Quantity theory of Insanity

‘The difference between insanity and genius is measured only by success…’
Elliot Carver

Indeed. And it is this success that Will Self craves in furthering shifts and bends into the skulls of his characters in Quantity theory of Insanity; his first collection of short-stories. It’d be better if I review each story so as for clearer reference.

The North London book of the dead begins with the end of a narrator’s mother. She has died and has been buried while he is struggling to come to terms with the loss. He tries to console himself with the notion that she must have gone to a better place or somewhere in that direction. Eight months later, he meets her on the street. She tells him that she lives in North London which is an after-life residence for the dead. Creepy but worth reading.

The second short-story, Ward 9, is longer and more unsettling. Here the narrator, Misha Gurney, comes to work at a hospital’s mental ward as an art-therapist only to find the insanity of the patients and their world infecting him as well. There is soon a completed trinity of sex, drugs and psychiatry which has shocking results.

Understanding the Ur-Bororo is a satirical saga of a complex and driven anthropologist, Janner who tries to make it big by studying one of the most elusive Amazon tribes to have ever existed. The Ur-Bororo tribe whose name translates as ‘The people who you wouldn’t want to be cornered by at a Party’ and indeed you wouldn’t because the only characteristic that this tribe possesses is that they are the most boring people on the planet.

This brings us to the title story, The Quantity theory of Insanity. Here we meet the narrator and the struggle he went through to come to his most ground-breaking theory that the psychiatry academy has ever been subject to. This theory is so self-evident and fundamental that it is laughable. The theory argues that there is only so much sanity going round and that if measures are taken to eradicate insanity in a particular group of people then it is liable to crop up somewhere else. Hilarious to us but the horrid, theoretical world of psychiatry is not so overlooking. The author went to great lengths in trials and research to complete the theory but now it seems that the academia loves the theory too much to let it go. Self satirizes the research and academic industry for failing to come with concrete proofs and always coming up with theories that hold little ground. The demographically learned set is the only set, group, institution or quantity that is really insane.

Mono-cellular is the only story in this collection that I absolutely loathed. I know Self was trying to make a point about the sheer loneliness and delayed train of thought of the character in question but I found it too bloody boring compared to the other stories. In fact, it is one of the worst stories I have ever read.
WARNING: this section of the book was read under the heavy influence of cider.

I was waiting to get out of this thesaurus world of Will Self with its languid yet compelling language. I couldn’t wait. Then there was Waiting, reading which, I have learnt to be a little more patient for the sake of my sanity.

Cock and Bull

Cock-and-bull story [kok-uh n-boo l] an absurd, improbable story presented as the truth.

Cock and Bull by Will Self (Quantity theory of Insanity, Feeding Frenzy, My idea of fun) is an interesting collection of two novellas, Cock: a novelette and Bull: a farce. Each tells a tale of a metamorphosis and each with a Kafkaesque hilarity.

In Cock: a novelette, Carol is married to the pisshead Dan. He does not satisfy her sexually or spiritually because he is too busy drinking out with his pub-buddies. However, the situation, literally, grows worse when Carol discovers that she is growing a tiny penis. She tries to hide it from the world but is soon quite fond of it and ultimately thinks that it might just be the “tool” that she needs in her revenge on Dan…

In Bull: a farce, John Bull, a ‘man’s man’ who plays rugby and is an editor of an entertainment magazine, wakes up one Kafkaesque morning to find a vagina at the back of his knee. He goes to his doctor looking for advice but the doctor, Margoulies, finds the whole thing a medical marvel and his initial awe ends in a doctor-patient relationship that leaves very little to the imagination and as to the allotment of pleasures…

These stories are, of course, satires and only dissect the horrors of these metamorphosed individuals. Will Self not only holds the individual characteristics of both the male and female genitals in brisk and humorous prose, but applies the same for showing the possible reactions of the metamorphosed. These are one of Will Self’s less abstruse works and many will find it a light, interesting read. All I can say is that after putting this aside, a woman will think twice before calling a man ‘a c**k’ and a man will think thrice before calling a woman a ‘c**t’. Which is fine with me.

Feeding Frenzy

‘So I was smacked out on the Prime minister’s jet…big deal.’

Feeding Frenzy is Will Self’s (Cock & Bull, My idea of fun, Quantity theory of insanity) third collection of journalism and showcases the British writer’s various pieces that have appeared in Elle, The Guardian, The Times, Building Design to mention a few.

What struck me the most while reading the collection was that Self is an extension of my-self. I had always wanted to write critical analysis parading as restaurant reviews of such eating establishments such as McDonald’s and Pizza Express. Self beat me to it by a decade. Which is all very good…even if it makes me go green.

This collection has something for everyone. When he is not talking of Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Oscar Wilde, Salman Rushdie and their works…Self is engaged in visiting gay nightclubs for thrills, watching Oasis at Earl’s Court, tripping on acid in a English restaurants, dismantling politicians and their ways, dissecting the idiot-box and the idiots in it…in short everything. His is a pen that mixes the political anger of Thompson with the bohemian understanding of Wilde; the reeling eye of Roger Ebert with the leering ears of Lester Bangs…and the end result is much sharper than a sword.

If you like your reading material to be out of the world and yet right into the core of it then this is the book for you. Although sometimes hard to read because of the cacophony of diverse themes, motifs and linguistic bends; the book will not let you down. It is written in a literary frenzy which could satisfy the appetite of the most voracious of readers.

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