Structurally, this is a novel preceded and followed by novellas, seemingly unrelated, though there are a few scattered allusions in the last two to the events described in the first work. The main novel describes a surreal walk through Los Angeles by a superhero detective attempting to discover the identity of the individual who murdered the movies, whilst occasionally dropping in on the set of a movie being made about his walk. The first novella describes in sarcastic detail the pretentions of the art world as the narrator follows around a boyhood pal, a dwarf who globetrots the world constructing installations which are giant images of himself. The final novella narrates the findings of a sufferer from dementia as he walks an English coastline pitched somewhere between surrealism and minimalism. Yes, blurbers, the author is witty and erudite--I might have appreciated the erudition more if he hadn't sent me to the dictionary multiple times per page-- but , too long by half, this book is more to be appreciated than enjoyed. I never looked forward to my time with it. ( )

Friday evening, it was thought, however erroneously, that a viewing of Sofia Coppola's film Somewhere would be of benefit as I was completing Will Self's fictional memoir. Despite the centrality of the Chateau Marmont to both narratives, Coppola's effort appeared by the numbers, numbing and a waste of time for everyone involved. Nothing could be more removed from the gripping prowess of Self's triptych. ( )

I picked this up because it is illustrated, and I'm trying to read all contemporary fiction that uses images. So my comments here have to do with that; I have something to say about the prose at the end.

In a book of fiction (well, experimental writing that combines journalism with bits of the novel, the memoir, and the travel account) the first image is always an unexpected guest. Here the first chapter opens with a description of a "dew pond" (not sure what that is, but never mind):

"A single cramped ash was reflected in the gunmetal disc of water, a disc that was ringed with pocked earth and cupped in a fold of cropped turf."

Seven pages later comes the first image in the book, which is unmistakably that "dew pond." So it's reasonable to assume that a reasonably interested reader will turn back seven pages to compare the description: and it fits. A next question might then be: why is the image on page 10, given that in the intervening pages the narrator has been remembering other times and places? The book opens with Self's friend, an artist supposedly called Sherman Oaks (modeled, I think, on a combination of Anthony Gormley and Corban Walker), ranting at the edge of the "dew pond." In the next few pages, before the first image appears, Self recalls other meetings with Oaks. The line on the bottom of page 9, just before the image, is:

"Then, in the late 1980s, there began the inexorable rise of Sherman Oaks, the artist."

Turning the page, we're brought back to the "dew pond" and the book's opening: but the prose seems not to notice, because it continues with memories of Oaks.

I do not propose this as a criticism: I mean that this is the kind of calibration that has to accompany any reading that is attentive to images. The detail with which the author describes the image and its placement in the text are the rules of a game of word and image that a reader might expect will continue through the book. But the next two images, the book's second and third, work entirely differently. They are on p. 24 (that is, a long way into the narrative), and they are snapshots of sheep and of a street stall offering handbags. Neither one connects securely to the prose in which they float. I can connect them -- I can guess -- but clearly these images are being used differently, with less care, as generic markers of places Self has been.

And so it continues. The photos in this book are almost all indifferent, uninteresting, uncomposed, and that's fine: it's clearly intentional. But it becomes clear that Self's interest in linking his images to his text is uneven, intermittent, uncommitted, disengaged. Sometimes the images are referred to in the text, but even then the references in the text rarely make me look at the image for more than a millisecond (as I did with the opening photograph). Self explains his Barbour jacket at length, making it an emblem of his OCD and his travel anxieties (p. 34): but when we see it, it's just been thrown into a corner of a toilet stall, and none of the details he describes are visible. That photograph (p. 37) is actually a good exemplar of his idea of images: the photo also features his bare knee, because, as the text informs us, he's sitting on the toilet. That's actually an interesting thing to be showing readers, but again nothing is made of it.

I think the book is non-visual, because it just isn't engaged, one way or the other, with its images. I can only imagine snapshots are mnemonics for Self, but why does he think readers don't need to be informed about how he thinks about images? Is an image such an intractable thing that its uses can't be addressed? Or such a non-verbal thing that it doesn't need to be integrated into a narrative? Or such a self-explanatory thing that it doesn't need explanation? Or such an uninteresting thing that it can't be dissected?

And why doesn't it matter that the low-grade loneliness of the images contrasts incomprehensibly with the effervescent and fiercely social autobiography?

--

A small note about the text. I couldn't finish this book. Self's style, to me, is a kind of incessant struggle for quirky cleverness. Every sentence is tweaked and twisted so it uses English in a slightly striking way. For what kind of reader is this entertaining? I suppose for a reader who needs a continuous series of faint jolts of interest to remain engaged. For me, it's a kind of hypertrophy of the English newspaper habit that requires every headline, even on serious events, to be some sort of clever pun. That's always driven me batty. What does it accomplish? It isn't a satire of world events: it's just an unending registering of the journalist's snide wit, which sprays itself over everything from gossip reporting to war. On p. 44 Self proposes a succinct self-criticism (as a "micro-critic"): it's an affecting moment. He has all sorts of interesting qualities, but the volume of wit is turned up too high for me. ( )

Three somewhat connected stories about different mental ailments of the narrator. I found the first story alright. The second story horrible and a struggle to get through. The final story, about a man with Altheimers on a walking tour of an eroding shoreline was good, but not quite good enough to override the utter torture of the second story - the book's title story. I couldn't follow it, didn't really care if I could anyway.

I'll give Self one more try when I read Great Apes. But I'm not holding up the highest of hopes. ( )

'Walking To Hollywood' (WTH) surprised me. I am a fan of Will Self, although more of his short stories - so far I had only read one novel, 'The Book Of Dave', which I loved. Technically, WTH is a collection of three stories, although they can be treated as three parts of the same larger novel, each linked to a mental disorder - obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychosis, and Alzheimer's.
Each story has a different feel, all of them being centered on different episodes of the main character's - a writer called Will Self - life. The first features Self's usual cynical humor through his obsessions with scale and particularly with a childhood friend of limited height, the second is a wild and demential psychotic ride through Los Angeles, throwing everything along for the ride, from angry scientologists to a mad Hulk-like rampage through the streets of L.A.
But it's the final story that shines, and it was it that justified the fourth star on my rating. It is a beautifully touching tale of loss - of memory, of identity, of life -, that had me wanting to keep on reading and not leave the book until the very last page. Although the rest of the book was enjoyable, it was not the best I had read of Self - but the last 100 pages compensated for that and are truly Self at its best. ( )