Self & I

Will Self has exerted a certain fascination over my life. This is a result of having read only a couple of books by him.  In "Psychogeography" he attempts to 'walk' from London to New York, which means, essentially, walking to and from the airports of those two cities. I read most or all (I can't remember which) of "Great Apes" because I was reading a lot of philosophy at that time, and a lot of philosophical arguments in favour of various forms of animal rights, from duty-based, to rights-based, to utilitarian arguments.  Self's fiction was the first fiction-based argument I'd come across, and it added a whole new and unforgettable dimension to thinking about animals and their positionalities.

Recently I read the first section of Self's autobiography "Will", and fully plan on finishing that book later this summer.  I like the way he writes, it reminds me of surrealism, of Ballard, and of postmodernism, all with connotations, for me, of freedom of self-expression unconstrained by institutional norms.  Abaitua's memoir of his time as Self's personal assistant has helped me to pin down precisely why I've warmed to Self in my lifetime, even as I might, at times, have spurned him for being unserious, wild, or unsober as a thinker and role-model.  But these objections are neither here nor there, with Self, because they are irrelevant.  All that is relevant is the work itself.

And Abaitua is correct, I think, in identifying Self as a canonical writer.  I had not known this until I read Self & I.  But the best parts of this book are the stories of the good & bad times Self & Abaitua shared.  It is also a book about how to be a writer, and it is both sympathetic and patient with anyone reading the book who might have such aspirations.  Part of the reason for this is that it seems, reading the book, that it has taken Abaitua himself a really long time to settle down within himself, and produce the works he needs to produce in order to create the kind of art that feels true to himself, his vision, and his discipline.  That discipline is hard-won, mostly because he's enjoyed his life enough, and this is very apparent here in the book, that for time, it seems, he might never have settled down enough to have actually written anything worth reading.

But he has. This book is proof.  I haven't read Abaitua's science fiction novels, but I will.  I will also be picking up those books in my library that I've been putting off so long, for some reason: "How the Dead Live" and "Umbrella" for starters.  If you are interested in writing, in fiction, or in Will Self, this is one of the best books I've read on any of those subjects, and I recommend it very highly.