Provocateurs Will Self and Ralph Steadman join forces in this post millennial meditation on the vexed relationship between psyche and place in a globalised world, bringing together for the first time the very best of their "Psychogeography" columns for the "Independent". The introduction, 'Walking to New York', is both a prelude to the verbal and visual essays that make up this extraordinary collaboration, and a revealing exploration of the split in Self's Jewish American British psyche and its relationship to the political geography of the post 9/11 world. Ranging from the Scottish Highlands to Istanbul and from Morocco to Ohio, Will Self's engaging and disturbing vision is perfectly counter pointed by Ralph Steadman's edgy and beautiful artwork.
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'Brilliantly original, Will Self is one of those rare writers whose imaginations change for ever the way we see the world' JG Ballard 'Steadman has always been one of my heroes.' Raymond Briggs
About the Author
Will Self is the author of The Quantity Theory of Insanity, winner of the 1993 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Grey Area, Cock & Bull, My Idea of Fun, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis, Great Apes, Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys, Dorian, How the Dead Live, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year 2002, and The Book of Dave. He lives in London. Ralph Steadman is the author of Sigmund Freud, I Leonardo, The Big I Am, The Scar-Strangled Banner, the novel Doodaaa and the memoir The Joke's Over: Memories of Hunter S. Thompson. He is also the illustrator of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Alice, Animal Farm and The Devil's Dictionary. He lives in Kent.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Paul Harris
Format:Hardcover
If you don't like Will Self's take on modern life, you probably won't like this. If however, like me, you do appreciate his dry wit and well crafted writing style, then you will almost certainly enjoy this collection. A seemingly random arrangement of his column in The Independent newspaper is brilliantly complemented by the always excellent Ralph Steadman's illustrations.
Self writes on all manner of subjects from the mundane to the profound. Infused with his inimitable sardonic sense of humour and mischief, these essays were for me the perfect length to get just the right flavour of whatever, or wherever, he was talking about or exploring. In places as diverse as Rio de Janeiro, The Orkney Isles, India, Iowa, and English coastal nuclear power stations, he takes you with him as he uncovers little nuggets of the 21st century world we live in.
The extra length introductory essay - Walking To New York - is a real treat as Self travels the usually unconsidered hinterlands of south and west London on his way to first Heathrow Airport, and then from JFK across Long Island over to Manhattan. A very unusual and enjoyable read.
Self writes on all manner of subjects from the mundane to the profound. Infused with his inimitable sardonic sense of humour and mischief, these essays were for me the perfect length to get just the right flavour of whatever, or wherever, he was talking about or exploring. In places as diverse as Rio de Janeiro, The Orkney Isles, India, Iowa, and English coastal nuclear power stations, he takes you with him as he uncovers little nuggets of the 21st century world we live in.
The extra length introductory essay - Walking To New York - is a real treat as Self travels the usually unconsidered hinterlands of south and west London on his way to first Heathrow Airport, and then from JFK across Long Island over to Manhattan. A very unusual and enjoyable read.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By Pablo K
Format:Hardcover
"The impact of civil disturbance on the built environment is a source of pure joy for even the most conformist of salarymen and women. An external threat to a city, whether in the form of armies of lovelorn Greeks, Nazi bombardiers or even DIY suicide bombers, serves to shore up the great bulwark of temporal power; but when the citizenry themselves loft the bricks into the state apartments and take torches to the bureaucracy, then only the most hardened of hearts can remain unmoved."
It's hard to resist that kind of writing. Although I initially approached this as something of a cash-in (collected columns plus an essay stuck on the beginning), this may well be my favourite version of Self. He works well in this medium, weaving his way through a thousand plateus with wry observation and a surreal detachment that works better with the real world than with the constructions of fiction. Certainly there is no sense that he saves his best observations for the long form. The Steadman sketches are not afterthoughts or annexes but intrinsic and splendid, channeling precisley those bits of Ballard and Hunter S Thompson that infect (for our great pleasure) Will Self's writing. Even if it is at times 'a little arch'. Well worth buying in hard cover and dipping into and out of. A wonderful materiality. And the new essay? Surprisingly touching, it made me want to become a Psycho-Geographer. Both joyful and acerbic, I walk more and look more on days when I've read from this white tome, and that makes me feel a little more alive.
It's hard to resist that kind of writing. Although I initially approached this as something of a cash-in (collected columns plus an essay stuck on the beginning), this may well be my favourite version of Self. He works well in this medium, weaving his way through a thousand plateus with wry observation and a surreal detachment that works better with the real world than with the constructions of fiction. Certainly there is no sense that he saves his best observations for the long form. The Steadman sketches are not afterthoughts or annexes but intrinsic and splendid, channeling precisley those bits of Ballard and Hunter S Thompson that infect (for our great pleasure) Will Self's writing. Even if it is at times 'a little arch'. Well worth buying in hard cover and dipping into and out of. A wonderful materiality. And the new essay? Surprisingly touching, it made me want to become a Psycho-Geographer. Both joyful and acerbic, I walk more and look more on days when I've read from this white tome, and that makes me feel a little more alive.
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
By D. Wright
Format:Hardcover
Will Self most be one one of the few literary novelists who has regularly starred in a comedy gameshow, Shooting Stars, so you would think he would have a broad sense of humour that could be apppreciated by a wide section of society. Instead Self is the Marmite of the literary world - some, like me, think his works ambrosia; others would rather eat a rat kebab than read him. Ralph Steadman's illustrations are great but the pieces are too short and a little too arch to be appealling. Will is usually a great travel writer but this collection doesn't convey a concrete expression of place. This is a collection of journalism whose whole is less than a sum of its parts. Not bad but not essential for even an avid Selfophile.
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2.5 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought provoking writing of an extremely high standard
Firstly the hardback edition here is a beautiful book, Ralf Steadman's illustrations are in full colour and intersperse Will Self's text. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Jo Bennie
1.0 out of 5 stars
enough Will, please
I've enjoyed the Will Self fiction I've read, but this ...... if Self wasn't his name it would be appropriate anyway as a pen name . . Read more
Published 18 months ago by T. R. Jones
3.0 out of 5 stars
short review of Pyschogeography
Having lived abroad for most of the period 1990-2008, I missed a great deal of what was going on in England during the 90s, culturally speaking. Read more
Published 20 months ago by G. Heath
4.0 out of 5 stars
More quality writing from Will Self
Part memoir, part travelogue, this book displays all the qualities you'd expect from Will Self. As is his wont, he mixes the high brow with the demotic, his sentences are... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Doctor Wylkynson
2.0 out of 5 stars
Jeremy Clarkson does Situationism
Numinous, reify, rentier, Tudorbethan.
And that's just about all that distinguishes Self from any other Hampsteady Sunday supplement copyfiller these days. Read more
And that's just about all that distinguishes Self from any other Hampsteady Sunday supplement copyfiller these days. Read more
Published on 30 Dec 2007 by Mr. J. Mcneill
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