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Liver
Liver: A Fictional Organ With A Surface Anatomy Of Four Lobes, By Will Self
You'll need a strong stomach for Self's stories
Reviewed by Christopher Fowler
Sunday, 5 October 2008
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As the literary equivalent of Francis Bacon, Will Self continually challenges readers with biological overload. In Liver he has found an appropriate method of anatomy, via four pieces connected by the body's largest internal organ. Stepping into Self's world is like opening one of the Wellcome Institute's cabinets of medical curiosities. We start with the portraiture of pickled specimens in "Foie Humain": the inhabitants of a Soho dive called the Plantation Club. The real-life Colony Room on Dean Street is hitting 60 and heading for closure, a watered-down version of its past persona now mainly famous for outliving its competitors, and self-conscious enough to host a trendy website, so it's appropriate that Self should restore some of its lustre with this stagger up its filthy Soho stairs. The characters who populate his drinking den are so closely drawn over their originals that I imagine the only reason they won't sue is that they're either dead or unwell. The Bacon comparison is openly invited; drinkers are described as having "their fleshy convolutions trapped in the gelatinous atmosphere like whelks in aspic".
The story captures this necrotic miniature universe exactly, autopsying the alkies as they submit to the gavage which leads to engorged livers, gin-blossomed features and a blurry reduction of thought that no longer differentiates between male and female, sin and redemption, or even life and death. It covers the demise of the club's Frankenstein-like owner Ian Board, after which the place could never be the same again – but it had collapsed long before, with the loss of the original patrons, so that we watch the decline of something already dead. As Board's nose pales in death and the reluctant mourners are forced into natural light by the funeral, we gaze upon the denizens "who, even in the brilliance of a summer's day, have the dazed-grey look of ghetto-dwellers about to be relieved of their remaining teeth by Nazis with pliers". To coat these ghastly apparitions with a patina of nostalgia that actually makes their company desirable is a feat which deserves some kind of recognition, although the ending is harder to swallow than Ian's gin. A typescript of the story should perhaps be wedged on the shelf behind the Colony Room's bar, to yellow beside the shoddy accretions of the decades.
The remaining material is tangentially linked. There's a trip to Switzerland for a terminal liver-cancer patient seeking absolution, and a media-life-is-hell tale that doesn't ring true, featuring a copywriter in a Promethean trap. The last story, "Birdy Num Num", roars back to full strength as a gathering of users and abusers in a crepuscular London basement is conflated and contrasted with the antiseptic world inside an old Peter Sellers film, The Party.
What counts most throughout is Self's enthralling, muscular and sometimes even joyous use of language. His writing propels one of the greatest arguments for freedom of speech that I can think of; you may not like his subject matter but his obsidian brilliance is incontrovertible, shocking and humane.
You'll need a strong stomach for Self's stories
Reviewed by Christopher Fowler
Sunday, 5 October 2008
Search Search Go
Independent.co.uk Web
Bookmark & Share
* Digg It
* del.icio.us
As the literary equivalent of Francis Bacon, Will Self continually challenges readers with biological overload. In Liver he has found an appropriate method of anatomy, via four pieces connected by the body's largest internal organ. Stepping into Self's world is like opening one of the Wellcome Institute's cabinets of medical curiosities. We start with the portraiture of pickled specimens in "Foie Humain": the inhabitants of a Soho dive called the Plantation Club. The real-life Colony Room on Dean Street is hitting 60 and heading for closure, a watered-down version of its past persona now mainly famous for outliving its competitors, and self-conscious enough to host a trendy website, so it's appropriate that Self should restore some of its lustre with this stagger up its filthy Soho stairs. The characters who populate his drinking den are so closely drawn over their originals that I imagine the only reason they won't sue is that they're either dead or unwell. The Bacon comparison is openly invited; drinkers are described as having "their fleshy convolutions trapped in the gelatinous atmosphere like whelks in aspic".
