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My Idea of Fun
"High-energy, high-caloric prose. . . a wonderfully rich and wicked novel" ( The New York Times Book Review). Will Self's first novel, about a man selling his soul to the devil, is violent, hilarious, outrageous, and, above all, completely original.
309 pages, Paperback
First published September 19, 1993
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2124 people want to read
About the author
Will Self
172 books995 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 135 reviews
September 2, 2014
Will Self's first proper novel is about as rude, unruly, and raucously loquacious as one would come to expect from the writer who likes to decorate every page with trinkets of unfamiliar locution, who has a penchant for endless slithers of alliteration, who will take the time to describe the hairs in a hobo's nose with great detail and zest, and who will shock your puritan sensibilities by inexplicably growing a vagina at the back of a character's knee or giving a game account of acts of decapitation and necrophilia.
That last bit is the part-time narrator of My Idea of Fun's idea of fun. Ian is a plump momma's boy with a gift of photographic memory that is more akin to virtual reality or astral projection. A demonic wizard - the massive and terrifying entity known as The Fat Controller - takes young Ian under his wing and shows him the powers of cruelty, alchemy, and market manipulation. As Ian grows older and becomes a yuppie-ish accountant, he must come to a reckoning with The Fat Controller and his own fragile feelings of morality. This pitched confrontation crosses over into a nightmarish dream world, courtesy of the new-age techniques of a psychiatrist of dubious ethics and methods, the big-bearded Dr. Gyggle.
That is kind of a description of this book's plot, but really the narrative format serves best as a vehicle for Self's increasingly confident prose, his bleak, black humor, his unflinching commitment to his grotesque satirical view of the world, and his batshit insane imagination.
Me? My idea of fun is reading My Idea of Fun, natch!
That last bit is the part-time narrator of My Idea of Fun's idea of fun. Ian is a plump momma's boy with a gift of photographic memory that is more akin to virtual reality or astral projection. A demonic wizard - the massive and terrifying entity known as The Fat Controller - takes young Ian under his wing and shows him the powers of cruelty, alchemy, and market manipulation. As Ian grows older and becomes a yuppie-ish accountant, he must come to a reckoning with The Fat Controller and his own fragile feelings of morality. This pitched confrontation crosses over into a nightmarish dream world, courtesy of the new-age techniques of a psychiatrist of dubious ethics and methods, the big-bearded Dr. Gyggle.
That is kind of a description of this book's plot, but really the narrative format serves best as a vehicle for Self's increasingly confident prose, his bleak, black humor, his unflinching commitment to his grotesque satirical view of the world, and his batshit insane imagination.
Me? My idea of fun is reading My Idea of Fun, natch!
June 13, 2011
We asked three pupils of Roswell High Class 2B what was their idea of fun:
Daniel sez:
“I want to be the delete button on a keyboard. If I was the delete button on a keyboard I would backspace the novels of Iain Banks and Nicole Krauss and I would delete mummy’s divorce papers. But fantasies aside, what I do for fun is I fill balloons to bursting point with custard then drop them on the heads of teachers after school. I have the power to dematerialise at will so they never find out who slathered them in yellow goo. Ha!”
Phil sez:
“My idea of fun is to go up to girls and kick them in the shins again and again until the blood oozes out their legs. Then I lick it up and lick the back of a stamp and I say: ‘Your head’s bleeding Your Majesty!’ After that I go to the pond and have a nice sit down while the cygnets carry me aloft to their secret poker den where I play crabs for chocolate coins and whip some swan ass. Later on I like to watch re-runs of The Norm Show.”
Nicola sez:
“I think it would be fun to put the Prime Minister David Cameron on a blimp bound for Qatar and make him start a new life there among the Qataris, eating boiled rabbit and porkscrews. Later on I think it would be fun to represent Niger in the African Song Contest. The singer could come on and attempt to make an audible vocalisation before collapsing onstage from the kind of food deprivation that makes every action we ever do in the West look like pissing against a giant tree day in day out, forever and ever. I also like darts.”
*
HAVEN’T READ THIS FOR WHILE. IT’S GOOD.
Daniel sez:
“I want to be the delete button on a keyboard. If I was the delete button on a keyboard I would backspace the novels of Iain Banks and Nicole Krauss and I would delete mummy’s divorce papers. But fantasies aside, what I do for fun is I fill balloons to bursting point with custard then drop them on the heads of teachers after school. I have the power to dematerialise at will so they never find out who slathered them in yellow goo. Ha!”
Phil sez:
“My idea of fun is to go up to girls and kick them in the shins again and again until the blood oozes out their legs. Then I lick it up and lick the back of a stamp and I say: ‘Your head’s bleeding Your Majesty!’ After that I go to the pond and have a nice sit down while the cygnets carry me aloft to their secret poker den where I play crabs for chocolate coins and whip some swan ass. Later on I like to watch re-runs of The Norm Show.”
