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Product Description
Product Description
'Self at his most nihilistic and funny; you'll laugh and flinch at the same time' Guardian
'Self has turned out a hilarious collection, with the requisite touch of disorientation. "Flytopia", the story about a man who suddenly finds flies more lovable than his girlfriend, follows the Kafkaesque line Self opened with his recent novel Great Apes- man as animal... "Story for Europe", about a two-year-old north Londoner who suddenly starts speaking business German, is comic genius' New Statesman
'When Will Self wants to step outside his cultivated amoral threshold and shock us into rage, the effect can be profound. This is Self's third short-story collection and like all the best books it delivers what its title promises... an awesome London Dungeon of a collection... Self is a massive talent' Time Out
About the Author
Will Self has earned his reputation through a body of innovative work: there's nobody quite like him writing today. He is the author of five novels, four collections of short stories, three novellas and four non-fiction works. As a journalist he has contributed to a plethora of publications over the years; he is also a regular broadcaster on television and radio. He lives in south London.
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First Sentence
A building, solid and imposing. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
A building, solid and imposing. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Will Self returns with another dazzling array of stories. He plays on the Swiftian ideas he explored in 'Great Apes', particularly in 'Caring, Sharing', a bizarre and brilliant story about humans being cared for by genetically engineered giants. His writing style is clever, ironic, savage and very amusing. I was entertained and enthralled throughout, though I agree that some of the stories are a lot more accomplished than others. The last one 'The Nonce Prize' was rather a let-down but overall the standard was very high.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the first of Will Self's books that I have read, his style is sharp, witty and disturbing and the variety of stories on offer in 'Tough. . .etc.' show off the author's considerable range. Yet there is nothing here to really raise the standard, the stories are well turned and polished but there is just something that keeps the stories from really taking flight. The plots seem like throwaway versions of Rohald Dahl, or Franz Kafka, or William Burroughs. Great entertainment, but nothing more.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There are two distinctive characteristics that make Will Self's writing what it is : his idiosyncratic prose and his outlandish concepts. The language Self uses can be off-putting. The prose is deliberately dense in places, almost as if it is put up as a challenge - Self has publicly derided lazy readers. But his verbosity cannot be dismissed as simple posturing - it is an intrinsic part of his style. The turns of phrase and intricate metaphors he uses in Tough, Tough Toys .. are frequently delightful. In terms of Self's bizarre, surreal concepts, the short story collection allows him to showcase more, if not taking them fully to conclusion. 'Dave Too' and 'A Story For Europe' are possibly the weak links here, with entertaining touches but a sense of incompleteness. The other stories are more forceful. The linked opening and closing stories, 'The Lump of Crack as Big as the Ritz' and 'The Nonce Prize', work strong characters and narrative around the idea of a mythical-sized lump of crack cocaine, while the title story is an intense and desperate tale of macho obsession. For me, it is 'Caring, Sharing' that provides the ultimate example of the vicious satire that gives Self his bite. By their nature, short story collections are often less satisfying than novels, but by the sheer imagination that Self possessess, Tough, Tough Toys.. does not disappoint.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Surreality at it's best.
A wonderful journey into the dark, ironic and downright bizarre depths of society as it appears in the mind of the ingenious Will Self.
Published on 28 Jun 2006 by Mr. Samuel L. Nair
An interesting (if mixed) bag
This was my first foray into Self's fictional work after previously reading his newspaper columns. The stories in this collection span quite a diverse range of subjects... Read more
Published on 7 Nov 2000
funny but with a punch
This short story book is very varied from drug-dealing to silent babies back to drug-dealing and then to jail. Read more
Published on 27 May 2000
A predictably witty, clever, disturbing collection
For regular readers of Self I don't think there are many surprises to be found in this collection. We find here the usual London-centric black satires, the drugs, the affairs,... Read more
Published on 13 Dec 1998
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