The Quiddity of Will Self [Hardcover]

Do you and your friends get together regularly to bemoan the lack of bite and energy in current fiction? When you read articles about the cowardice of publishers do you find yourself howling that these bastards are ruining your life? Do Barnes, Amis and Jacobson get on your tits? In a review do the words 'edgy', 'biting' 'intellectual' 'informed' 'weird' 'challenging' 'imaginative' draw you to a book? Between the covers does it make you happy to see 'hacceity' or 'transmogrification'? How about 'quiddity'?

If your answer is 'yes' to all these questions (and it should be)then Sam Mills' first novel for adults is for you. It shows more range in character and voice than anything you have read in the past five years. From the title (and some reviews) you may think it sounds like a high concept novel but, in fact, it is packed with ideas. The Self conceit is used to explore issues of gender, sexuality, identity, power and creativity in ways of which WS himself would be proud. 'The Quiddity Of Will Self is clever, funny, dangerous and sexy. It is also an intensely moving book (the final pages of Mia's section are beautifully executed and heartbreaking)that does not manipulate the reader's emotions. Sam Mills never confuses hacceity and quiddity. Read this and neither will you. Hoograh.

Sam Mills is clearly an ambitious author. In The Quiddity of Will Self, she has taken on the dangerous task of paying a kind of twisted homage to an author who is known for his unique and often gruesome plot designs and his `sesquipedalian' prose (as many of Mills' characters like to describe it). Will Self is painted in many ways throughout the book, most notably as a God-like figure whose innate 'whatness' is a constant source of inspiration for the bizarre and often deranged characters that she has created. The good news is, that Mills clearly has the talent to match her ambition, and by her own admission spent nine years sculpting this engaging, intelligent and thought-provoking piece. And it shows; each sentence is carefully measured and considered, at no time looking to imitate Self, but one gets the sense that his literary influence has had much the same effect on the author as it has on her characters.

TQOWS is part detective story, part science fiction wet-dream and part philosophical tome, as it deeply and intelligently explores the essence or 'quiddity' of the creative mind. There are some wonderfully inventive plot lines, story threads and conceptual happenings, along with a string of fresh and unique metaphors (which Mills herself appears to justify her love for in the final part of the book). The crowning glory of the book, however, in this reader's opinion, is the thread of philosophical gold that runs through the piece, painting the creative process as an internal essence that if harnessed, would throw the minds of those unfamiliar with artistic greatness into complete chaos. Prof. Self, a character in the book who has no relation to Will, has attempted to distill the essences of great authors, and injects his patients with vials of Hemmingway, DBC Pierre and Burroughs, hoping to plant inside them the seed of greatness and record the results of its invasion. It is a book that drips with love for creativity and art, as well as professing a great, hidden fear of what such invention is capable of.

Laid out in five very different parts, Mills paints the story of an enigmatic and creepy murder of a young girl named Sylvie, found with a knife in her back and made-up through plastic surgery to look like Will Self, and the attempts of several characters to piece together the mystery. In the process of their investigations we are treated to drugs, sex, insecurity and from almost every angle a need to feel accepted in a creative world, as an author, and searching in vain for someone or something to fill the void. We spend time with the WSC (The Will Self Club), who partake in drug-fuelled orgies under the watchful gaze of Self's portrait, and play cryptic games of Cluedo with Self's characters as their cast. And all the while we face an onslaught of bright, cerebral prose that would no doubt make Self himself proud. TQOWS is a novel I found myself flying through, a real page turner, which is quite a feat for a book that boasts such beautiful, challenging prose, but the essence of the tale was so beguiling, just as the essence of Self's genius is in the book, that I was unable to put it down

The Quiddity of Will Self is, in my opinion, an excellent book, tremendously written and beautifully measured, a must for fans of a myriad of genres, and Sam Mills is a name to look out for, though I'm not sure her next work will risk being so ambitious. As it is, she had succeeded in delighting and I wish her every success with the novel.

I read this over the weekend & loved it. Wasn't surprised really because I've read most of Will's books over the years & find them deeply satisfying in a number of ways. There's a wonderful paragraph in Sam Mills book (page 58 in the paperback version I think) which beautifully sums up the impact a writer can have on a reader & the challenge that writers should offer; not every author should be a Dan Brown or a Lee Child & I thank the stars that Will Self and Sam Mills are out there thinking about obscure and odd things & using language that I had to resort to a very THICK dictionary to locate.

Quiddity made me laugh out loud & reach for my notebook to write some of it down. I love it, Will Self should be grateful it will probably bump up his own booksales & a comparison to Being John Malkovich for books was not an inapt comparison.

Should there really be a Will Self Club out there I'd join in a flash........