Nicola sez:
“I think it would be fun to put the Prime Minister David Cameron on a blimp bound for Qatar and make him start a new life there among the Qataris, eating boiled rabbit and porkscrews. Later on I think it would be fun to represent Niger in the African Song Contest. The singer could come on and attempt to make an audible vocalisation before collapsing onstage from the kind of food deprivation that makes every action we ever do in the West look like pissing against a giant tree day in day out, forever and ever. I also like darts.”
*
HAVEN’T READ THIS FOR WHILE. IT’S GOOD.
October 10, 2021
The first novel by underrated stylistic whirlwind and one-time loser of the Booker Prize W.W. Self is a rather woozy primer for the more focussed netherworlds limned in later, more startling works. In My Idea of Fun, Self introduces us to his obsession with altered psyches, the limbo-world between nightmares awake and asleep, with creepy medical professionals tormenting the sufferers of addiction or mental illness, and the mordantly comic and surreal world of Selfian moral transgression that as M. Amis iterates, is entirely his own. Ian Wharton suffers from an eidetic memory, able to construct visually accurate re-presentations of his purviews and has an extrasensory ability to imagineer his own reality. In this maybe-reality comes The Fat Controller, a Faust-like father-figure who manipulates Ian into performing acts of violent eideticking on unfortunate decapitated tramps, and prevents him from achieving what Dr. Gyggle calls “full genitality” (i.e. intimacy or love). As the novel moves into the second act, the story is ensouped in various digressions, floundering in a self-satisfied partouze of crazy ideas. My Idea of Fun falls short of the magnificence of Great Apes or The Book of Dave, but showcases Self’s nonpareil felicity for absolutely stellar prose and mastery of the language. Self is under-recognised as one of Britain’s best prose stylists.
September 28, 2008
A truly ghastly experience, My Idea of Fun records the memories, justifications and sheer relish of a delusional maniac, serial killer, animal torturer and all around repulsive fellow, couched in prose so purple it's no longer a part of the visible spectrum. As the protagonist's predilections are presented on the first page, you can't say you didn't know what you were getting into. Against the chidings of my conscience I continued reading, fascinated, much as you can't not look at a grisly automobile accident as you wheel by on the highway. You can't help but admire Self's turn of phrase, his dictionary squeezings, his calculated yet slick deployments of rib-cracking funniness, but you nonetheless wish he weren't quite so sick. The book is a compelling enough read. There are a couple flubbed hallucinatory sequences of a William Burroughs variety which I flat out skipped. I frankly didn't give a brown M & M about our protagonist's career in advertising or his (possibly meant to be loathsome?) yuppiedom. Self fell asleep on the job more than a few times, misplacing his character's characteristics, straining and failing to shock, including flat or pointless scenes. Only the scenes in which The Fat Controller played a part were gripping, though inevitably gripping a part of you you'd rather had never been gripped at all. By the end I was just turning pages and feeling icky. That the editors or the author were feeling somewhat insecure about whether or not this book was to be taken as satire is evidenced by the book's anxious subtitle A Cautionary Tale. Wash yourself thoroughly after reading this one, though that may not suffice. A colonic might be more appropriate. For the very susceptible, an exorcism.
July 5, 2010
Imagine Charles Dickens basing Miss Havisham on Aleister Crowley, and Pip on an Eidetic Marquis de Sade, and you might get some idea of what this disturbing and provocative cautionary bildungsroman is like.
It Pre-empts Palahniuk’s themes, in Fight Club, of the deleterious effects of modern science, high-tech, capitalism and materialism, that ruptures the self, leaving us unable to clarify the ambiguities of fantastical hallucinations, and banal reality.
Not everyone’s idea of fun, but it certainly is mine.
It Pre-empts Palahniuk’s themes, in Fight Club, of the deleterious effects of modern science, high-tech, capitalism and materialism, that ruptures the self, leaving us unable to clarify the ambiguities of fantastical hallucinations, and banal reality.
Not everyone’s idea of fun, but it certainly is mine.
September 26, 2018
The best way I can describe or categorize this book is by saying it's magical realism with the magic being of the nightmarish type. A very black comedy of sorts, it wildly strays between consciousness and unconsciousness in the vaguely linear life of Ian Wharton. It will confuse you and probably anger you but Will Self's sharp intellect and manic wisdom is undeniable.
August 22, 2007
One of the best books I've ever read. The story is just wild, the characters are great, and I always get the feeling Will Self is the kind of dude who keys people's cars.
November 18, 2010
In a way you have to take this as a kind of fantasy. Ian Wharton could have any number of variations of mental illness and The Fat Controller could be an hallucination or could indeed be The Devil.
