommend it more. Now I'm looking forward to the concluding novel in the sequence, Phone.
The novel's the 2d in a trilogy about the psychiatrist Dr. Zack Busner who, in the 1st novel, Umbrella, treated catatonia in the aftermath of the Great War. That novel told the story of Audrey Death, finally helped by Busner through the use of LSD. Her brother, Albert, returns in Shark where Busner continues to use LSD to treat those suffering from PTSD. His patients include Claude Evinrude, an American who was aboard the USS Indianapolis, the ship which delivered the atomic bombs to Tinian and was later torpedoed on 30 July 1945 while returning home. The Indianapolis, in a story well-known, sank quickly spilling 900 men into the ocean where the waters they swam in became a feeding frenzy of sharks. Michael Lincoln, another of Busner's patients, was apparently a British observer in the Enola Gay over Hiroshima a week after the Indianapolis went down. Both of these events, Hiroshima and the Indianapolis sinking, are central to the novel, and Self writes brilliantly about them.
Sharks swim freely through this prose. They're most evident, of course, in the waters where the Indianapolis sinks, but they're often alluded to in other ways, in the way characters look with prominent snouts and predatory teeth or in the several recurring scenes in which Busner and his son watch the Spielberg film Jaws. Seen from the air, a shark-shaped Hiroshima boiling beneath its mushroom cloud seems to make the shark an emblem of history and death.
I've had this novel for a long time. Even remembering the enormous enjoyment I got from Umbrella, I kept putting it off in favor of easier reads because, as I say, it looks more challenging than it is. But I think this is one of the best novels I've read this year. I couldn't recommend it more. Now I'm looking forward to the concluding novel in the sequence, Phone.
June 13, 2018
Book two of trilogy, Will Self's main man Zack Busner in an earlier self as compared to "Umbrella" where he's at the tail end of his career as maverick psychologist, so but so he's youngish here a wife two kids, running a sort-of halfway or most all-the-way gone as in nutters communal called 'Comfort House' run by the home team loosey goosey. Umbrella's do show itinerantly but in these choppy swells of clabberd haver it's the apex food chain great white that motifs the events diurnal, early May day where blazed on LSD things do get interesting and around and around we go from mid-sentence beginning to last sentence return Wake style. The bughouse shenanigans are every bit as good as "IJ"s and DFW's master take on addiction and recovery. Of course there are jagged time flashes with multiple converging/intersecting digressions of characters/historical milestones, etc., all the kings men of modernism blown glass ornamentation. This is a humdinger and a fine book no less than the 'Booker'd "Umbrella" - his loyal readers concur.
October 2, 2014
If anyone can make sense of this? Good luck.
October 13, 2015
Life is too important to be taken seriously... Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"Shark" (2014) is the colorful and sparkling sequel to "Umbrella" authored by British journalist/columnist novelist Will Self. It was quite a unique experience to become acquainted with Self's authorship. Self is known for writing in "parallel universe"; a sort of alternative fiction: though this style isn't like science fiction, horror-core, supernatural, or of the vampire underworld. "Shark" is a spoof on modern psychology/psychiatry. I would almost compare Self's writing style to Dr. Seuss... notice, I said "almost". Self is a one of a kind highly original author.
Dr. Zack Busner, a prominent British psychiatrist was the founder/operator of the "Concept House" a therapeutic residential treatment center for patients with SMI (serious mental illness), located in a London suburb. Busner may have been interested in the scientific study of "memory recall", for he stopped taking notes during analytic sessions, and his recall improved tremendously. Meetings were held Friday mornings, and Dr. Busner acknowledged his accuracy of defining doctor created disease, though he had flashbacks relating to the death of his parents; killed by a shockwave, bodies still intact, and buried in a "decent Liberal Jewish Cemetery".
The only mention of the marriage ceremony of Zack and Miriam was about a wedding gift received. Miriam had been a single mother of two boys who were studying at an un-named residential school. Miriam had planned an exciting holiday break at the "Ritz" for her and Zack, but was unable to get Roger, "a selfish beast" to babysit the boys. Roger, a Concept House resident, decided to attend a Love Feast at the Krishna Consciousness Society, as an observer only. Irene, Eileen, Podge, and Maggie went into a "hysterical tizzy" at the very thought of being alternative babysitters. This shows how far out some of Busner's patients were, and mental stability for many was not around the therapeutic corner.
Dr. Busner thought the only rehabilitation Roger needed was to remain clean shaven, though he and his "erstwhile blood brother" Ronnie had quite the heat of "psychic energy".
Zack, seemed to be a good role model for the other residents as long as his cognitive abilities remained intact. He often woke up early, read the newspaper, and contemplated the "psychic strangeness" of the Concept House. He felt Miriam was quite maternal: "A Stone Age Mother" for a "Space Age Child". Predictably, Miriam had a surprise for Zack towards the end of the novel.
