Customer Reviews

Grey Area

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'Grey area', Will Self's second collection of short stories follow in the same tradition as his first - 'The Quantity Theory of Insanity'. Self seems to conjour up bizarre conceits, then writes them out. Overall the quality of the stories is strong, if a little mixed. Most of the stories are set around London and the M40 corridor to Oxford, the motorway acting as a surreal form of creative lodestone which exerts its influence over the stories within.

My favourites were 'Chest' a satire set in a futuristic Oxfordshire where ingrained class distinctions stubbornly prevail even though a thick, toxic fog blankets the landscape so country squires have to breathe through oxygen masks while they shoot pheasants; 'Scale' which riffs through all the myriad definitions of 'scale' in the dictionary through the eyes of a motorway worshipping morphine addict who dwells in Beaconsfield model village (hard to see how this one could translate into other languages) and 'The End of the Relationship', about a girl who is dumped by her boyfriend and subsequently finds that everyone she encounters that day is also suffering from a breakup.

Self is one of the most talented British contemporary writers and enjoys this celebrity for good reason. He writes Grey Area in an overwhelmingly cryptic tone saturated with insight in both human nature and the nature of our own surroundings in a surreal world. His observations are scientific anthropological jewels, while his writing mechanics are those of an artist. Grey Area is a book I'd recommend to not only the fan of British literature, short story format, or imaginative writing, but to the most hard - nosed non - reader

"Grey Area" is more impressive in scope and scabs than in realization. The linguistic sciolism (vituperative of me to say), the skittery plotlines, the curvy roads, the meaty chunks, flesh against my teeth, yes yes, miasma well-placed, and fluid-filled lungs remind me; "Inclusion" includes a tying of loose ends, and "The End of the Relationship" so entirely different - its (seeming) placidity rents it from the guttural slavering and pedestrian contempts of the rest. The cruelty here is even more pronounced due to its nuance and understated enunciation. There are throughout brilliant moments, but the stories often left me feeling circumspect - as though i had witnessed and was almost taken in by some elaborate legerdemain. There is an air of flippancy that detracts from the disturbing characterizations and dim, dystopian landscapes. The chthonic sturm und drang unravels a heavy damp sweater only to leave us with a string between forefinger and thumb. And still, worth the read: for the intestinal aspirations, for the restive mind at work.