You are sad for this boy Ian as he grows up, painfully awkward without a father and pity him his social climbing but distant mother and wonder where his relationship with The Fat Controller aka (Mr. Broadhurst/Samuel Northcliffe) is going.
You wonder a lot about The Fat Controller too and Ian's Eidetic memory and whether there is magic involved or whether Ian is in fact an idiot savant of some kind.... I was disappointed Will Self didn't take the eidetic memory idea to another level but I guess that's the non-fiction fan in me. Will Self's choice of words can take your breath away with their aptness and so do the few truly violent passages that appear. One is never really sure if they in fact happened in Ian's real life or in his imaginative headspace. His forays into a medical cure by Deep Sleep prove nightmareish when he arrives in The Land of Children's Jokes. The characters get crazy with fabulous descriptive passages verging on the psychadelic until you begin to lose the plot a bit. And the plot is that you the reader make a judgement, Will Self likes audience participation and at the end you get to make up your own mind.
There are some seriously funny parts and some violent instances that shock you like when you have first been slapped on the face & wonder what hit you. It's an awakening experience.
Not the kind of book I could read a lot of normally but it totally distracted me from the horrors of my own life while I was reading it ~ and that is probably my idea of fun at the moment.....
_______________________________________________________________________
Seems quite a few people objected strongly to this book. Granted it's strange so far...but not yet shocking. I like Will Self's writing and this is no exception. What's interesting is how the main character has an Eidetic memory and what he does with it.
You are sad for this boy Ian as he grows up, painfully awkward without a father and pity him his social climbing but distant mother and wonder where his relationship with The Fat Controller aka (Mr. Broadhurst/Samuel Northcliffe) is going.
You wonder a lot about The Fat Controller too and Ian's Eidetic memory and whether there is magic involved or whether Ian is in fact an idiot savant of some kind.... I was disappointed Will Self didn't take the eidetic memory idea to another level but I guess that's the non-fiction fan in me. Will Self's choice of words can take your breath away with their aptness and so do the few truly violent passages that appear. One is never really sure if they in fact happened in Ian's real life or in his imaginative headspace. His forays into a medical cure by Deep Sleep prove nightmareish when he arrives in The Land of Children's Jokes. The characters get crazy with fabulous descriptive passages verging on the psychadelic until you begin to lose the plot a bit. And the plot is that you the reader make a judgement, Will Self likes audience participation and at the end you get to make up your own mind.
There are some seriously funny parts and some violent instances that shock you like when you have first been slapped on the face & wonder what hit you. It's an awakening experience.
Not the kind of book I could read a lot of normally but it totally distracted me from the horrors of my own life while I was reading it ~ and that is probably my idea of fun at the moment.....
_______________________________________________________________________
Seems quite a few people objected strongly to this book. Granted it's strange so far...but not yet shocking. I like Will Self's writing and this is no exception. What's interesting is how the main character has an Eidetic memory and what he does with it.
March 6, 2012
grotesquely funny and a shape incision into the nature of the psyche and humanoid species... as per with Mr. Self
October 23, 2014
Soooo when I’m reading a book, I’ll sit with a flashcard and write down all the new words/words I didn’t know had different forms/ words it would not occur to me to write, and then I upload the words to Anki so that I can test myself on them and hopefully memorise them. I’ve been doing this for about a year and have racked up nearly 1100 words that I wouldn’t otherwise use! From the near-uselessness of reglet or machicolation to the newly essential magniloquence, prolixity, experiential, or steatopygic. If you perform this exercise, no matter what your enjoyment of a book, no reading is ever truly wasted. And you rarely get through a Will Self novel without a new word or two- ha! so what happened should not have surprised me too much, but check this out:
[image error]
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(In some of these you can see my sparkly toenails. You’re welcome!)
[Goddamn image errors! Ahhh I'll fix it later...]
I filled one of those cards by about pg 200/278, which was incidentally around the point that the book stopped making any sense. I would have filled two maybe three cards if me and Will hadn’t been collecting the same words all this time. But I dunno… I feel like what I have picked apart here is the secret contents of a little notebook of words that Will kept on his writing desk, cynically ticking off each one as he put them in this story, and this kind of lexicographical clinicality cannot help but extirpate the ultimate murated form- oh sorry were you not keeping up with me and Will? I mean it takes you out of the story. There there, you’re not as clever as me and him, it’s okay, you’re only anyone, it happens.
Yeah but because I’ve been collecting so many words from so many different books for so long, and still managed to find so many new ones, seems like evidence to me that Will was trying super hard to be obfuscatory. Why would he do that? Because he wanted to prove he was clever. Why would he want to prove he was clever? Because he was scared. Why was he scared? First novel, they’re pretty much always not so great (unless we’re talking about The God of Small Things of course, because in that case the book was pure horseshit!)