The story captures this necrotic miniature universe exactly, autopsying the alkies as they submit to the gavage which leads to engorged livers, gin-blossomed features and a blurry reduction of thought that no longer differentiates between male and female, sin and redemption, or even life and death. It covers the demise of the club's Frankenstein-like owner Ian Board, after which the place could never be the same again – but it had collapsed long before, with the loss of the original patrons, so that we watch the decline of something already dead. As Board's nose pales in death and the reluctant mourners are forced into natural light by the funeral, we gaze upon the denizens "who, even in the brilliance of a summer's day, have the dazed-grey look of ghetto-dwellers about to be relieved of their remaining teeth by Nazis with pliers". To coat these ghastly apparitions with a patina of nostalgia that actually makes their company desirable is a feat which deserves some kind of recognition, although the ending is harder to swallow than Ian's gin. A typescript of the story should perhaps be wedged on the shelf behind the Colony Room's bar, to yellow beside the shoddy accretions of the decades.
The remaining material is tangentially linked. There's a trip to Switzerland for a terminal liver-cancer patient seeking absolution, and a media-life-is-hell tale that doesn't ring true, featuring a copywriter in a Promethean trap. The last story, "Birdy Num Num", roars back to full strength as a gathering of users and abusers in a crepuscular London basement is conflated and contrasted with the antiseptic world inside an old Peter Sellers film, The Party.
What counts most throughout is Self's enthralling, muscular and sometimes even joyous use of language. His writing propels one of the greatest arguments for freedom of speech that I can think of; you may not like his subject matter but his obsidian brilliance is incontrovertible, shocking and humane.
9 pages, Audio CD
First published September 4, 2008
22 people are currently reading
443 people want to read
About the author
Will Self
175 books1,006 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 73 reviews
January 1, 2010
I'd read a couple of Self's short stories before, I forget which ones, and been impressed by their inventiveness. But here it seems to me that Self is a great writer without much of a story to tell. On the cover of the edition I read is a quote from a review by the Independent that states: "What counts most is Self's enthralling, muscular and joyous use of language", and I would agree with that main sentiment, but to the extent that I think that there's really not much point to this beyond the occasional linguistic marvel. I think "muscular" is quite an appropriate adjective for Self's writing here: it's robust and corporeal, with a grotesque twist, kind of like a literary equivalent of that subset of Cronenberg films whose business is "body horror". But enthralled I wasn't: the first of the four stories bored and annoyed me in equal measure, and although part of Self's intention may have been to highlight how vapid and irritating middle-class alcoholics are, to do so by boring and irritating your audience into oblivion seems a bit like overkill. The second story has a far more interesting premise, but then doesn't go anywhere after the crucial point is passed. The third I suspect went mostly over my head and was (either therefore or merely simultaneously) barely diverting, and the fourth I again found pointless, unenlightening and, yes, irritating too. I really did find little here of worth in the way of plot, character or insight. And the way that Self can string words together, although very impressive, didn't offset that. I do plan to read more of his work in the future, as the potential for greatness is clear, but I'll be hoping for much more sustenance for my efforts.
July 20, 2011
I found this collection rather showy and stilted, I'm afraid.
**
Update 20/7/11
I read this book on a hot bus, a startlingly hot bus, listening to hissy Beatles via a fat man's headphones. I really love the brutal satire of late 70's gay demi-mondes spoofed here, though, especially on this reading:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5UH7J...
**
Update 20/7/11
I read this book on a hot bus, a startlingly hot bus, listening to hissy Beatles via a fat man's headphones. I really love the brutal satire of late 70's gay demi-mondes spoofed here, though, especially on this reading:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5UH7J...
May 12, 2023
This book consists of three short stories, ‘Foie Humane’, ‘Promethus’, and ‘Birdy Num Num’, and a novella, ‘Lebernodel’.
‘Foie Humane’ is a very original story about denizens who frequent a Soho drinks club. They are all in an emotionally dead state of excess alcohol consumption. There is a surprise twist at the end of the story.
‘Promethus’ is about a successful advertising copywriter who can sell anything to anyone, but things go wrong when he meets Zeus, an entrepreneur with a beautiful, manipulative wife.
‘Birdy Num Num’ describes the people inside the Kensington flat of Tony Philippe, who take excessive amounts of cocaine and heroin.
‘Lebernodel’ is about Joyce Beddeos, a terminal liver cancer patient who travels to Zurich to commit assisted suicide. Joyce’s daughter, Isobel, becomes quite agitated when things do not go to plan.
