The Quiddity of Will Self by Sam Mills

The Quiddity of Will Self

Sam Mills

A whirligig of a novel, one that refuses to sit down. There is invention, fun and exuberance in abundance. What sets out as an apparent mystery centred on the enigmatic Will Self Club and the death of Sylvie, soon heads off on its bizarre journey. If nothing else you have to admire the verve of this book. And not just for fans of Will Self.

Extract
Pain, what pain? I awoke in a postlapsarian world of chaos, aching to the molten core. Eyes bleeding metaphors. Stomach heaving, bulbous with the baleine of prose. The twin lobes of synaptic leaves, once flickering in the chilly breezes of sharp imagery, now wilted to green tears. I groped with blind paws, eager to stanch the light, to suture the blindness, to perform triage on the diurnal. My pyjamas were ragged; a crude caricature of Will was sketched in wobbly black felt across the canvas of my chest. I curled my woollen tongue around my mouth and discovered a metallic cud, a flocculence of mash and mush; half a torn page was glued to my cheek with saliva-cum, and when I spat, Times New Roman vomited out, the remains of page fifty six of Great Apes.
Parallels
  • A Void by Georges Perec
  • U and I by Nicholson Baker
  • Making Love: A Conspiracy of the Heart by Marius Brill
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Violence
Explicit sexual content