But hey! Great writers are the ones that kept going. And Self went on to write The Book of Dave, Tough Tough Toys for Tough Tough Boys, Umbrella, and the first half of How The Dead Live!
I don’t know if the story was any good, I was too distracted. And I’m gonna give you the list of words, so I wouldn’t recommend reading this novel given that the list of words is all I took from it :S
I read that a DJ can become competitive if he keeps an excel sheet cataloguing the BPM of different songs in different musical genres (probably some program does this for them nowadays), so as a writer’s equivalent, you can’t see my 1100 words- but you probably knew more of them than me anyways :D I don’t see any harm in at least sharing Will’s Fun list though- not necessarily words I didn’t know, but also those it doesn’t occur to me to normally use :)
(Well these 5 are from Inherent Vice:
Copacetic
Praetorian
Tessitura
Yucca
Vig)
And now- and I should say, a handful of repeats, a few I’m pretty sure I already have in my Anki pack and a number that I’m not sure if I read correctly from the card, but I definitely do not remember the context:
Embrasure
Sylph-hood
Conciliatory
Furbelow
Fluting
Macrame
Patina
Deja entendu
Hinterland
Shambolic
Djellaba
Chitties
Piltjurri
Pelf
Lapidary
Shofar
Obeisance
Gallimaufry
Peccadillo
Demiurge
Furfend
Betoken
Panatella
Hypnogogia
Obdurate
Basso
Undulant
Hittites
Autohagiography
Moue
Concertina
Vermiculation
Homunculus
Stogies
Perforce
Peregrination
Sanatorial
Stupa
Groyne
Ichor
Ruckle
Shanghail
Agadir
Conveyance
Consanguinity
Sprog
Eidetiker
Scrungy
Vestigial
Stentorian
Spindrift
Cogitation
Crepitation
Adumbrate
Micturation
Mondial
Substratum
Bedizened
Numinous
Costermongering
Ambit
Prelate
Rosicrucian
Mutable
Alembic
Aludel
Athenor
Caduceus
Hypostatical
Prestidigitation
Capacious
Scryer
Tetragrammation
Thaumaturgical
Avoirdupois
Peregrination
Sanatorial
Chattel
Insouciance
Billet(s)-doux
Applique
Bibelots
Baize
Derogated
Roc
Souk
Assertorics
Kapok
Eminence grise
Hackle
Antistrophe
Squirearchy
Razure
Millenarian
Pudendum
Purdah
Purulent
Efflorescence
Introject
Confreres
Bilharzia
Primogenetive
Primum mobile
Rucked
Coenobites
Hydrolith
Transmute
Foulard
Cheroot
Sojourn
Trompe l’oeil
Antinomies
Corroboree
Ataraxy
Pernicious
Bourse
Wadis
Epicene
Cyclotron
Sempiternal
Emollient
Puler
Basso
Femicide
Embonpoint
Saccade
Fricassees
Cloistral
Vitiate
Ferrule
Enbus
Noumenal
Burr
Filigree
Partagas perfecto (a type of cigar??)
Felonious
Retroscend
Prefatory
Retroscendence
Bilharzia
Riverine
Dyad
Piscine
Calcine
Schmutter
Schneken
Breviary
Tempus
Burghers
Remonstrance
Gimcrack
Homilies
Accretions
Macadam
Curare
Investiture
Fiefdom
Sadhu
Stentorian
Ubiety
Teleological
Bombast
Bibulous
Beadle
Gyroscopic
Proscenium
Adumbrate
Nutting
Farouche
Poitrines
Apostate
Cetacean
Embrocatory
Tonsured
Schoolmarms
Licentiate
Ursprache
Dendrochronology
Neolithic
Coniferous
Arbrophile
Inappetency
Aurochs
Auspication
Here’s another two lists for you. My Idea of Fun:
In bed with a book, drinking tea or beer, playing videogames, being indoors when it rains, making a lasagna and eating it for dinner every day of the week, peanut butter rice cake sandwiches, the film Goldeneye, PJs fresh from the tumble dryer, watching Inside Amy Schumer, The Jeselnik Offensive, Maron, Louie or 30 Rock.
Not My Idea of Fun:
this book.
[image error]
[image error]
(In some of these you can see my sparkly toenails. You’re welcome!)
[Goddamn image errors! Ahhh I'll fix it later...]
I filled one of those cards by about pg 200/278, which was incidentally around the point that the book stopped making any sense. I would have filled two maybe three cards if me and Will hadn’t been collecting the same words all this time. But I dunno… I feel like what I have picked apart here is the secret contents of a little notebook of words that Will kept on his writing desk, cynically ticking off each one as he put them in this story, and this kind of lexicographical clinicality cannot help but extirpate the ultimate murated form- oh sorry were you not keeping up with me and Will? I mean it takes you out of the story. There there, you’re not as clever as me and him, it’s okay, you’re only anyone, it happens.
