A review by robertrivasplata
Why Read by Will Self

challenging funny informative medium-paced

3.75

Collection of Will Self Essays from between 2001-2021. The essays about books (reviews & introductions) are the best ones. The Chernobyl essay & Australia speech are pretty good too. A lot of Why Read interacts with Self's public persona & identity as some sort of public intellectual (?) & shit stirrer, a persona which I am almost entirely unfamiliar with. I liked Book of Dave & Tough Tough Toys for Tough Tough Boys, but I can't get over how wild it is that this guy is the sort of celebrity in the UK that gets recognized on the street. I hoped that the one titled “Being a Character” would be about Self's public persona, but no such luck (it was more of a humorous look at how & why readers invest real emotion & thus bring life to the characters that they are reading, which was interesting). I have to admit the fact of Self's celebrity makes me somewhat less interested in reading more of his work. The essays about the future & relevance of the written word in this era of the internet (or “bi-directional digital media”) are kind of repetitive, but “bi-directional digital media” is a decent collective name for “the suite of technologies comprising the wireless-connected computer, handheld or otherwise, the worldwide web, & the internet”. Not sure I buy that it spells the end of long-form literature as we know it, but also not sure that I care. I'll still be reading! Self's complete edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is on display throughout these essays, speeches, &c. The glimpses into Self's development as a writer, such as how he first read Catch-22 solely to analyze how its narrative & humor work for his own use. I also can't hate on his bragging about being close enough to J.G. Ballard that he inherited his typewriter. I'd brag too!