Reviews

The Butt: A Novel by Will Self

breadandmushrooms's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

jeffrossbooks's review against another edition

5.0

Self's use of language is enough to propel this book to five stars. But the story, the psychology, the characters, the metaphors.... He's always been a step ahead.

bettyvd's review against another edition

3.0

Dit is het tweede boek van Will Self dat ik las, na 'The book of Dave'. Het verhaal begint prozaisch genoeg: een man begaat op vakantie een, in zijn ogen, kleine overtreding en wordt door de lokale autoriteiten van een misdaad beschuldigd. 'Trouble on the way' denk je dan. En ja hoor, de hoofdfiguur mag zich dan nog in alle bochten wringen, hij hangt. Hoe, dat moet je maar zelf lezen, want dit is geen slecht boek!

Will Self lijkt een fascinatie te hebben voor 'culturen' en verkent dit thema hier opnieuw door ons mee te nemen naar de inheemse stammen van een onbekend land. Hij doet ons opnieuw huiveren voor de bevreemding die we voelen als we op onbekend menselijk terrein terecht komen. En ook hier is de mentale ontsporing dreigend aanwezig.

Goed dus, maar 'weird'...

chrissireads's review against another edition

This book both confused and bored me slightly. It follows the story of Tom Brodzinski, who when deciding to give up smoking he throws his cigarette butt over the balcony, hitting and injuring a local man. The start was promising, easy to read, interesting and great scope for a good story exploring the country and customs. But then, I felt it didn't amount to much and as a result I started to skim read and lost my way with it. I recall a very long road trip and Tom having some sort of surgery, but I'm afraid to say, it just wasn't a compelling read for me.

mazza57's review against another edition

2.0

started off ok but not one of his best

feimineach's review against another edition

1.0

I've had to give up on yet another Self book. Self used to be one of my favourite authors, by far, but he's disappointed me greatly recently. He is no longer capturing the depth of character and experience that he did in, for example, the Book of Dave and How the Dead Live.

Now, I feel myself bored with both his characters and prose very quickly. I'm going to give Self a miss for a while to see if he regains form.

redjanet17's review against another edition

2.0

I really did not like this book. I thought the premise of a flipped cigarette butt, an intentional last smoke, causing an accident leading to a political situation was funny, but overall I just found the whole story and the characters to be emotionally lacking and generally ugly and mean. I read through to the end to see how the story would be resolved, but this doesn't inspire me to read more by the author, which is a shame as I generally like his television and general media presence.

melissamilazzo's review against another edition

4.0

Very interesting and thought provoking. I'm putting Will Self up in the class of J.G. Ballard for social commentary and Kafka for Byzantine levels of weirdness.