Will Self has one of literature's most astonishing imaginations, and in How the Dead Live his talent has come to full flower. It inspired The Washi...
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Dec 09, 2010
Yumicho
rated it: 
You're always going to have at least an unusual plot line setting or protagonist in a Self novel and this is no exception. You're told the story of Lily Bloom as she sees it in life death and rebirth. I often feel with Will Self that there is something brilliant he is working at but he just misses pulling it off flawlessly. That isn't to say he isn't worth reading. He definitely is and his use of language even when he stumbles a bit is beautiful. I couldn't put out of my mind how much this i
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Jan 22, 2012
Becky
rated it: 
Wow. That was horrible. Visceral, cruel, obnoxious. But somehow utterly compelling, hilarious and life affirming. My previous contact with Will Self was from TV, and I guess I expected something more Amis like, and less enthralling. How the Dead Live is about Lily Bloom - a chronicle of her late life, her death, and her afterlife. Her major accomplishments in a rather average life are her two daughters, who's lives she follows from death as they spiral in and out of control. The story is
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Jan 09, 2011
Cass
rated it: 
I don't know how to feel about this book. Will Self is one of those writers (another is Joyce Carole Oates) whose books I always approach with enthusiasm, but find about half the time I don't necessarily like or enjoy.
I love Self's premises and his ways of making me look at things from 'quirky' angles. I enjoy the way he writes, the way he uses language, and I really enjoyed parts of this book ... but in other parts I felt I had to work to make myself continue. A part of it is that he writ More...
I love Self's premises and his ways of making me look at things from 'quirky' angles. I enjoy the way he writes, the way he uses language, and I really enjoyed parts of this book ... but in other parts I felt I had to work to make myself continue. A part of it is that he writ More...
Dec 09, 2011
Shovelmonkey1
rated it:
I always run at Will Self books a bit like one of those annoying small yappie dogs that bounces up and down like they're on an invisible bit of elastic... well the ones that aren't now ensconced in expensive handbags anyway.
I do this because my brain always tells me that I love Will Self... stupid brain. Why do you always forget? I like the idea of liking Will Self and I generally like most of the premises for his twisted tales (of course there is always the exception to the rule, th More...
I do this because my brain always tells me that I love Will Self... stupid brain. Why do you always forget? I like the idea of liking Will Self and I generally like most of the premises for his twisted tales (of course there is always the exception to the rule, th More...
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Sep 28, 2011
Nate
rated it:
A vast ichor-black death exhalation across the latter 20th century. Self's patter, his puns and asides and alliteration and word transformations and endless allusions to everything from lit to pop songs, sets up a deceptive burble behind which his unyielding cynicism dances. In fact though, moreso than the Dantean story of the dull disappointment of life bleeding into the dull disappointment of death (and beyond all locked in an endless cycle of drudge, it seems), this patter, this banter, seems
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Sep 04, 2011
Victoria
rated it:
Wow! I had never read Will Self before and this was certainly a mammoth of an induction! This book should come with a warning - "Not for the faint hearted". There are some gruesome concepts to grapple with and some very direct language, which won't be to everyone's taste, but I found I liked the bravery of this novel and the creativity blew me away. I'd been getting slightly bored with some of the predictable plots and writing of the books I've been reading recently, but this one
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Aug 15, 2008
Christina Stind
rated it:
Well... I'm not quite sure what to say about this book. I bought it several years ago but didn't get around to reading it before now. It's my first Will Self book. I must say that during some parts of the book, I didn't feel like I quite got it.
The story is about the life, death and especially after-life of one Lily Bloom, a not to nice elderly woman who after having succumbed to cancer, experiences afterlife - which takes place in a London suburb. Death seems like being very like life - e More...
The story is about the life, death and especially after-life of one Lily Bloom, a not to nice elderly woman who after having succumbed to cancer, experiences afterlife - which takes place in a London suburb. Death seems like being very like life - e More...
Jul 27, 2011
Fun but limited. Heavily influenced by the Jewish-American novel al la Roth and Bellow, Martin Amis and especially Lanark by Alisdair Gray, the book has it's moments but it's a bit one dimensional. Will Self can't seem to write in anything other than a snearing tone, which is a problem Amis shares. They are both clever and write good prose, but neither of them are able to leaven their cynicism with the beauty or openess of the likes of Roth or Updike.
Jun 18, 2011
Sarah
rated it:
This is the best WS novel (I did NOT like "Great Apes", for the record). He has a lavish and polished writing style, the pace and deep tone of this book are irresistable. It has been 5 years since I read this book and the imagery still floats in my mind.
It is a novel that blends the worlds of the living and the dead - in a way that I had never experienced before in book or film. Follows "Lily Blooms'" afterlife after she dies from cancer.
It is a novel that blends the worlds of the living and the dead - in a way that I had never experienced before in book or film. Follows "Lily Blooms'" afterlife after she dies from cancer.
Apr 27, 2011
Bob
rated it:
A rather jaundiced world-view, which one suspects is the author's, but expressed by a cynically vulgar and amusingly angry part-Jewish American woman, born in the 1930s or so, who lives the latter part of her life in London, married and raising two impossible daughters (one a smug yuppie, the other a junkie), then dies of cancer there, and finds the afterlife consists of a shadowy and more threadbare version of the life she's already been living for two decades, albeit with an Australian aborigi
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Aug 29, 2010
Sarah
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Dec 22, 2011
Gareth
rated it:
Eerily accurate. I grew up just down the road from Crouch End, and can confirm that now the Oxfam shops are selectively stocked and every pub has pork belly on the menu, it is indeed choc-full of the living dead.