I particularly liked ‘Lebernodel’. I found Joyce to be an interesting character.
This book was first published in 2008.
‘Foie Humane’ is a very original story about denizens who frequent a Soho drinks club. They are all in an emotionally dead state of excess alcohol consumption. There is a surprise twist at the end of the story.
‘Promethus’ is about a successful advertising copywriter who can sell anything to anyone, but things go wrong when he meets Zeus, an entrepreneur with a beautiful, manipulative wife.
‘Birdy Num Num’ describes the people inside the Kensington flat of Tony Philippe, who take excessive amounts of cocaine and heroin.
‘Lebernodel’ is about Joyce Beddeos, a terminal liver cancer patient who travels to Zurich to commit assisted suicide. Joyce’s daughter, Isobel, becomes quite agitated when things do not go to plan.
I particularly liked ‘Lebernodel’. I found Joyce to be an interesting character.
This book was first published in 2008.
December 5, 2012
Though I keep going back to this author, I really have to wonder about his state of mind. The most mundane of objects are described in gross corporeal terms. In Foie Humain, a carpet is the color of "middle-aged shit," while in Leberknodel water rivulets 'bleed' across the airplane window and the rivet heads are described as a "pimple...surrounded by a ring of infective rust."
Self's writing has a way of creeping up on you as an accretion of disgust. At precisely the moment you start recoiling from the coarse descriptors and the book's cast of rejects, the author reminds, even admonishes you not to judge the characters or their detestable surroundings.
Oh, and did I mention what must be an absolutely record inclusion of the word 'cunt'?
Self's writing has a way of creeping up on you as an accretion of disgust. At precisely the moment you start recoiling from the coarse descriptors and the book's cast of rejects, the author reminds, even admonishes you not to judge the characters or their detestable surroundings.
Oh, and did I mention what must be an absolutely record inclusion of the word 'cunt'?
August 5, 2018
This was my least favorite Will Self book, but for a guy who normally writes books as well he does, that doens't mean a lot. These were longish stories, 4 that filled an entire book, and one of them, the boring one, was way longer than the others. Still an awesome book though.
August 21, 2024
Four short stories. Two of which I understood, two that intellectually went over my head unfortunately.
July 26, 2009
Dual U.K. and U.S. citizen Will Self wrote three stories and a novella interconnected by both characters and the titular metabolic organ.
The first story, "Foie Humane" (italics his) applies an "Outer Limits" twist to an otherwise scatological series of (er-hur-hur-hee) vintnerettes featuring the drunken denizens of The Plantation Club.
The second story (the novella), "Leberknodel" (italics his), is a remix of elements from his much-praised novel, How the Dead Live - an old woman wrestles with issues of mortality and its epilogue despite the nagging presence of her issue, a wasted artiste daughter.
The third story, "Prometheus", reimagines the world of advertising executives with characters from the Greek pantheon. Imagine, for a moment, Don Draper sitting in the Men's Room, biting on a wad of plush white tissue as a Skeksisian vulture nibbles on his rib kibble.
The fourth story, "Birdy Num Num", is about...well, it's about waiting for the man in a decidedly grotty underground sans a swatch of velvet in sight. The main character, a junkie empowered by his junkiness (but, by no means, is he His Junkyness), lives in a headworld wherein every day is The Party. That is, The Party starring Peter Sellers and directed by Blake Edwards. This story, the narrator explains, is a sort of investigative procedural. Somebody is done in. Is somebody done in? Somebody is. And then catches a late jet to Helsinki. To hell 'e sinks, 'e.
----
Scene from The Party: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWE49O...
The first story, "Foie Humane" (italics his) applies an "Outer Limits" twist to an otherwise scatological series of (er-hur-hur-hee) vintnerettes featuring the drunken denizens of The Plantation Club.
The second story (the novella), "Leberknodel" (italics his), is a remix of elements from his much-praised novel, How the Dead Live - an old woman wrestles with issues of mortality and its epilogue despite the nagging presence of her issue, a wasted artiste daughter.
The third story, "Prometheus", reimagines the world of advertising executives with characters from the Greek pantheon. Imagine, for a moment, Don Draper sitting in the Men's Room, biting on a wad of plush white tissue as a Skeksisian vulture nibbles on his rib kibble.
