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Liver: and Other Stories (Paperback)

by Will Self (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
RRP: £8.99
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Liver: and Other Stories + The Butt + The Book of Dave: A Revelation of the Recent Past and the Distant Future
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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (4 Jun 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140290575
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140290578
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 25,891 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #5 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > S > Self, Will

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Product Description

Review

'Peculiar, subtle, affecting and humane... It is a vertiginous, swooping vision that can lay London out like a body... It is all tremendous fun, and sometimes much more than that. Self has always had a blunt brilliance... These stories are busy with stylistic experiment, high-concept in-jokes, verbal impasto and flights of fancy which test the limits of narrative' - Justine Jordan, Guardian 'These tales are highly chthonic' - Nicholas Blincoe, Daily Telegraph 'This is what Self does best: snap-shots of decline and high-concept satires of the 'slapstick of addiction" - Ed King, Daily Telegraph 'Will Self is rightly admired for the sheer energy of his writing, his pyrotechnic wit and wordplay, and his willingness to experiment with genre and narrative... He is undoubtedly one of contemporary literature's showmen' - Peter Parker, Sunday Times 'All of Self's hallmarks are in place here: a prose style that scuds from the slangy to the hypertrophic and back; a keen sense of place; a sharp satirist's eye coldly cast on fashionable London; and a fondness for what might be called the High Concept' - Keith Miller, Times Literary Supplement '...satire so vicious it makes Charlie Brooker look restrained' - John O'Connell, Time Out '...no one can revel in the disease and decay of humanity like Will Self' - Ben East, Metro "Leberknodel" is the best fictional writing on Zurich since Kim Stanley Robinson's story named after the city' - Nicholas Royle, Independent 'As the literary equivalent of Francis Bacon, Will Self continually challenges readers with biological overload... Stepping into Self's world is like opening one of the Wellcome Institute's cabinets of medical curiosities... What counts most throughout is Self's enthralling, muscular and sometimes even joyous use of language. His writing propels one of the greatest arguments for freedom of speech that I can think of; you may not like his subject matter but his obsidian brilliance is incontrovertible, shocking and humane' - Christopher Fowler, Independent

Product Description

A moving, hilarious and scabrous portrayal of egos, appetites and addictions, Liver is an extraordinary examination of lives out of control and beyond saving by the pre-eminent chronicler of our neuroses and our times.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Imagination unbounded, 24 Jan 2010
I've never been a huge fan of short stories, certainly not collections of them. Will Self is, however, an exception to this. The complexity of his prose and his verbal gymnastics have always been easier to consume in smaller chunks, often feeling oppressive over the length of a novel.

"Liver", subtitled 'a fictional organ with a surface anatomy of four lobes' comprises 4 short stories, loosely held together by the idea of the organ and what it means to us as humans. Of course, this being Will Self, this has a lot to do with spiralling addiction, the abasement of the soul and the dirty underbelly of London.

The first story, "Foie Humain", concerns itself with the revolting, alcoholic inhabitants of the Plantation Club, a private members club in Soho of the eighties. They bicker, abuse each other, abuse new comers and gradually drink themselves to death. This is what Will Self does best- the characters are as close to parody as you can get without becoming farce, but they are a gleefully drawn bunch of grotesques. The story is worth reading for their names alone, 'Her Ladyship', 'The Extra', 'His Nibs' and 'The Martian' and it is laugh out loud funny in parts.

The second, "Leberknodel", is a surprisingly sensitive and thoughtful piece about a terminally ill cancer patient on her way to Switzerland to commit assisted suicide. I had the pleasure of hearing Will Self read an extract from this at a literary festival, so when reading it I could hear every word in his rich and distinctive voice.

The third is a straight retelling of the "Prometheus" myth set in the world of advertising, which is effective, if a little obvious.

The final story, "Birdy Num Num" is about a party of drug users as seen by the HIV virus that passes between them in dirty syringes.

When you pick up a Will Self book you know exactly what you are getting and "Liver" is no exception. There is more imagination and beautiful writing in these short stories than there are in most authors entire catalogue.

And this is where the collection fails as well as succeeds. "Foie Humain" is spoiled by a twist which reveals that the whole story to be nothing more than a clever pun and "Birdy Num Num" is muddled by the multiple layers of reality that Self plays with. It's all very clever, but it doesn't always work as a story. The way in which the Plantation Club weaves through the stories seems, in parts, little more than a trick to link them together, where they could easily have been stand alone.

That said, there are very few novelists who can write as well as Will Self and when it is good, like in "Leberknodel", then this book is stunning. Challenging and full of experimentation, but never less than fun to read.
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