Claude Evenrude, a retired US Army Air Force veteran, aka "the Creep", heard voices, had a conversation with his dead father Martin Evenrude. Claude had been a patient at Fairfield State Hospital, other US VA facilities and drunk tanks, and incarcerated for 28 days at Riker's Island in 1949. He was a creepy tranny, never seeming to fit in with the other residents who usually attempted to avoid him. Claude seemed to be a likeable patient overall, but then he'd slip into various psychological states/realms known only to himself.
The tenants of 117-119 were always full of drama and distress, prone to extreme anxiety, strange and highly unusual situations were always occurring. One highlight of the story was when many of the residents attended a blockbuster movie at the cinema/theater. Zack ignored most of the movie, Irene in "model psychosis" while sitting with Eileen, Podge, and Maggie. The Creep, was "blistfully silent", his deepest fear was the government stockpiling of nukes, and being on an occasional suicide watch.
Will Self (1961-) is also the author of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Prawn Cracker" and "Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe" (2004) his release of short stories. He lives in Stockwell, South London with his wife journalist Deborah Orr.
Many thanks to Grove Press, NY for this ARC from the Goodreads Giveaway.
"Shark" (2014) is the colorful and sparkling sequel to "Umbrella" authored by British journalist/columnist novelist Will Self. It was quite a unique experience to become acquainted with Self's authorship. Self is known for writing in "parallel universe"; a sort of alternative fiction: though this style isn't like science fiction, horror-core, supernatural, or of the vampire underworld. "Shark" is a spoof on modern psychology/psychiatry. I would almost compare Self's writing style to Dr. Seuss... notice, I said "almost". Self is a one of a kind highly original author.
Dr. Zack Busner, a prominent British psychiatrist was the founder/operator of the "Concept House" a therapeutic residential treatment center for patients with SMI (serious mental illness), located in a London suburb. Busner may have been interested in the scientific study of "memory recall", for he stopped taking notes during analytic sessions, and his recall improved tremendously. Meetings were held Friday mornings, and Dr. Busner acknowledged his accuracy of defining doctor created disease, though he had flashbacks relating to the death of his parents; killed by a shockwave, bodies still intact, and buried in a "decent Liberal Jewish Cemetery".
The only mention of the marriage ceremony of Zack and Miriam was about a wedding gift received. Miriam had been a single mother of two boys who were studying at an un-named residential school. Miriam had planned an exciting holiday break at the "Ritz" for her and Zack, but was unable to get Roger, "a selfish beast" to babysit the boys. Roger, a Concept House resident, decided to attend a Love Feast at the Krishna Consciousness Society, as an observer only. Irene, Eileen, Podge, and Maggie went into a "hysterical tizzy" at the very thought of being alternative babysitters. This shows how far out some of Busner's patients were, and mental stability for many was not around the therapeutic corner.
Dr. Busner thought the only rehabilitation Roger needed was to remain clean shaven, though he and his "erstwhile blood brother" Ronnie had quite the heat of "psychic energy".
Zack, seemed to be a good role model for the other residents as long as his cognitive abilities remained intact. He often woke up early, read the newspaper, and contemplated the "psychic strangeness" of the Concept House. He felt Miriam was quite maternal: "A Stone Age Mother" for a "Space Age Child". Predictably, Miriam had a surprise for Zack towards the end of the novel.
Claude Evenrude, a retired US Army Air Force veteran, aka "the Creep", heard voices, had a conversation with his dead father Martin Evenrude. Claude had been a patient at Fairfield State Hospital, other US VA facilities and drunk tanks, and incarcerated for 28 days at Riker's Island in 1949. He was a creepy tranny, never seeming to fit in with the other residents who usually attempted to avoid him. Claude seemed to be a likeable patient overall, but then he'd slip into various psychological states/realms known only to himself.
The tenants of 117-119 were always full of drama and distress, prone to extreme anxiety, strange and highly unusual situations were always occurring. One highlight of the story was when many of the residents attended a blockbuster movie at the cinema/theater. Zack ignored most of the movie, Irene in "model psychosis" while sitting with Eileen, Podge, and Maggie. The Creep, was "blistfully silent", his deepest fear was the government stockpiling of nukes, and being on an occasional suicide watch.
Will Self (1961-) is also the author of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Prawn Cracker" and "Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe" (2004) his release of short stories. He lives in Stockwell, South London with his wife journalist Deborah Orr.
Many thanks to Grove Press, NY for this ARC from the Goodreads Giveaway.
July 12, 2015
This book is in part about how dangerous it can be to elide the difference between mad and not mad; the framing plot (in so far as there is one; this is to some extent a rebellion against plot) is about the potential damage from leaving the lunatics to run the asylum. More generously, it's about the importance of giving care.