The fourth story, "Birdy Num Num", is about...well, it's about waiting for the man in a decidedly grotty underground sans a swatch of velvet in sight. The main character, a junkie empowered by his junkiness (but, by no means, is he His Junkyness), lives in a headworld wherein every day is The Party. That is, The Party starring Peter Sellers and directed by Blake Edwards. This story, the narrator explains, is a sort of investigative procedural. Somebody is done in. Is somebody done in? Somebody is. And then catches a late jet to Helsinki. To hell 'e sinks, 'e.
----
Scene from The Party: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWE49O...
July 30, 2011
The media around Will Self's fiction suggests that he is carving out is own niche in the market. This is the second Self book I've read along with the Book of Dave, and I agree: he does offer something different to anything else mainstream.
Liver is effectively four mutually exclusive stories that are "connected" by the largest organ in the body (the stories themselves have immaterial crossover). Disease & addiction feature.
Of the four lobes, the second is the most accessible, where an aging cancer sufferer comes back from the brink, but then that story drags towards the end. The other three, I struggled to maintain interest, I didn't care about the characters and had the overwhelming sense that I was missing the point throughout (I wish I had the brain the size of a planet).
The writing and language was attractive in parts, but the stories themselves weren't enough to pull me through and I was glad to finally put the book down this morning so I could get on with reading the weekend papers about our financial armageddon. Something different, like a foregin cocktail, but sad old me will return to the real ale, methinks.
Liver is effectively four mutually exclusive stories that are "connected" by the largest organ in the body (the stories themselves have immaterial crossover). Disease & addiction feature.
Of the four lobes, the second is the most accessible, where an aging cancer sufferer comes back from the brink, but then that story drags towards the end. The other three, I struggled to maintain interest, I didn't care about the characters and had the overwhelming sense that I was missing the point throughout (I wish I had the brain the size of a planet).
The writing and language was attractive in parts, but the stories themselves weren't enough to pull me through and I was glad to finally put the book down this morning so I could get on with reading the weekend papers about our financial armageddon. Something different, like a foregin cocktail, but sad old me will return to the real ale, methinks.
November 26, 2011
Self is an interesting writer. I think he's honestly interested in the existential questions this collection centers on, but there's a lot missing. For one thing, Self, while capable of some really good writing, is typically a poor craftsman. He just seems to lose interest in his stories, characters and, especially, his conceits.[return][return]Self has said in the past that he's really a novelist of ideas, but he's not even willing to carry through with serious effort on those, either, as far as I can see. It would seem to me that he thinks himself a satirist, but wants to be celebrated by precisely the people he wants to satirize. So he always more or less pulls his punches, giving everyone in the book the excuse of our general existential plight, and trying to recoup his edginess through graphic descriptions of bodily functions & dysfunctions.[return][return]It just doesn't fly: the decay of our bodies we have to live with; mindlessness, fecklessness and cruelty we can do something about. But seriously taking the satiric lash to those would mean attacking his own shallow celebrants. Too bad, really, that he hasn't the courage to do that.
September 13, 2012
not a happy book. but then again, most people don't realise they even have a liver until it's in distress.
this is the sort of book you won't realize is a novel until the very end.
everything is connected.
this is the sort of book you won't realize is a novel until the very end.
everything is connected.
October 3, 2012
Don't bother waiting for the superstructure behind it - it's the parts that are brilliant, not the sum of its parts. Self does decay better than anyone else - his use of metaphor is sublime, and you are driven by curiosity
November 21, 2016
I have to say I didn't really LIKE this book, but I also didn't DISLIKE it. The four stories told in this collection center on a rather morbid topic, that being disease of the liver. On top of that, Will Self's writing is merciless... some of the reviews on the cover describe it as "feral in pace," "stylistic experiment," "furious energy, an idiosyncratic intellect and ornate, often strong language." The stories are interesting and they do evoke sadness, disgust, but also in some ways a sort of appreciation for the strange beauty of decay and illness. It seriously left me exhausted. I read the first two short stories and then had to take a break from this book (for a month or so) and then came back and read the other two.