Jul 06, 2010
MacDara
rated it: 
I thought they were kidding, but you really do need a thesaurus to read Will Self's writing. There's a great story in here somewhere, but it's lost amid his self-conscious effort to show you just how smart he is.
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Dec 22, 2011
Phase Reading
rated it: 
Such a disappointment. This had potential to be so much more. The overuse of literary devices absolutely killed this book. I skimmed most of it. There was no plot, the characters were toxic and there was a relentlessly punishing stream of conscience which caused me a great deal of discomfort. What a waste of time.
Feb 09, 2009
Sashka
rated it:
Better than Nabokov! What awesome language, and so well researched. Thoroughly cynical and entertaining. I'd read all of Will Self's other books. I don't care how trendy this shit is.
Feb 23, 2009
Nuphile
rated it:
Not a very uplifting story, and doesn't have the same rye humor that Self usually has. But still. and interesting exploration of death and the after life in a modern imagining.
Jan 31, 2009
Lynn
rated it:
Even now I am struggling to clarify my thoughts on this book.
Yes... Lily Bloom is a very unpleasant, unlikeable protagonist. Yes... the vision that Self creates of the afterlife is more horrific (to me) than anything Dante threw together - I'd rather suffer being prodded by demons than the unrelenting banality of the world he describes (and as for the thought of the weight I've gained and lost over the years coming back to haunt me..!!!!).
I didn't really LIKE this book... More...
Yes... Lily Bloom is a very unpleasant, unlikeable protagonist. Yes... the vision that Self creates of the afterlife is more horrific (to me) than anything Dante threw together - I'd rather suffer being prodded by demons than the unrelenting banality of the world he describes (and as for the thought of the weight I've gained and lost over the years coming back to haunt me..!!!!).
I didn't really LIKE this book... More...
Sep 19, 2010
I'm reading this, I'm nearly finished with the section in which Lily is describing her own death from cancer, and I'm wondering what kind of old woman I'll be. Will I be a tragic figure, having lived a life alone and slowly watched all of my hopes and dreams waste away? That may be my greatest fear. Even scarier than sharks.
"After all of these years of being assured of my own loneliness, at last I know what it's like to be by myself."
7/6 I will pick this up agai More...
"After all of these years of being assured of my own loneliness, at last I know what it's like to be by myself."
7/6 I will pick this up agai More...
Apr 25, 2011
Joyce
rated it:
worth it just for the chapter title 'The North London Book of the Dead'.
Jan 19, 2011
Tuck
rated it:
recommended by a real scotsman!
if will self wrote a blockbuster like john grisham, some sort if insipid, edge of your seat court room morality play (who SAID usa diplomats can't be torturers too and who SAID usaid was there to only hand out sacks of corn and abstinence tracts?) the dead would always win, everybody would need a pocket dictionary and publishers would have grown some sort or warty integrity growth somewhere embarrassing. that said, Will Self probably won't be churning the bloc More...
if will self wrote a blockbuster like john grisham, some sort if insipid, edge of your seat court room morality play (who SAID usa diplomats can't be torturers too and who SAID usaid was there to only hand out sacks of corn and abstinence tracts?) the dead would always win, everybody would need a pocket dictionary and publishers would have grown some sort or warty integrity growth somewhere embarrassing. that said, Will Self probably won't be churning the bloc More...
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Sep 24, 2009
Don
rated it:
Self transferring his grumpy old man persona to a grumpy old woman ghost. Clever, clever stuff, but reading it was like being caught in a whirlpool taking you down the plughole....
Nov 19, 2007
Anna
rated it:
another $1 find at the strand - i read the blurb, decided it was worth a try, and then discovered that on the inside cover there was a map, a map primarily displaying the UK, but had a little inset of the US. three places on the US were highlighted: manhattan, vermont, and madison, wisconsin. WEIRD!!! (the vermont being weird for walmartopia reasons; the other two should be apparent.) thus far, i like it.
update: i kind of gave up on this book.
update: i kind of gave up on this book.
Dec 17, 2009
R.
rated it:
The fucked up thing is, I read this book about one woman's travels through the afterlife (which ends up being nothing more than a parallel universe London) approx. one day before my mom had her heart attack. Minus one star because Self was kind of sloppy in his writing of certain passages.
It was a gift from Melanie, given to me approx. a year earlier, while I was sick. To cheer me up.
It was a gift from Melanie, given to me approx. a year earlier, while I was sick. To cheer me up.
Dec 15, 2011
Adrienne
rated it:
I put it down, I confess. It's got great writing and an interesting premise, but so often I was confused that I didn't want to keep reading. Maybe one day I'll go back and give it another chance.
Jan 09, 2011
Steffi
rated it:
I gave up. I read the prologue and the first chapter and decided to put it away. Initially I liked the idea behind the story but reading it put me in such a bad mood that I can't go on.
I am sure Self's writing is different and good but all this death and dying stuff is too much for me to handle right now.
I am sure Self's writing is different and good but all this death and dying stuff is too much for me to handle right now.
Aug 23, 2008
Emma
rated it:
A reawakening to all that great literature has to offer. I laughed, I marvelled, and cried. It was surprisingly touching, almost heartbreaking in parts, and wise. And all the while encompassing a depth, breadth and richness of language you rarely meet these days.
