7.2 /10 1 Votes
Language English Media type Print Paperback ISBN 0-7475-1591-3 Originally published 16 September 1993 Preceded by Cock and Bull Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing | 3.6/5 Goodreads Publication date 16 Sep 1993 Pages 309 pp OCLC 62891878 Genre Novel Country United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Will Self books Cock and Bull, Grey Area, The Quantity Theory of, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis, Great Apes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
my idea of fun negamonger
My Idea of Fun is the second novel by Will Self, and was published in 1993.
Contents
Plot summary
A lonely boy grows up just outside Brighton in a caravan park with his over-sexual mother and the tenant Mr Broadhurst who takes the boy on a disturbing and often violent journey.
The novel works as a strange Bildungsroman, in which the main character - Ian Wharton learns the art of black magic from his benefactor Mr. Broadhurst who is also known as The Fat Controller. At The Fat Controller's behest Ian engages in a series of strange acts including time travel and trips to an alternate reality - the Land of Children's jokes: a grotesque alternate universe inhabited by the menacing and deformed characters from jokes. The protagonist's education culminates in bizarre rites of bestiality and necrophilia. However he finds that in exchange for knowledge of the black arts Mr. Broadhurst begins to take over more and more aspects of the protagonist's life.
The novel could also be seen as an example of an unreliable narrator as it is unclear whether the strange events in the novel are meant to be real or hallucinatory.
Reviews
"No one else I can think of writes about contemporary Britain with such elan, energy and witty intelligence. Rejoice."