If you're looking for a beach read, search elsewhere. If you're tired of the dichotomy of books either having happy endings or sad endings, and are looking for an alternative, give this one a try. But, I warn you, keep a dictionary handy, and prepare to be.... weirded out. ;)
If you're looking for a beach read, search elsewhere. If you're tired of the dichotomy of books either having happy endings or sad endings, and are looking for an alternative, give this one a try. But, I warn you, keep a dictionary handy, and prepare to be.... weirded out. ;)
December 12, 2018
A collection of four marginally related novellas, each dealing in some way with the liver. For all the different approaches, though, the tone throughout tends to be one of alcoholism and excess in the modern world, junkies and grubby grotesqueries. Not a particularly pleasant read, and not that interesting either to be honest - it's just so enormously overwrought that wading through all that desperate prose soon becomes plain tedious. With one exception: "Leberknodel". In this, the second of the novellas - and the only one where the prose is so restrained that the narrative becomes cuttingly observant - an elderly woman called Joyce, suffering from liver cancer, takes herself to Switzerland for euthanasia. Except her cancer seems to suddenly be in abeyance, a miracle cure, and Joyce is left in limbo... It's the only story here I enjoyed. On it's own it'd get three stars from me, but as it is "Leberknodel" isn't sufficient to compensate for its companion novellas.
March 2, 2024
Some parts of this book were amusing and interesting and held all my attention. There are several stories loosely hanging together with characters and problems of the liver. I had a hard time making this all fit together in my mind as one piece. Worth reading but difficult to say its overall effect.
September 18, 2017
Will Self explores darkness and the grotesque with an inventiveness that warrants admiration
September 22, 2017
Bring your dictionary, taste for good literature, and some moving truths.
November 23, 2017
Could not read this. English was convoluted and could not follow a story line (if there was one).
April 26, 2019
9CD set talking book. 2 stories worked for me, 2 not. May be worth revisiting in 5 years.
August 22, 2021
first two are rather compelling; fourth is decently so, third is comparatively less so. well connected.
October 23, 2021
They'll never call him "The Master Storyteller" but the language, settings and characters are of the greatest quality. Maybe "The Master Sentence-Writer" is too long to fit on a book cover.
August 21, 2019
Do NOT read these related stories if you have a rotten hangover. In fact, complete sobriety is recommended whilst reading. It's great fun, despite that, and the Plantation Club episodes are a masterclass in how NOT to name-drop.
October 17, 2011
I'm a big fan of Will Self and can't believed I've left it so long since I've read one of his books. This is a collection of three connected short stories and a related novella. They all share the loose theme of the human liver and some characters also appear in the different tales which provides a sense of unity to the otherwise different stories.
The first story tells of the inhabitants of an 'exclusive' drinking club in Soho where the characters drink far too much and use the word 'cunt' liberally. Like lots of other work of Self, he appears to savour the grotesque side to humanity and delights in describing the most disgusting facets of life. It is also a clear sneer at the idea of an exclusive club and those who would attend them.
The novella is without a doubt the highlight of the book, despite dealing, as it does with a woman visiting Switzerland with her daughter to perform an assisted suicide. It's a fresh look at the issue of euthanasia and brilliantly conceived.
The next short story takes the myth of Prometheus - specifically his punishment by Zeus - and transports it into the modern world, making Prometheus a marketing executive. I enjoyed this story, but was left at times wondering whether I was reading something allegorical or literal.
Finally, Self completes the book with another short story written in the first person from the perspective of Hepatitis C. The story takes place in the flat of drug addicts as they arrange for a group of other users to come to their house and await the arrival of a dealer. Hepatitis tells the reader at the start of the story that it is going to narrate a reverse who-dunnit and we are going to see a new victim infected. Again, Self savours his descriptions of the seedy underclass and their variety of diseases, open sores and squallor.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - but the novella entitled 'Leberknödel' stands out some way.
The first story tells of the inhabitants of an 'exclusive' drinking club in Soho where the characters drink far too much and use the word 'cunt' liberally. Like lots of other work of Self, he appears to savour the grotesque side to humanity and delights in describing the most disgusting facets of life. It is also a clear sneer at the idea of an exclusive club and those who would attend them.
