Obliteration of the Self
Will Self’s column about Adrian Chiles is a sad ejaculation from a largely impotent c*ck…
Previously:
This edition was written horizontal and on a phone; typos are, therefore, a political act, an artistic choice, and a material reality…
The skeleton rattles around; it flails and wails and complains that the novel is dead because no one wants to read its novels anymore. So it is that the skeleton strides over to The New European where they treat him like the Bone King. And they let him write 20,000 words for an article that swallows up a whole edition. And they act as though his words will always be gold ingots dropped from his sad wizened arsehole.
The skeleton is Will Self. I used to admire that skeleton; the skeleton was ejected from the election press pack in 1997 when Self was caught smoking heroin on John Major’s plane. I was 13 when that happened. It seemed funny when I didn’t know so much about addiction, its acrid present, and its toxic aftermath.
Will Self is an idiot’s idea of a great writer. I used to be that idiot in my early twenties. His collected non-fiction is entertaining; a number of his earlier novels and short stories are striking pieces of work. But Will Self is an act and that act has got boring; the skeleton needs an exorcism or a hammer to send its haunted bones flying. The skeleton rattles every louder for attention and that leads to this…
I did vaguely know [Adrian Chiles] was in a relationship with Kath Viner, the editor of the Guardian, because I’d read a couple of columns he’d written for the paper that were such utter flim-flam (Wilde described wit as “the epitaph of an emotion”, and by extension, Chiles’s efforts are the epitaph of cogitation), that their presence in the paper was only explicable if his cock were in some way involved. Clearly, Ms Viner – if we accept the idea that she’s an even halfway decent newspaper editor – must be blinded by Chiles’s cock to at least this extent. Adrian Chiles’ latest column is a heartfelt piece about ADHD and the myths around it. Self’s latest is a misogynist screed about a woman being so dickblind that she gives her husband a column in the newspaper she edits; it’s a ‘theory’ (that’s a big word for shock tactics from a hasbeen) that ignores that Chiles was famous before he got the column and met Viner because of it rather than getting the gig because of his relationship with her.
It also ignores the fact that Viner is the editor of a major national newspaper and that she doesn’t directly run the section in which Chiles’ column appears. Worst of all though, it dismisses the fact that we are in 2023 and a wife and a husband can have different views on the world, and are not generally responsible for what the other says or does.
I emailed Matt Kelly, editor-in-chief of The New European — for whom I have previously done some work — and he essentially told me that the column was meant to be offensive and seemed confused as to why I have a problem. I hope this edition makes it clear:
The skeleton is an embarrassment and his column smears The New European’s commendable record on commissioning diversely with shabby stains, the sort best revealed by a black light.
Self could have — were he not so ludicrously-indulged — critiqued Chiles and the fact that his wife edits the paper he writes for without turning to a frankly juvenile sexist rant about a cock blinding a professional journalist who got her job as editor after years on the paper.
Since Will Self is speculating about other people’s genitals let me say this: There is a useless flap of skin and there is a cock — the former is the majority of Will Self, the latter is his penis: the only honest part of a smug, self-satisfied skeleton whose treatment of his ex-wife Deborah Orr — as she was dying — should be the British press equivalent of the stink that surrounds Chris Brown.
Will Self is treated as a guru when, if he were perched at the end of the bar in some indifferent local pub, he would be seen for exactly what he is: a reactionary bore with a dictionary fetish and endless rage that his genius is insufficiently recognised. Fuck Will Self and all those who sail in him.
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Well said. I too used to admire his prose, his take on bourgeois culture, his wit. But it all became empty words, and the empty words of a spent force always end up embarrassing, then offensive, then just pathetic.
Yeah, sad to say, I also liked him when I was in my 20s. I was a dick.