Yeah but because I’ve been collecting so many words from so many different books for so long, and still managed to find so many new ones, seems like evidence to me that Will was trying super hard to be obfuscatory. Why would he do that? Because he wanted to prove he was clever. Why would he want to prove he was clever? Because he was scared. Why was he scared? First novel, they’re pretty much always not so great (unless we’re talking about The God of Small Things of course, because in that case the book was pure horseshit!)
But hey! Great writers are the ones that kept going. And Self went on to write The Book of Dave, Tough Tough Toys for Tough Tough Boys, Umbrella, and the first half of How The Dead Live!
I don’t know if the story was any good, I was too distracted. And I’m gonna give you the list of words, so I wouldn’t recommend reading this novel given that the list of words is all I took from it :S
I read that a DJ can become competitive if he keeps an excel sheet cataloguing the BPM of different songs in different musical genres (probably some program does this for them nowadays), so as a writer’s equivalent, you can’t see my 1100 words- but you probably knew more of them than me anyways :D I don’t see any harm in at least sharing Will’s Fun list though- not necessarily words I didn’t know, but also those it doesn’t occur to me to normally use :)
(Well these 5 are from Inherent Vice:
Copacetic
Praetorian
Tessitura
Yucca
Vig)
And now- and I should say, a handful of repeats, a few I’m pretty sure I already have in my Anki pack and a number that I’m not sure if I read correctly from the card, but I definitely do not remember the context:
Embrasure
Sylph-hood
Conciliatory
Furbelow
Fluting
Macrame
Patina
Deja entendu
Hinterland
Shambolic
Djellaba
Chitties
Piltjurri
Pelf
Lapidary
Shofar
Obeisance
Gallimaufry
Peccadillo
Demiurge
Furfend
Betoken
Panatella
Hypnogogia
Obdurate
Basso
Undulant
Hittites
Autohagiography
Moue
Concertina
Vermiculation
Homunculus
Stogies
Perforce
Peregrination
Sanatorial
Stupa
Groyne
Ichor
Ruckle
Shanghail
Agadir
Conveyance
Consanguinity
Sprog
Eidetiker
Scrungy
Vestigial
Stentorian
Spindrift
Cogitation
Crepitation
Adumbrate
Micturation
Mondial
Substratum
Bedizened
Numinous
Costermongering
Ambit
Prelate
Rosicrucian
Mutable
Alembic
Aludel
Athenor
Caduceus
Hypostatical
Prestidigitation
Capacious
Scryer
Tetragrammation
Thaumaturgical
Avoirdupois
Peregrination
Sanatorial
Chattel
Insouciance
Billet(s)-doux
Applique
Bibelots
Baize
Derogated
Roc
Souk
Assertorics
Kapok
Eminence grise
Hackle
Antistrophe
Squirearchy
Razure
Millenarian
Pudendum
Purdah
Purulent
Efflorescence
Introject
Confreres
Bilharzia
Primogenetive
Primum mobile
Rucked
Coenobites
Hydrolith
Transmute
Foulard
Cheroot
Sojourn
Trompe l’oeil
Antinomies
Corroboree
Ataraxy
Pernicious
Bourse
Wadis
Epicene
Cyclotron
Sempiternal
Emollient
Puler
Basso
Femicide
Embonpoint
Saccade
Fricassees
Cloistral
Vitiate
Ferrule
Enbus
Noumenal
Burr
Filigree
Partagas perfecto (a type of cigar??)
Felonious
Retroscend
Prefatory
Retroscendence
Bilharzia
Riverine
Dyad
Piscine
Calcine
Schmutter
Schneken
Breviary
Tempus
Burghers
Remonstrance
Gimcrack
Homilies
Accretions
Macadam
Curare
Investiture
Fiefdom
Sadhu
Stentorian
Ubiety
Teleological
Bombast
Bibulous
Beadle
Gyroscopic
Proscenium
Adumbrate
Nutting
Farouche
Poitrines
Apostate
Cetacean
Embrocatory
Tonsured
Schoolmarms
Licentiate
Ursprache
Dendrochronology
Neolithic
Coniferous
Arbrophile
Inappetency
Aurochs
Auspication
Here’s another two lists for you. My Idea of Fun:
In bed with a book, drinking tea or beer, playing videogames, being indoors when it rains, making a lasagna and eating it for dinner every day of the week, peanut butter rice cake sandwiches, the film Goldeneye, PJs fresh from the tumble dryer, watching Inside Amy Schumer, The Jeselnik Offensive, Maron, Louie or 30 Rock.
Not My Idea of Fun:
this book.
