The Quantity Theory of Insanity

Rating:
Summary: Absurd and thought-provoking
Review: Will Self takes a handful of half-cocked insights - the type that flit through your head while brushing your teeth in the morning - and actually develops them into a collection of oddly believable urban myths. Self's sense of humour will pull you along as you jump into his cesspool of strange situations, eccentric associates and theories too bizarre to be dismissed. Frighteningly clever.

Rating:
Summary: Impressive, almost inspiring
Review: Will Self's 'The Quantity Theory of Insanity' overflows with (unsurprisingly) dark humor mixed with academic flair. The stories often seem to lack a clear and definitive finishing point, as if one is reading a manuscript of a story half-written. This, of course, may be a purposeful attempt; that by not offering conclusion, Will Self is in essense prodding the reader into personal deliberation over the concepts presented. Unfortunately, if this be the case, these same concepts have seen so much activity in modern psychology that for the author to not thoroughly conclude his own insights leads one not into pondering personal beliefs in the matter, but what the author might have been trying to convey. A fruitless task as Self, undoubtedly, tries to be as enigmatic as possible.

Luckily Self's mastery of language and metaphor, even during points where one might feel unsatisfied with the content, makes this book hard to put down. He easily achieves the daunting task of having a work sopping with verbose floridity while still being both easily readable and completely coherent. The development of his characters and concepts is quite clear and clean, an intimidating feat while having to develop both observations as well as descent into 'madness' on the same pages. Self is able to portray lunacy with impecable flair, often times the feeling of madness transposing itself from prose to reader with every turn of the page.

'The Quantity Theory of Insanity' should be read for it's unequaled portrayals of the subject matter as well as the interesting, albeit fragmentary, social commentary. Positions and answers however, should not be sought here.

Rating:
Summary: Impressive, almost inspiring
Review: Will Self's 'The Quantity Theory of Insanity' overflows with (unsurprisingly) dark humor mixed with academic flair. The stories often seem to lack a clear and definitive finishing point, as if one is reading a manuscript of a story half-written. This, of course, may be a purposeful attempt; that by not offering conclusion, Will Self is in essense prodding the reader into personal deliberation over the concepts presented. Unfortunately, if this be the case, these same concepts have seen so much activity in modern psychology that for the author to not thoroughly conclude his own insights leads one not into pondering personal beliefs in the matter, but what the author might have been trying to convey. A fruitless task as Self, undoubtedly, tries to be as enigmatic as possible.

Luckily Self's mastery of language and metaphor, even during points where one might feel unsatisfied with the content, makes this book hard to put down. He easily achieves the daunting task of having a work sopping with verbose floridity while still being both easily readable and completely coherent. The development of his characters and concepts is quite clear and clean, an intimidating feat while having to develop both observations as well as descent into 'madness' on the same pages. Self is able to portray lunacy with impecable flair, often times the feeling of madness transposing itself from prose to reader with every turn of the page.

'The Quantity Theory of Insanity' should be read for it's unequaled portrayals of the subject matter as well as the interesting, albeit fragmentary, social commentary. Positions and answers however, should not be sought here.

Rating:
Summary: Meretricious
Review: Will Self's book 'The Quantity Theory of insanity' is a frightening leap into the bizarre. He takes mundane, ordinary situations from suburban life and in his uniquely pleonastic way subverts them. Quantity Theory is less mature than some of his later books, and some of the short stories come across as overly contrived. He also suffers from a journalistic pedigree, he is more interested with style and form, than plot; and his content tends to be intellectual puzzles and mind-games, which though frequently amusing, are often insubstantial.