Comments on: ‘This most astonishing penumbra’: Will Self on J.G. Ballard

By: Jared Terry

Jared Terry — Tue, 25 May 2010 00:33:50 +0000

I tried Ballard’s Crash and could not fully immerse myself in it. i do intend to attack it again. I like Burroughs very much naked Lunch is fantastic but my personal favorite is Junky, which is a compelling and wonderfully written account of addiction. I am very fond of Will Self, just finished My Idea of Fun which is a great novel and would not hesitite in advising to anyone. Great Apes is a very very funny book, the writing is dazzling throughout. The Butt is another novel that is funny and disturbing in equal measure and is one of his most compelling novels. In contrast to other posters here I am less keen on the short stories, which often seem to me to have the air of unfinished fragments, having said that tough tough toys for tough tough boys is more plus than minus. If I had to point someone in the direction of only one Will Self book it would be Cock and Bull, its perfectly pitched towards his strengths being in the form of two novellas and is wickedly funny, it resonates in its excellence.

By: Plastic Futures | Scale + Laughter and Self + Ballard

Plastic Futures | Scale + Laughter and Self + Ballard — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:38:24 +0000

[...] Will Self offers a tribute to his “mentor” J. G. Ballard Also, an interview with Will Self about Ballard. [...]

By: Mark Roth

Mark Roth — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 04:45:58 +0000

I thoroughly enjoyed The Sweet Smell of Psychosis, though it’s nearly a short story at around 90 pages. Hilarious and disturbing. I also got a copy of Great Apes, looking forward to reading that.

The first Ballard novel I ever read was Crash, I don’t think I would recommend people start there. If you must start with a novel, then Concrete Island would be my advice. Otherwise, start with earlier short stories, possibly Vermilion Sands.

By: thediacritic

thediacritic — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:58:50 +0000

Point covered already I know but the execution alone of Will Self’s novel Great Apes warrants its singling out. Simply put is his most readable novel – and very fucking funny to boot.

By: Tom P

Tom P — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:04:07 +0000

I love Will Self’s short stories and journalism. The Feeding Frenzy colelciton is an excellent and accesible starting point. As for his novels, like some of the other posters, I tend to find them a bit heavy going.

By: johnny strike

johnny strike — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 05:12:01 +0000

i take it back. the book i read, or mostly read was: the quantity theory of insanity.

By: Graham Rae

Graham Rae — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:58:18 +0000

Self is pretentious and annoying and throws polysyllabic 50-cent words around to cover up literary and intellectual insecurity, but he does do a great interview with Ballard in Junk Mail that I would recommend anybody read. But read the British version, cos the American version (the only reason I bought the book was for this interview, and Self’s musings on Burroughs) is intolerably hacked to hell and back.

By: johnny strike

johnny strike — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:50:09 +0000

i did read, my idea of fun, or most of it, and i thought it was pretty good. i remember one story about working in a psych word that was excellent. but then i tried the novels, and as bosse de nage stated i too found them just too much hard work (you could say that that’s my problem and not self’s, and i wouldn’t argue with you). and there’s his intro to burroughs’ junky which i find long winded and problematic. he really loses me when he claims that dolophine was named after hitler. just a tad of research would have shown him that this is a myth, but maybe he didn’t care, and liked the sensational quality.
http://will-self.com/2006/01/11/junky-by-william-s-burroughs-preface-to-the-penguin-2002-edition/

By: Anthony Osborne

Anthony Osborne — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:20:28 +0000

‘The Book Of Dave’ as Self’s ‘The Drowned World’? Like Ballard, Self aways gives good value for money in interview situations – lots of nicely mordant wit and startling conceptual shifts thrown out casually.

By: Bosse de Nage

Bosse de Nage — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:59:48 +0000

Wonder if The Wind from Nowhere will be discussed in Miracles of Life?

By: Bosse de Nage

Bosse de Nage — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:57:51 +0000

Will Self–I stopped after ‘How the Dead Live’, which was hilarious in parts but somewhat laboured. (A much better book in the same vein would be Alasdair Gray’s ‘Lanark’). I enjoyed ‘My Idea of Fun’ immensely, quite possibly because at the time I was dossing on a couch in Exmouth, which is the mirror image of the dead town, with its endless arrays of caravans facing the sea, that Self describes. ‘Grey Areas’ was a solid enough collection of short stories, although stopping short of the true Ballardian crystal. But the latest novel just looks like too much hard work. It emanates a certain Martin Amis-ness… Guess I’ll dig up the Boy-Toy collection sometime.

By: Simon Sellars

Simon Sellars — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:52:26 +0000

Self once said there are 'no jokes in [Ballard's] books at all, or at least not intentionally any jokes', which I found to be a bit of a hoot in itself. Anyone who describes the action of a woman masturbating as if she was 'rolling a ball of snot' (as Ballard did in Crash) is pulling your leg, plain and simple.

By: Nick Garrard

Nick Garrard — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 21:31:07 +0000

As something of a Self-defender, I’d recommend his short-stories over most of his longform stuff. He’s a bit anti-narrative development really and his novels tend to swiftly (no pun intended) run out of steam. They’re basically extended short stories, pitching in with a great concept at the start and devolving into repetition and thesaurus abuse.

His collection ‘Quantity Theory of Insanity’ is especially strong, whilst ‘tough tough toys for tough tough buys’ features some very Burroughsian drug skits. In terms of novels, ‘How the dead live’ is, to my mind, the most emotionally grounded and coherent.

Self interviews Ballard to some length in the ‘Junk Mail’ collection and is obviously a well-versed fan, so I wonder if his not mentioning ‘the wind from Nowhere’ is in accordance with Ballard’s tendency to strike that one from the record…

By: johnny strike

johnny strike — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:42:33 +0000

“…parallel words that mutate out of our own or are latent with our own.’ just had to repeat that. it’s soooo good.

i tried to read will self a couple of times and couldn’t get into him. flawless taste tho. i’d try something else, if anyone has any rec that they think approach the level of the ballard or burroughs

By: Jim Pennington

Jim Pennington — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:28:01 +0000

Self is misguiding when he says it is hard to know when Ballard is writing tongue-in-cheek. I would not want to know, even if it were possible to tell – I just have to look a phrase like “..an immense pathos surrounded the throttle..” straight in the eye and agree. Othwerwise it will beat me up. Sorry, Will, it’s all or nothing, mate.

By: Anthony Osborne

Anthony Osborne — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:22:06 +0000

Good man, Self – always an interesting and articulate defender of Ballard ( and Burroughs’ work too). His apt description of Ballard’s work, “he’s very much writing about parallel worlds that mutate out of our own or are latent with our own”, is as good a comment on his own fiction as any I’ve read. I know Ballard is on record as an admirer of his work … does anyone else out there like his stuff? ‘Great Apes’, for example, is positively Swiftian.

By: Phil Huntley

Phil Huntley — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:16:32 +0000

I would have thought that the short stories would be the ideal place to start reading ballard. It’s where I started (as a teeneager I discovered an old copy of ‘The Fourth Dimensional Nightmare’ at my grandparents-it had presumably belonged to my father at some stage-and I never looked back). I mean anyone reading something like ‘The man who walked on the moon’ would get an immediate sense of what a great writer he is…Perhaps Self knew that time was limited and so deliberately stuck to the novels.