September 1, 2013
Smug, self-satisfied, pretentious twaddle from a cutting-edge writer fearlessly treading unspoiled ground covered twenty years previously by the likes of Robert Bloch and Joyce Carol Oates. Between the high-handed purple prose; long winding passages saying nothing really but jammed in for the sole purpose of demonstrating the breadth of Self's vocabulary; and a plot so minor it might have filled a Richard Matheson short story on a bad day, this is a Jericho's trumpet of nothingness. Tedious and frustrating in equal measure, even the gleeful shock value of Self's "Oh, I'm so naughty" moments come across as little more than a small boy jumping in puddles to upset his parents. Tiresome. DNF.
August 19, 2019
I've been prompted to write a review for this by the number of 1 star reviews I have seen.
This is one of my favourite books ever. However, before you read this book there are a number of provisos to consider. There are things that I believe about literature. Also note, not all of these may apply directly to this particular book, as I would be giving away too much if they did. Finally, the provisos will sit under a spoiler alert at the end of the review, but are intended to be read at this point. I suspect (and having read many of the reviews before I got bored this suspicion is based on some evidence) that many of the one star reviews were due to people disagreeing with many of the provisos, particularly numbers 1 and 2.
Having considered the provisos, and whether this may or may not be the novel for you I shall proceed.
This book made me feel ill. This book made me laugh. This book is also exceptionally well written. There are few modern authors I enjoy reading who can match Self's prose when he is in form. This book made me think deeply about a large variety of issues in our society. Reading this book was My Idea of Fun. If you don't mind being made to feel uncomfortable, and are prepared to buckle in for the ride, it may be your idea of fun too.
This is one of my favourite books ever. However, before you read this book there are a number of provisos to consider. There are things that I believe about literature. Also note, not all of these may apply directly to this particular book, as I would be giving away too much if they did. Finally, the provisos will sit under a spoiler alert at the end of the review, but are intended to be read at this point. I suspect (and having read many of the reviews before I got bored this suspicion is based on some evidence) that many of the one star reviews were due to people disagreeing with many of the provisos, particularly numbers 1 and 2.
Having considered the provisos, and whether this may or may not be the novel for you I shall proceed.
This book made me feel ill. This book made me laugh. This book is also exceptionally well written. There are few modern authors I enjoy reading who can match Self's prose when he is in form. This book made me think deeply about a large variety of issues in our society. Reading this book was My Idea of Fun. If you don't mind being made to feel uncomfortable, and are prepared to buckle in for the ride, it may be your idea of fun too.
September 20, 2011
My favorite Bildungsroman ever, 'My Idea of Fun' is a sort of 'Great Expectations' for the crack generation. 'My Idea of Fun' is ostensibly about Ian, and his life as a tool of the Fat Controller. However, everything in this book is deeply metaphorical. Like the more psychedelic works of late-period Burroughs and Alan Gullette, the book is best read sideways, allowing the scenes that are created to first manifest before attempting to decrypt their true meaning. This is mind-bending stuff, and not for the faint of heart.
August 29, 2012
Some reviewers have slated this book for being so disgusting, sickening, gross, and so on. Do they assume that all writing is intended to be an endorsement of its subject matter? Will Self simply created these depraved characters and made a story out of them. We don't have to like these people in order to be gripped by the story, which I certainly was.
It isn't easy reading, and can be deeply uncomfortable at times, but it's well worth the effort. And, this man has an incredible way with words.
It isn't easy reading, and can be deeply uncomfortable at times, but it's well worth the effort. And, this man has an incredible way with words.
February 27, 2015
Will Self has been likened to Martin Amis, and although this is the only book I've read by Self, I can see the comparison.
The characters are people you might avoid in real life (or be manipulated by them).
What makes this book so readable is the introspection of the narrator/main character. He's a fascinating misanthrope in a surreal quandary.
The characters are people you might avoid in real life (or be manipulated by them).
What makes this book so readable is the introspection of the narrator/main character. He's a fascinating misanthrope in a surreal quandary.
January 31, 2020
I probably would have found this harder to read had I not read any of his other books. He's the kind of author that grows on and his satire is quite brilliant. It's a bit of a slow burner this book but it's funny throughout. If you don't like his stuff then I wouldn't bother
June 3, 2007
I hated this book- the distinctive, lugubrious voice of its author haunted it throughout. Admittedly it is well written but after the 'First Book', it seemed to degenerate into the ramblings of a madman, from which it didn't recover. Just a very weird and unpleasant reading experience.
Certainly not my idea of fun.
Certainly not my idea of fun.
October 26, 2011
What does it say about me that I didn't find this book very shocking? For all but twenty pages, it's a satire on metaphysical bildungsromans (romanen?) and a pretty withering criticism of contemporary society. Okay, so far so good. Plenty of people got there first, it's true: revoltingly fat man as a figure of Satan? McCarthy in Blood Meridian beat him by 5 years. Links between repulsive violence and the less productive aspects of capitalist society? Ever heard of American Psycho, Will? Even the supposedly shocking bits are a bit rehashed- getting it off inside gory wounds? Ballard, Crash.
