In Search Of Self

Contrary to popular belief, Will Self isn’t a misanthrope. Opinionated he certainly is, but gregarious and easy-going with it.

Of course, Self has good reason to be cheerful. His latest novel, Umbrella, has attracted much critical praise for its high modernism and stream of consciousness style. Better still, it has bagged the author a spot on the Man Booker long list.
“As far as I’m concerned I should have won it many times over!” laughs Self. “But it’s not me, it’s the book.”
Win or lose, the Booker, he notes, can have a significant influence on sales and book lovers often work their way through the entire long list. While the IMPAC award may offer a richer pot of filthy lucre, the Booker is still regarded as the most prestigious award.
“It seems incredibly disproportionate in those terms,” he observes, “far more so than other prizes. After all, it’s five people judging a novel. But winning books sell thousands and thousands. Anything that attracts readers to your work is a good thing for an author.”
In truth I expected Self to be somewhat scornful of the idea of literary prizes, but instead he is completely pragmatic. After all, he is generally believed to be disdainful of contemporary fiction. This surprises him; he suggests that perhaps he said something that was taken out of context, which has now become accepted fact. What he does dislike is the tendency for authors to rely on coincidence to carry along the plot.
“How many times has coincidence played any major role in your life? Resolved anything or set you on a new path?”
That would be never.
“Exactly! Life isn’t like that.”
Within a short space of time, it becomes obvious that almost everything I have read about Self may be wrong. His supposed love of Philip K. Dick is yet another urban myth.
“I read on Wikipedia that he influenced my writing but I’d never read any of his books so I thought it was time I did,” he says. “I’m reading one of his books at the moment. It’s called – I can’t remember the name of it – but I am enjoying it.”
He is however, a big fan of Nick Cave as a lyricist and author. I suggest that And The Ass Saw The Angel is a better book that The Death Of Bunny Munro. Self disagrees politely.
“Do you think so? I don’t,” he states. “But they’re very different books of course and different books find different readers. He’s an extraordinarily talented individual. I wrote the introduction to his collection of lyrics [The Complete Lyrics: 1978-2006].”
The Death Of Bunny Munro isn’t exactly an easy read, and neither is Umbrella, but for completely different reasons. The latter novel covers nearly one hundred years and shifts, without warning, between various people’s points of view. Zach Busner, a recurring Self character, is a psychiatrist at Friern mental hospital. One of his patients, Audrey Death, has been catatonic for nearly 50 years until Zach starts treating her with L-dopa. Umbrella makes no easy concessions to the reader, but the language is so beautiful that Umbrella is rather like reading a 400-page poem.
“It is quite difficult,” Self concedes. “At times you don’t know if someone is describing a thought or an action. But stream of consciousness feels like the only honest way to write.
“Right now we’re sitting here in this hotel and talking,” he adds. “You are not sitting and looking at yourself reflexively. You don’t experience your life like a story. At points when something happens, a relationship ends, or you have a child, you may have the need to see your life as some sort of narrative, but not most of the time. It’s not your day-to-day experience of being alive.”
I wonder if Self plots his characters’ story arcs before sitting down to write them.
“I’ll confess something to you, and this is really shocking or at least I think it is, but when I wrote the last 1,500 words I had no idea how the book was going to end. And the book was a year late,” he admits.
Self is also a working journalist. Deadlines, we agree, have a way of focusing you on the task.
“Some people work nine-to-five and some people need a kick up the ass. I work nine-to-five and need a kick up the ass!”
Talk of journalism leads us on to the jailing of Pussy Riot. I suggest that the outrage in the UK media is partly disingenuous since certain newspapers are frequently calling for harsher sentences, which the courts seem happy to hand out. As just one example, Charlie Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour, recently got 16 months for throwing a bin at Prince Charles’ car.
“Putin is a different order of evil,” he insists, “and I think we should be worried about him but yes, I think you’re right. It is far easier to criticise another country. We can all agree that this is unfair and it makes us feel good about ourselves.”
The UK has been feeling pretty good about itself since the success of the Olympics, so I’m keen to hear what Self thought.
“I didn’t,” he says. “I got on a plane before they started and didn’t come back until they finished. I avoided the entire thing.”
Morrissey, with characteristic understatement, compared the Olympics to Nazi Germany.
“Did he? Good old Morrissey. Since the Olympics there has been all this talk about how it will influence children to take more interest in sport, but what I don’t get is why that is supposedly a good thing. I’ve never heard of anyone taking an interest in shot-putt and that led them on to study philosophy or find a cure for cancer. Do you think those new venues will still be in use after five years? I don’t.
“People did seem to enjoy it though, it did seem to put a smile on people’s faces. But I don’t want to be ruining people’s enjoyment of it and I sound like…”
A grumpy old man?
He smiles ruefully. “You’ve had your party, but there’s going to be a hangover.”

Umbrella is out now on Bloomsbury Publishing.