The novella is without a doubt the highlight of the book, despite dealing, as it does with a woman visiting Switzerland with her daughter to perform an assisted suicide. It's a fresh look at the issue of euthanasia and brilliantly conceived.
The next short story takes the myth of Prometheus - specifically his punishment by Zeus - and transports it into the modern world, making Prometheus a marketing executive. I enjoyed this story, but was left at times wondering whether I was reading something allegorical or literal.
Finally, Self completes the book with another short story written in the first person from the perspective of Hepatitis C. The story takes place in the flat of drug addicts as they arrange for a group of other users to come to their house and await the arrival of a dealer. Hepatitis tells the reader at the start of the story that it is going to narrate a reverse who-dunnit and we are going to see a new victim infected. Again, Self savours his descriptions of the seedy underclass and their variety of diseases, open sores and squallor.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - but the novella entitled 'Leberknödel' stands out some way.
April 11, 2014
Liver is made up of four shortish stories, linked by the organ of the title, by their mostly London situ, and by the odd reoccurring character. The first is a waspish story of alcoholic decay, which with a surreal twist in the tail, seems to depict the whole human race as a bloated, self absorbed, cirrhotic organ. In the second, after a last moment decision not to go through with an assisted suicide, impending death from liver cancer becomes a means to liberation from an ageing mother's pent up frustrations and disappointments, and in her aborted quest to choreograph her death, might she have cheated it? The third story nosedives into the strange, with adman Prometheus sustaining his superhuman sales abilities by periodically allowing his liver to be eaten by vultures. The story lurches suddenly from one surreal grotesquery of excess to another, almost like Naked Lunch; the outside world itself becoming liverish. Finally what appears to be an end-tale of out-and-out decay, the Burroughs comparison holds with a sick-dreamlike story of junk and junkies told from the perspective of a non-human entity of some kind; a virus perhaps, by this point one assumes, retro. So, all in all, we have a kind of jaundiced yellowing of existence on display here, a collective shuffling towards abyss. Told with Self's acerbic wit and insectoid imagination, the writing feels like it should be narrated by a more sinister version of David Bellamy. The liver's capacity for regeneration is also in evidence here; a tone one doesn't necessarily expect from Self. However, whichever the direction of travel, decay or rebirth, it is the body, organ and cell which directs and enslaves the souls in these stories.
October 15, 2012
If you want realism, friend, look elsewhere.
This book follows Self's fascination with the the way our minds invade the direct meaning of reality as we might expect it to be conveyed by our senses; so that a character's experience of the opera morphs into her memories of going to shows with her deceased husband and then into the surreal world of her dream as she drops off in a seamless progression.
There are brutal but humourous puns throughout which advertise the author's disdainful disregard for his fellow humans' view of themselves as anything other than self deceiving animals.
The stories themselves treat the reader to scenes such as a party of raucous flamboyantly queer alcoholics 'cunting' up a rendition of Beckett's End Game, an old woman cursing her hopelessly helpless daughter while en route to be euthanised in Switzerland, the faux-Greek demi-Gods of a modern advertising agency making a mess of things, and a virus boasting of the usefulness of the various prostitutes and addicts it inhabits.
None of that does it justice on it own though.
His ability to write women (and even old people!) as human beings with incisive internal dialogue is more than a little refreshing. Their sometimes unforgiving judgments, doubts or internal invective can be far more valuable than the sentimentalising that is all too common and opaquely reassuring in so much realist fiction.
There is at a great sense of complicity in Self's style. We are invited to chuckle or gasp at the wanton effacing of each character's self image. All the while however, a sometimes creeping, sometimes all too sharp self awareness stalks the reader.
I recommend it unreservedly.
This book follows Self's fascination with the the way our minds invade the direct meaning of reality as we might expect it to be conveyed by our senses; so that a character's experience of the opera morphs into her memories of going to shows with her deceased husband and then into the surreal world of her dream as she drops off in a seamless progression.
There are brutal but humourous puns throughout which advertise the author's disdainful disregard for his fellow humans' view of themselves as anything other than self deceiving animals.