So the 'shock' isn't very shocking, unless you've only been reading novels by Martin Amis and A. S. Byatt for the last 40 years, which is apparently true of the British cognoscenti.
Otherwise? Well, the problem is that Self is very good at the shocking gore stuff, but there isn't much of it and what there is has been, as I said, rehashed.* He's not so good at making his own criticisms of society coherent. Obviously he thinks shit is fucked up and shit, but that's about as much depth as I can find. He hints at the problems of reification and alienation (actual alienation, not teenager-wearing-black-sitting-in-his-room-can't-connect-to-society alienation), but maybe I'm just reading that into it?
Otherwise, the plot twist is a little tiresome (although this time he got in *before* Palahniuk, so that's one for the Brits) and kind of obvious, and there's so much pointless sub-surrealist garbage in the second half that I really started to question if he had any idea what he was doing at all.
On the upside, splendidly written and mean enough that I'd be willing to try his other books. But don't go looking for shock, plot or character here.
* Spoiler alert: I confess the whole 'sucking the severed penis of a tortured, dead dog' thing was unexpected. But imagine how much more 'shocking' it would have been if the dog had been alive.
So the 'shock' isn't very shocking, unless you've only been reading novels by Martin Amis and A. S. Byatt for the last 40 years, which is apparently true of the British cognoscenti.
Otherwise? Well, the problem is that Self is very good at the shocking gore stuff, but there isn't much of it and what there is has been, as I said, rehashed.* He's not so good at making his own criticisms of society coherent. Obviously he thinks shit is fucked up and shit, but that's about as much depth as I can find. He hints at the problems of reification and alienation (actual alienation, not teenager-wearing-black-sitting-in-his-room-can't-connect-to-society alienation), but maybe I'm just reading that into it?
Otherwise, the plot twist is a little tiresome (although this time he got in *before* Palahniuk, so that's one for the Brits) and kind of obvious, and there's so much pointless sub-surrealist garbage in the second half that I really started to question if he had any idea what he was doing at all.
On the upside, splendidly written and mean enough that I'd be willing to try his other books. But don't go looking for shock, plot or character here.
* Spoiler alert: I confess the whole 'sucking the severed penis of a tortured, dead dog' thing was unexpected. But imagine how much more 'shocking' it would have been if the dog had been alive.
May 9, 2012
My idea of hell.
September 27, 2017
Mi idea de diversión no satisface mi idea de la diversión. Qué vergonzoso hacer chistes fáciles, verdad? Entonces hagámoslo a lo Self: Mi idea de la diversión c'est ne pas mi idea de la diversión, pourquoi est trés négligé avec le lecteur. Mon point est pourquoi écrire dans les paragraphes trucs tu peux d'écrire dans une seule ligne? La honte!
Me encanta cuando los escritores se ponen pedantes y cuelan términos en lenguas extranjeras para darse algo de relumbrón. Jaja. Es broma, en verdad lo detesto. Pero a Self no lo odio en absoluto. Curiosamente el libro no me ha gustado pero el escritor me ha causado buena impresión. Mi principal reproche es que adora extenderse y abultar el texto innecesariamente con detalles inanes. Además Self se pone en plan Amis y se empeña en que el avance de muchas páginas no suponga avance narrativo alguno. Detalles, detalles, detalles. Detalles, detalles, detalles que a nadie le importan. ¿Qué aspecto tiene la habitación? ¿Cómo viste tal personaje? ¿Qué manías tiene? ¿Necesito esa información para comprender mejor el texto? La mayoría de veces no. Pero me parece bastante claro que Self deseaba impresionar y que si no se derrochaba grand-style nadie le iba a tomar en serio. Le funcionó.
No la considero una mala lectura porque me gusta como en medio de tanta monotonía cuela bromas macabras más o menos divertidas y desde luego poco ortodoxas. Como ahora arrancarle la cabeza a un vagabundo y penetrarlo por el cuello. Self es así de encantador. Oh, perdón, quería decir charmante. En el plan general de la narración veo un empeño por abarcar una gran espectro de la sociedad inglesa. La novela recorre desde las altas esferas de Barbican (desde dónde se puede ver la ciudad financiera) hasta los callejones oscuros para los heroinómanos. El Gran Controlador (se pierde el juego de palabras del original inglés: Fat Controller) es un ser seboso que encarna los peores vicios de la sociedad inglesa (elitismo, arrogancia, crueldad, etc...) y, en un giro ingenioso y bien ejecutado, al final sirve para conectar el mundo de la publicidad con el de los yonquis, le haut avec le bas, estableciendo una especie de parábola entorno al talante consumista. Además de eso, la narrativa dibuja una estructura cíclica, de modo que el personaje que en la primera parte es el protagonista de una novela de coming of age en la segunda termina asumiendo el papel de malévolo instructor. Es la forma que tiene Self de establecer, de una forma hiperbólica, que es la sociedad quien fabrica ese tipo de personajes y que no se trata de un ser excepcional dentro del mundo que propone la novela.
