deadmail@burnt.org.uk

So, I'm clearly at least a year behind the time with this one.

But...

I found it superficially amusing but ultimately irritating.

Coupland's arrogance, casting himself as a character in his book (an
arrogant git at that) rather grated.

The numerous pages of kanji. The multiple pages of numbers. The
fragments of code (C++ ???) were all rather unnecessary really.

It would have been a good 300 page novel. He managed to make it reach
many more pages through just inserting tenuously linked material.

I'll buy his next book but... it could have been so much better than it
was.
--
K75RT, K1100LT, ZXR750H1, 5TA.

I know I aint doing much,
doing nothing means a lot to me.

gbzzl

On Sun, 08 Jul 2007 00:12:05 +0100, Champ wrote:

> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 22:20:39 +0100, ogden <ogden@pre.org> wrote:

>
>>On the plus side, just finished Will Self's Book of Dave, one of the
>>best things I've read in years.
>
> I read that a month or two ago, and loved it.

I found it very hard going indeed and expected better, the
dialect/nonsense-language parts were for the most part indecipherable. It
was a a book you just couldn't put down quickly enough. Garbage I thought.

gbzzl

On Sun, 08 Jul 2007 06:31:17 +0000, gbzzl wrote:

> On Sun, 08 Jul 2007 00:12:05 +0100, Champ wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 22:20:39 +0100, ogden <ogden@pre.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>>On the plus side, just finished Will Self's Book of Dave, one of the
>>>best things I've read in years.
>>
>> I read that a month or two ago, and loved it.
>
> I found it very hard going indeed and expected better, the
> dialect/nonsense-language parts were for the most part indecipherable. It
> was a a book you just couldn't put down quickly enough. Garbage I thought.

I'll revise that, but not backtrack on my conclusions, the mockery of the
religious/God-squad, veneration of the motor car/taxi and
apocalyptic/dystopian ideas and so on were amusing but the joke wore thin
pretty soon and the not inconsiderable amount - whole chapters infact, of
inscrutable gibberish spoiled the whole. The mental deterioration of the
main character had shades of Alasdair Grays' Lanark about it.

ogden

gbzzl wrote:
>
> On Sun, 08 Jul 2007 06:31:17 +0000, gbzzl wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 08 Jul 2007 00:12:05 +0100, Champ wrote:
> >
> >> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 22:20:39 +0100, ogden <ogden@pre.org> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>>On the plus side, just finished Will Self's Book of Dave, one of the
> >>>best things I've read in years.
> >>
> >> I read that a month or two ago, and loved it.
> >
> > I found it very hard going indeed and expected better, the
> > dialect/nonsense-language parts were for the most part indecipherable. It
> > was a a book you just couldn't put down quickly enough. Garbage I thought.
>
> I'll revise that, but not backtrack on my conclusions, the mockery of the
> religious/God-squad, veneration of the motor car/taxi and
> apocalyptic/dystopian ideas and so on were amusing but the joke wore thin
> pretty soon and the not inconsiderable amount - whole chapters infact, of
> inscrutable gibberish spoiled the whole. The mental deterioration of the
> main character had shades of Alasdair Grays' Lanark about it.

The entire book was almost a homage to Hoban's Riddley Walker - it's no
coincidence that Self writes the introduction to the latest edition of
RW. The book's strength was the way it moved from future to present, and
each insight into Dave's deterioration made sense of the madness in the
future, was brilliant. Tbh, I didn't quite work out the forbidden zone
until it was all but referred to by name by Dave, but I genuinely
laughed out loud.

--
ogden
sv650 - surprisingly quick for a girl's bike