The stories themselves treat the reader to scenes such as a party of raucous flamboyantly queer alcoholics 'cunting' up a rendition of Beckett's End Game, an old woman cursing her hopelessly helpless daughter while en route to be euthanised in Switzerland, the faux-Greek demi-Gods of a modern advertising agency making a mess of things, and a virus boasting of the usefulness of the various prostitutes and addicts it inhabits.
None of that does it justice on it own though.
His ability to write women (and even old people!) as human beings with incisive internal dialogue is more than a little refreshing. Their sometimes unforgiving judgments, doubts or internal invective can be far more valuable than the sentimentalising that is all too common and opaquely reassuring in so much realist fiction.
There is at a great sense of complicity in Self's style. We are invited to chuckle or gasp at the wanton effacing of each character's self image. All the while however, a sometimes creeping, sometimes all too sharp self awareness stalks the reader.
I recommend it unreservedly.
June 19, 2011
Will Self is a weird and grotesque author who cites William S. Burroughs as one of his major influences. Of course I'm going to read his stuff.
Before jumping into this particular collection of short stories, however, all I had read by Self was his novel My Idea of Fun. It certainly hit on several weird and grotesque notes, but as a story underneath a mask of blood and hypersexuality, it left me wanting a lot.
Liver did a lot to push me back toward reading more Will Self moving forward.
A collection of four related short stories joined not only by characters and setting but by the physical ailments of the human liver everyone seems to constantly suffer from, Liver manages to put forth Self's normal travels into the realm of the dark and morbid while balancing them with engaging stories rife with symbolism and entertaining allusions.
From the tale of Prometheus - an ad-man whose live is constantly fed on by a griffon vulture to grant him access to ideas for pitches that cannot fail - and the rest of his uprooted Greek-mythology-in-modern-London cronies to the mass drug buy seen through the eyes of the cells of Hepatitis inhabiting each member as one addict jumps around, envisioning himself as Peter Sellers in The Party, Liver is simply an entertaining collection of dark yet surprisingly poignant stories.
Before jumping into this particular collection of short stories, however, all I had read by Self was his novel My Idea of Fun. It certainly hit on several weird and grotesque notes, but as a story underneath a mask of blood and hypersexuality, it left me wanting a lot.
Liver did a lot to push me back toward reading more Will Self moving forward.
A collection of four related short stories joined not only by characters and setting but by the physical ailments of the human liver everyone seems to constantly suffer from, Liver manages to put forth Self's normal travels into the realm of the dark and morbid while balancing them with engaging stories rife with symbolism and entertaining allusions.
From the tale of Prometheus - an ad-man whose live is constantly fed on by a griffon vulture to grant him access to ideas for pitches that cannot fail - and the rest of his uprooted Greek-mythology-in-modern-London cronies to the mass drug buy seen through the eyes of the cells of Hepatitis inhabiting each member as one addict jumps around, envisioning himself as Peter Sellers in The Party, Liver is simply an entertaining collection of dark yet surprisingly poignant stories.
August 5, 2012
Love it. Disgusting, witty, awful portrayals of human life. Now I know who to turn to when I'm feeling morbid and misanthropic. I liked the first story the best, and it felt the most crafted of the four. Self spends a lot of time defining the scenery in graphic detail, through his lens of everything-is-awful.
I get the feeling that Self at his best is what Chuck Palahniuk wishes he was, or is trying to capture but never quite seems to. I did have to utilise the Oxford Dictionary of English (Kindle edition) a bunch of times, however I'm not as well-read as Will Self, it didn't bother me in the slightest to learn new words.
The third story, Prometheus, almost felt like a Bizarro story. I can see others disliking it, as it does seem a bit out there and silly. In fact, Self will probably rub a lot of people the wrong way with his crass language and rude descriptions. If you can look past all that, his prose is markedly interesting and unique. If you like your humour darker than the blackest espresso, give 'Liver' a go.
I get the feeling that Self at his best is what Chuck Palahniuk wishes he was, or is trying to capture but never quite seems to. I did have to utilise the Oxford Dictionary of English (Kindle edition) a bunch of times, however I'm not as well-read as Will Self, it didn't bother me in the slightest to learn new words.