But then, it's not so simple as that: the book focuses on individual traumas that stem from collective acts of violence. Like Umbrella, this is a book about the monstrous, dehumanizing effects of war, this time WW2--and also the subsequent nuclear arms race. And as in that book also, here the streams of consciousness of different characters flow together, and somehow mad and not mad seem not so far apart after all--or at least the distinction appears tenuous.
And the book is also about the creation of distinctions and the telling of stories; its modernist, paragraphless form is of a piece with some of the protests about plot in the narration itself. Among many other things, this novel offers some great readings of Jaws, including the idea that the shark would just be a shark being a shark if it wasn't trapped in a plot. The aim is to bust out of well-worn plots. And the optimistic side of the book is the success it achieves, in itself, and in for example the fragile recovery of the abused-child-turned-heroin-addict Genie, who receives effective care not from governmental sources but from beleaguered Bangladeshi immigrant women, and then goes on to be a determined caregiver herself, even in the face of dehumanizing governmental cuts.
This trilogy Will Self is writing is, for me, utterly brilliant, every bit as good as, and in some ways more daring than, Hilary Mantel's superlative Wolf Hall trilogy.
But then, it's not so simple as that: the book focuses on individual traumas that stem from collective acts of violence. Like Umbrella, this is a book about the monstrous, dehumanizing effects of war, this time WW2--and also the subsequent nuclear arms race. And as in that book also, here the streams of consciousness of different characters flow together, and somehow mad and not mad seem not so far apart after all--or at least the distinction appears tenuous.
And the book is also about the creation of distinctions and the telling of stories; its modernist, paragraphless form is of a piece with some of the protests about plot in the narration itself. Among many other things, this novel offers some great readings of Jaws, including the idea that the shark would just be a shark being a shark if it wasn't trapped in a plot. The aim is to bust out of well-worn plots. And the optimistic side of the book is the success it achieves, in itself, and in for example the fragile recovery of the abused-child-turned-heroin-addict Genie, who receives effective care not from governmental sources but from beleaguered Bangladeshi immigrant women, and then goes on to be a determined caregiver herself, even in the face of dehumanizing governmental cuts.
This trilogy Will Self is writing is, for me, utterly brilliant, every bit as good as, and in some ways more daring than, Hilary Mantel's superlative Wolf Hall trilogy.
November 11, 2014
This slipstream-of-[acid]-consciousness allegory is a goof if you've ever ventured into the deep end of the lysergic Eternity Pool. (See: Set & Setting, Mirror Avoidance, Temporal Witchery, etc.) But the vast majority of readers (wisely) are likely to have skipped out on Albert Hofmann's mind-scrambling and tremendously unstable compound, which probably renders Self's latest doorstop as maddeningly inconsequential as, say, Finnegans [sic] Wake. Whatever your chemical background, the head-scratching errors Self commits in the name of the novel's ur-text (Spielberg's Jaws) are unforgivable. It's Pippin, not Pipit, FFS! The description of the dolly zoom is hot-buttered nonsense! The guy who chases Chrissie down the dunes never "skinny dips" with her! He trips up while trying to remove his jeans and he passes out right before she's devoured… Shit, if you're going to weave one of the most-watched films into your extended metaphor, Netflix the fucker (or download the script) before you start doing that Carcharodon carcharias appropriation…
January 9, 2015
Like Jaws, but without the shark. I loved it, even though it's let down a bit by the ending, as usual with Will! Written in the modernist style of say Virginia Woolf, as was his last book, Shark is one gargantuan paragraph, no chapters, no breaks, no speech marks. Its essentially a stream of conscious that jumps from one character to another and across different time periods. Give it a go, its not for everyone, but I found it easy to tell who was 'speaking' each time the narrative jumped. Even when its a bunch of phychiatric patients on acid (and yes that does happen!). Well, for me its the best book I've read in a few years, since Umbrella actually. I feel its his best work since his debut set of short stories Quantity Theory of Insanity which also features one of the stars of Shark, Will's old favourite Dr Zack Busner.
November 9, 2018
Well, this is just a fucking mess. Don't think I'm gonna finish, regardless the fact that it is a school task. EDIT; I don't have time for this shit. DNF.
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July 5, 2016
For sale: one slightly used copy of Will Self's Shark. Yikes, is this hot mess of a book a slog to get through. It's one continuous paragraph that runs on (and on) for 466 pages with no breaks, all in a randomly punctuated stream-of-consciousness style that omits such extraneous details as time, location, or which character's voice might be "narrating" at any given moment. I'm not averse to avant garde postmodern writers -- I'm a huge fan of David Foster Wallace -- but this book jumped the shark. I keep picking it up and forcing myself to trudge through a few sentences, but it's taken me over a week to get through 20 pages, and still the book has offered nothing to pique my interest in the characters or events, or curiosity about whatever might happen next (and I already know from reading reviews that if I did have a clue what was going on it would be very dark and depressing -- a perfect summer read!). Usually it is with reluctance that I give up on a book, but I am about to shed this one like a smelly hair shirt. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
October 20, 2015
Thank Jeebus that's over. I wanted to gouge my own eyes out there.
