Self Respect

If you search for information about novelist/journalist/commentator/grumpy old man Will Self on the internet then you get some surprising results, very many of them relating to bomb-making equipment of one sort or another. That is not because the man of letters is a part-time terrorist, but it's due to the many ways in which his name can appear in sentences like, "the device WILL SELF destruct within five seconds....". How would I describe Will? Words like 'cynical', 'sardonic', 'intense', 'intellectual', 'biting', 'satirical', 'witty', 'cruel', 'brutal', 'absurdist', 'generous', 'fascinating' are the kind of words which define his parameters. His work can be uncomfortable and difficult and at times completely nonsensical. He says of himself, "I want to be misunderstood. And the other thing that amuses me is: I don't particularly want to be liked. Nobody goes into the business of writing satire to be liked. Whether I am or am not a nice bloke is neither here nor there. It's not part of the task I've set myself in my art." The thing is that when he is funny, he is very very funny. I've read a number of his books and I think the place to start for new readers is with a collection of journalism "Feeding Frenzy", which at least nominally mainly consists of restaurant reviews. It is simply astounding how he subverts the basic template of food reviewing to cast his baleful eye over every area of existence. And he's presciently penetrating (or should that be penetratingly prescient). Here he is in 1995 when our Tone was still the leader of the opposition, I'll give Tony Blair a 'sound bite'. I'll run right across the floor of the House of Commons, sideswipe the Master of Arms, and take a bit out of one of his copious ears; then we'll hear the Leader of the Labour Party really sound off. Because I think that's what it'll take to get an authentic noise out of this poetaster of the glib, this walking autocue in a sensible suit.......such is the vacuousness of his projected image that I've had to take a series of biopsies on what-he-is-not, to definitely establish why it is that he gets right up my nose. Occasionally he actually writes about the food, and he does so with a positive relish, a vivid style which makes you wish you were there with him. Here he is in one of the larger London Chinatown restaurants, You can go for a traditional Peking Duck with pancakes, plum sauce and the trimmings, but I usually give myself a masticatory work-out by opting for duck and roast pork with rice. The duck jointed in that way invariably provides interesting gnawing, and the rice is so glutinous that even the most cack-handed can shovel it up with the sticks. If you're in a more adventurous mood, the mixed meats with rice comes with odd little nodules and curlicues of unidentifiable animal protein that tease with their incognito. This is the place to come if you want an interesting mix of off-the-wall food reviews sprinkled with generous helpings of savage satire.