Elaine

A woman who cannot, or will not, accept the conditions of her servitude naturally and gracefully, deserves what has happened to me. Entry from Elaine’s diary, February, 1956 The publisher’s blurb describes Will Self’s Elaine as “Perhaps the first work of auto-oedipal fiction” as it is a heavily novel......more

Elaine is Self’s return to fiction following the career-pinnacle modernist trilogy Umbrella, Shark, and Phone, and continues the turn inward taken in his novelistic memoir Will. Having lamented the death of the novel on previous occasions and the relegation of reading to niche pursuit status à la pl......more

via my blog: [URL not allowed] "𝙎𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧, 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙗𝙚 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙮 𝙚𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙡𝙤𝙥𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧-𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙗𝙚 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘐'𝘮 𝘐𝘯. " Elaine was published in September, I did read it months prior to its release date but my life, as I keep stating, has been hectic lately......more

It's a joy to read a novel by a writer who pays as much attention to language as Will Self. This is a disturbing book. I kept thinking what I would think of it if I hadn't known it's the product of Self's interpretation and retelling of what he found in his late mother's diaries. When he writes that......more

In some ways this is a companion to WS's earlier novel How the Dead Live - another story of death-in-life as it affects a woman not unlike his late Mother. Only this time, no phantasmagoria is needed - getting through the day is more than enough. As in his memoir Self, the main character's thoughts a......more