I've had a revelation: a good way to measure books is by how many mistakes made it into print. Think about it, it means the proof readers were bored as fuck and not concentrating. I spotted at least 5 glaring errors and I definitely wasn't concentrating the whole time.
466 pages, 1 chapter, 1 paragraph, little punctuation to help you work out when people were speaking, or which character it was, or even whether it was past present or future. It even started AND finished mid-sentence.
I imagine it was all a gimmick to make it feel like you were on an acid trip. I imagine the author thinks he was being clever. I think the author is a dick.
I've had a revelation: a good way to measure books is by how many mistakes made it into print. Think about it, it means the proof readers were bored as fuck and not concentrating. I spotted at least 5 glaring errors and I definitely wasn't concentrating the whole time.
466 pages, 1 chapter, 1 paragraph, little punctuation to help you work out when people were speaking, or which character it was, or even whether it was past present or future. It even started AND finished mid-sentence.
I imagine it was all a gimmick to make it feel like you were on an acid trip. I imagine the author thinks he was being clever. I think the author is a dick.
March 24, 2015
Unreadable. This is supposed to be intelligent and cleaver? Then why are there sound effects written into the sentence? I read a lot of books and I have never come across one that I couldn't even grasp the plot line or concept. What is the point of writing a book that the readers can't follow? How can a writer feel like they are expressing themselves when no one can fathom what they are trying to say? This book is unreadable and incomprehensible.
A waste of $10 and a good afternoon.
A waste of $10 and a good afternoon.
January 6, 2017
I had to read this after reading Umbrella, and I loved it. I'm going to defend Will Self here as I'm sure he's copped a lot of flak for both books I've mentioned. The language for a start is challenging but don't let that put you off. OK it harks back to the days of James Joyce but easier. The Joycean language in Shark at first sounds daunting but you get used to it. I applaud Mr Self for pulling it off. The actual character Zac Busner appears in a few of his books
August 21, 2014
Goodreads win. Will read and review once received.
I was really happy when I found out I won this book. When it came in the mail I couldn't help but start to read it right away. The book was quite interesting and definitely not something I usually read. I loved the way the author had with words and writing of the story. This book was weird, strange and at the same time a joy to read.
I was really happy when I found out I won this book. When it came in the mail I couldn't help but start to read it right away. The book was quite interesting and definitely not something I usually read. I loved the way the author had with words and writing of the story. This book was weird, strange and at the same time a joy to read.
June 4, 2016
Oh dear, I don't think Mr Self and I are made for each other. I tried this book, ignoring the horrible cover, but I just couldn't get interested. I always read at least 3 chapters of a book I don't like to give the author a chance, but with no chapters and not even any paragraphs I just guessed when to pack it in. Glad to get it back to the library.
December 1, 2017
These recent Will Self books are a lot easier to read than they seem at first. Shark isn't quite as good as Umbrella, mainly due to the ill-advised ending where Self jumps the shark (!) with 6/7 pages of fragmented, unattributed stream-of-consciousness that adds nothing to the narrative. Other than that it's great.
August 31, 2014
As far as I'm concerned thus doesn't even deserve a star I couldn't finish even though I was determined to as hate giving up. Couldn't even tell you what happened ?! horrible read! writing style not for me! !!!!!!!
September 17, 2015
Well I didn't finish it so that should tell you enough. It was horrible, anxiety inducing slop with one or two redeeming qualities and they were the back and front covers - of which I still hated but not as much as the contents of the book itself.
December 7, 2015
Just can't bring myself to keep going. It takes too much attention to keep track of the train of thought as it jumps from person to person. Or at least to much for meat this moment in time. Gotta give it up.
February 20, 2015
Dadaism, modernism, stream of consciousness: Or call it waste of my time. I guess I'm too much of a traditionalist to get this novel.
April 6, 2015
A workout for the brain!
May 19, 2015
Stunning. A chore to read aloud, obviously. But just stunningly crafted and otherwise mostly stunning.
November 15, 2024
3.5 stars from me. What a fucking crazy book - written essentially as one long acid trip, there's no chapters in this 450+ page stream of consciousness narrative and you won't realise until halfway through a sentence that you're now inside someone's else's head. Once I'd figured that out it became *slightly* easier to follow...but could I tell you what this book is about? Probably not...you'd have to read it for yourself🤣 Not for the faint of heart.
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