Self expression‏

First off, a message to my vast army of followers. So, you are looking forward to my next post. The expectation of others is a heavy burden to bear. I mean, what if I fail to deliver and the result is disappointment (for a child to be told by a parent that they are disappointed in them cuts more deeply than all the anger in the world. Disappointment hurts) isn't it lucky that I don't care - I write this for me - for the act of writing to improve my ability to string sentences together in a mostly coherent fashion and to form some kind of narrative. Also, as at the present time my list of followers is precisely 1, it's not like I have the masses to consider, but according to the site statistics, which I think I have just about managed to decipher, there are a few more strung across the globe that have chanced upon my ramblings - please make yourself known. I won't think any the less of you.  

Right then, on to the business in hand. For starters that title could probably do with some explaining. It's not about me, rather the eternally pessimistic wordsmith Will Self. OK so it's nothing more than a bad pun, but an improvement on my first thought: "I want to be Will Self". Let's get this straight from the get-go, I don't want to be him, as in to live his life and all that entails, although I would be the first to admit that it might be interesting, entertaining even, in a "Being John Malkovich" kind of way. Maybe I should have retitled this piece, I envy Will Self's writing ability, but that, let's face it is a crap title and self explanatory (pun intended - and there's more on the way) enough as not to warrant all this waffle to justify and clarify it. And besides there are more plays on his name - maybe Self Improvement would be more apt? What about Self Help? I'd better move on before I think of any more. 

One evening a few weeks ago, on my way home from work, I was reading a free paper (one of many discarded by previous incumbents of that tube carriage) and having digested the article that had piqued my curiosity (namely Michael Gambon's return to the London stage following a mystery illness) I hunted around for something of sufficient length for the remainder of my journey. It was Self's visage staring forlornly up at me (he may have been smiling, but he always manages to have about him a forlorn air) that caught my eye. Any how, he has another book out, and being a writer, it's kind of what you expect of him. Now, here is a good time to point out that I had but some short while ago exited a branch of Waterstones, the possessor or the latest Terry Pratchett novel (having devoured everything he has written, apart from perhaps the odd shopping list or diary entry it seems, I have to buy them in hardback now as I can't wait till they arrive in paperback, and despite them being a pain to read on the train or bus, they do look nice on my bookshelves), so I wasn't looking for anything else to read, but Self has such a way with words (again not too high an expectation given his chosen profession) that I couldn't resist a peek at this review. I still have no idea what the book is about, nor the others of his I have read in the past but the way he, as the reviewer puts it "switch[es] from exploring the obscurest parts of the OED to wondering about "the sigmoidal flexure" of Tom Cruise's manhood" makes it hard to tear ones self away.

It was not until later in the evening when taking the dog for a walk that I wished I was endowed with his literary prowess. Only a few hundred yards from home we (the dog and I) chanced upon a fox. Not the scabby urban fox that seems to plague readers of the Daily Mail. This was a sleek and definitely most fox-like of foxes, who was not fazed by us, not even the straining, bouncing bundle of 8 month old Staff puppy, who was very pleased to see the fox and wanted to play. Fox was not so sure. Emboldened I am sure by the fact that the dog was on a lead it ventured closer. After a standoff that seemed to go on forever, but which in reality was merely a couple of seconds, I turned and headed for home, mad mutt in tow. A little further on, something, I know not what, prompted me to pause and turn round. There, sure enough about 20 paces behind, was the fox. As I turned to look it sat down and began to look nonchalantly around as if feigning innocence. On we walked. Again a little later the same routine was played out. This fox weren't no quitter, he followed at a respectful distance right up until a youngish couple coming the other way saw him. She screamed, he shouted and foxy bolted. Shame, would have liked a fox. It was then I got to thinking about how much better than I, Will Self would have described the encounter (remember that far back?) What archaic and mothballed vocabulary would he have pressed into service alongside erudite musings and profanites capable of making a squaddie blush? but then I turned the corner and was home again, I put the kettle on, and a few minutes later, tea in hand, went to sit down and picked up my most recent purchase, opened it and began to read. All thoughts of Will Self vanished as I returned happily to the Discworld once more.

The moral of this tale dear reader, if there is one (both moral and reader in this case) is that we feel that we ought to buy the high brow novel and improve ourselves, but end up with the familiar pulp fiction that we feel safe and at home with.  I may yearn after the writings of Mr Self, but it was Sir Terry's book that I bought. That is not to say that Pratchett is in any way trashy, but that I know if I were to buy the other book, it would sit on the shelf for ages and when I did get round to reading it I would not enjoy it as much as the other. I read primarily for pleasure (after years in education reading all manner of stuff because I had to rather than wanted to) and while I do like to seek out new authors that will take me on journeys or literary discovery, it's like saying that you can only go on holiday to places you haven't been to before. That's plain daft.  

This kind of thing or rather the reverse happens a lot. What I mean by that is that from time to time there is a book that sits atop the bestsellers list or is recommended by the well know literary scholars Madley and Finnegan, that the populous in their masses tear from the shelves of booksellers and supermarkets alike. Only to end up untouched and dusty at a car boot sale a few months later alongside numerous celebrity autobiographies.

The DaVinci code being another case in point. Without wishing to take anything away from its obvious merits, a sizeable number of its readership came to it from the cinema adaptation. Now, as a die hard Bond fan, I found at an early age that the novel and the film were two entirely different creatures. In some ways this affords you the opportunity to have your cake and eat it (ignore the mention of cake and press on) although there have been a few of the books that I would love to have been filmed as they appeared on the page, but thankfully there are several that are close enough in my opinion, if not to the text, but to the spirit of Fleming's original to placate me. On the other hand, we have Stephen King's the Shining, another favourite of mine, as is Kubric's film. Again, both very different, yet both excellent. The iconic scene where Jack Nicholson splinters the door with an axe is everything it needed to be, whereas the book has John Torrence smashing the door with a polo mallet. The description of each blow leapt off the page and has stayed with me, but it is not right for cinema (I did once catch a more recent made-for-TV adaptation which reinstated the mallet - gimme the axe any day).  An author can take pages to describe something which appears on screen for mere seconds, yet there have not been many good written car chases, the only one that springs to mind is from Ian Flemming's Moonraker.


The eternal adolescent within me, has not let me forget that if I were to dislike the aforementioned Will, and embark on a rant full of scorn and disapproval, it may well have been viewed as Self abuse or perhaps I would be full of Self loathing.

If there is anyone out there reading this, I welcome your comments, feel free to criticise just so long as it is constructive.


I'm not sure where I was going with this piece, but I have ended up here. There was no purpose or agenda other than a number of thoughts were firing across my synapses and I committed them for posterity for what it is worth. I'm not sure that all of them are even fully formed or reach any kind of conclusion, but so be it.

I am now all out of ideas for the time being... I'm going back to doing what I do best - pictures... this writing malarky is not as easy as some make it look and its a long time since I last did this to any degree. Maybe one day I will write something that is fully thought out and considered, that has a beginning a middle and an end – possibly even in that order, that does not digress or wander and doesn't use ten words where one will do. Maybe, but somehow I think that day is quite a way off.