The third story, Prometheus, almost felt like a Bizarro story. I can see others disliking it, as it does seem a bit out there and silly. In fact, Self will probably rub a lot of people the wrong way with his crass language and rude descriptions. If you can look past all that, his prose is markedly interesting and unique. If you like your humour darker than the blackest espresso, give 'Liver' a go.
October 28, 2012
In theory the short-story format should suit Self's style down to the ground - his writing is so densely descriptive that in the past I've struggled to plough my way through his longer novels.
'Liver' doesn't disappoint in this regard, the punchy narratives let Self get on with what he does best, namely bending the English language into the most alarming and disgusting shapes. He's simply a joy to read and more creative than the vast majority out there. The longest of the four stories ("Leberknödel" which takes up nearly half the book) is probably the best as it allows a little bit more story-telling but "Prometheus" and "Foie Humain" are also excellent. However the last tale probably stops "Liver" being a 5*, "Birdy Num Num" strays a little too far into the abstract for my liking and was quite difficult for me to finish.
Nonetheless this is an excellent addition to the library of anyone who appreciates fine writing.
'Liver' doesn't disappoint in this regard, the punchy narratives let Self get on with what he does best, namely bending the English language into the most alarming and disgusting shapes. He's simply a joy to read and more creative than the vast majority out there. The longest of the four stories ("Leberknödel" which takes up nearly half the book) is probably the best as it allows a little bit more story-telling but "Prometheus" and "Foie Humain" are also excellent. However the last tale probably stops "Liver" being a 5*, "Birdy Num Num" strays a little too far into the abstract for my liking and was quite difficult for me to finish.
Nonetheless this is an excellent addition to the library of anyone who appreciates fine writing.
June 20, 2009
Four short stories by Will Self, loosely connected by the theme of 'liver', and by various characters' connections with a shady member's club in Soho, the Plantation Club.
I am a huge fan of Will Self and this book did not disappoint. I loved his descriptions of the sneering, disreputable, alcoholic regulars of the Plantation Club in the first story. The decay of the club itself over the years echoes the decay of the bodies of the regulars.
The longest story, Leberknödel, concerns a terminally ill woman who flies to Zürich to undertake an assisted suicide, but upon arriving in the clean orderliness of Switzerland, changes her mind and begins a new life there. In my opinion, this is some of Will Self's best writing. It was realistic, but throughout maintains an underlying edge of the grotesque and satirical.
I am a huge fan of Will Self and this book did not disappoint. I loved his descriptions of the sneering, disreputable, alcoholic regulars of the Plantation Club in the first story. The decay of the club itself over the years echoes the decay of the bodies of the regulars.
The longest story, Leberknödel, concerns a terminally ill woman who flies to Zürich to undertake an assisted suicide, but upon arriving in the clean orderliness of Switzerland, changes her mind and begins a new life there. In my opinion, this is some of Will Self's best writing. It was realistic, but throughout maintains an underlying edge of the grotesque and satirical.
March 8, 2013
A collection of four loosely connected tragedies - short satirical stories featurIng apparently doomed characters. The ideas seem interesting at first, but none of them have the legs to make any of the stories interesting all the way through. Found most of the characters distractingly irritating, too. The second story, Leberknoedel, at least has a character, Joyce, who you can feel sympathy and admiration for, and her relationship with her hilariously feckless daughter is nicely portrayed. Self gets Zurich pretty much spot on, too, with a great description of the strange snowman-burning ritual that happens there at the start of April. But the writing seems lazy in places, particularly the way the Swiss characters talk (lots of "how you says" and "eye zinks" and inexplicable lapsing back into Swiss German mid -sentence). Disappointing on the whole.
December 12, 2009
This is not reading for the faint-of-heart. Will Self drags us to the Plantation Club: Soho's gay version of Dante's Inferno. The level of hell that we visit is something out of the Twilight Zone. The stories are cocktails for an erudite audience served with a twist lemon rouee. Linguistically delightful tales are better enjoyed if you have been to the Roman Mass lately or stumbled around the Parthenon. Leberknodel is a walk-about in Zurich with suicide on your mind. Check out Prometheus and what he has to endure to stay on top in advertising. Birdy Num Num will delight both fans of Peter Sellers and microbiologists at the Center for Disease Control. Be very careful when reading Will Self. He will make you question your faith and your sanity.
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