Pero como digo todo ese jugoso esquema Self lo rellena con verborrea hueca y anodina, parágrafos y más parágrafos que se lo único que hacen es acumular palabras limpias de cualquier tipo de interés o poder de atracción.
Tengo como política personal no comprar libros si primero no los he leído. Es la mejor forma de evitar ocupar inútilmente el preciado y limitado espacio. Cómo sabrá cualquier aficionado a la narrativa, cuando andas por una librería es muy fácil violar este mandato tan sensato y ceder a la tentación. Pues resulta que tengo tres libros de casa de cuando me pareció buena idea leer a Will Self. Espero que Mi idea de diversión haya sido una pájara y que los otros sean primorosas obras de jocosa y erudita literatura...
jajajajajaja
Dios, qué asco da todo.
April 11, 2012
Difficult read but rewarding. Keep a dictionary handy.
November 6, 2018
I read this years ago, and to this day I wish I could scrub the part of my brain that remembers it with a wire brush.
March 11, 2024
if i had a nickel for every book i've read that's about a guy at the seaside with a little bit of an oedipus complex i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice.
also will self is kinda like a british murakami!!! so good
also will self is kinda like a british murakami!!! so good
May 29, 2025
Riktigt skruvad och psykiskt obehaglig mardröm till bok. Ibland är det svårt att veta om saker sker annat än i huvudpersonens vrickade fantasi. Gillar man sjuka böcker som tänjer lite på ens psyke kan jag med värme rekommendera denna.
September 7, 2018
Stop me if you've heard this one:
A magician moves into a trailer park. He befriends an awkward prepubescent kid, guides him through adolescence, teaches him some mystical rites, and takes him on as an apprentice. Later it turns out that he might be the devil (or, as he'd probably prefer you to put it, The Devil). The kid goes into marketing and into therapy to forget about his supernatural dalliances, but the pact he made with his instructor looms heavily over his head. It's two parts Doctor Faustus, one part Great Expectations, and a liberal sprinkling of American Psycho.
2.5 stars out of 5. I forgave it its slow start because once it's worked up a good head of steam this one really takes off, but then it sputters and stalls out again midway through. It is uneven with several laggy spots throughout (most frequently when the supernatural stuff takes back burner to a more standard bildungsroman) and it really loses focus towards the ending. Some have complained about the overblown vocabulary and pompous "purple prose" but honestly that was my favorite part. The sections where this all works are really enjoyable, but it's not consistent.
A magician moves into a trailer park. He befriends an awkward prepubescent kid, guides him through adolescence, teaches him some mystical rites, and takes him on as an apprentice. Later it turns out that he might be the devil (or, as he'd probably prefer you to put it, The Devil). The kid goes into marketing and into therapy to forget about his supernatural dalliances, but the pact he made with his instructor looms heavily over his head. It's two parts Doctor Faustus, one part Great Expectations, and a liberal sprinkling of American Psycho.
2.5 stars out of 5. I forgave it its slow start because once it's worked up a good head of steam this one really takes off, but then it sputters and stalls out again midway through. It is uneven with several laggy spots throughout (most frequently when the supernatural stuff takes back burner to a more standard bildungsroman) and it really loses focus towards the ending. Some have complained about the overblown vocabulary and pompous "purple prose" but honestly that was my favorite part. The sections where this all works are really enjoyable, but it's not consistent.
June 19, 2018
Începutul e tare captivant, alert, abrupt. Păcatul face că odată puși în mijlocul unei tensiuni, reluarea întregii istorii până la punctul tensionat cu care debutează cartea ne aruncă în mijlocul unor informații greoaie, pe care nu orice cititor le poate urmări cu atenție. Capcane sunt la tot pasul în carte, la fel și indicii, iar procesul de desfășurare al acțiunii rămâne lent și plin de comentarii care, altminteri, ar fi putut fi șterse. Este o carte care-ți necesită răbdarea destul de mult.
August 9, 2017
Avoid. I could not stop reading this appalling, horrible book. It literally gave me nightmares and also made me laugh. I did not understand it but I enjoyed trying. Something about how marketing is desensitizing us? I regret reading it but I look forward to more from this writer.
August 13, 2022
Bung American Psycho and The Magus into a blender. Tip out the result. Congrats: you have this novel.
The short story better suits Self’s talents.
The short story better suits Self’s talents.
June 14, 2017
Read the first two pages, straight in to a feverish gore-fest - judging by the other reviews, there's no upside. That'll be enough. Getting rid of my copy now.
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