⇒ Download The Book of Dave A Novel Will Self 9781596911239 Books

The Book of Dave A Novel Will Self 9781596911239 Books

Download As PDF : The Book of Dave A Novel Will Self 9781596911239 Books

The Book of Dave A Novel Will Self 9781596911239 Books

I sometimes like something very different partly for the sake of it being very different. This wasn't my favorite book ever, but it was good in many ways, just one of which was its originality. While largely serious, I laughed out loud quite a few times. Self is a quite good writer, which never hurts. Although many books switch from character viewpoint to character viewpoint, or flashback to earlier times in character(s) lives, this book is almost like two different books - one about a modern-day disgruntled London cabbie, angry at his ex-wife for restricting his access to his son, and another about a primitive civilization 500 years in the future whose society is based on a drug-fueled screed written by Dave in our time. There are stabs at religion, government, cultural mores, etc., whether today's or extrapolated into the dystopian future of 'Ham' and 'New London'.
I sometimes hesitate to read book, often in the SF realm, which have either a huge cast or have an invented language that requires a lot of work to follow. I was afraid this book would be the latter, since there's a glossary of terms from the future 'Ham' in the back. I'm glad to say that the effort wasn't that huge - I didn't find myself flipping back to the glossary as often in every future chapter after the first one (and remember, half of the book is set in the near-present in London). A minor criticism, though, is that I often tried to look words up in the back that weren't there. Yeah, some were probably Cockney slang of the present, but I'm pretty sure quite a few weren't, so maybe the glossary was a half-hearted attempt to cover the future vocabulary.
Still, a very original book that I'm glad I made the effort to read.


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The Book of Dave A Novel Will Self 9781596911239 Books Reviews

There are sentences and brief passages that are marvels of vivid and imaginative scene setting. The books is worth reading just for these points of beautiful language. They are especially notable in the half of the text that follows cabdriver Dave through London, guided by "The Knowlege," an internalized map drilled into apprentice cabbies. He has no map to help him through the paranoia and depression (which provoke hilarious commentary on the city and his fares) that feed an, and are fed by, his horrible relationship with his wife and son. Unsatisfying family relations are at the center of the second story in the text, interwoven with the first, which seems to take place centuries in the future amid the flooded wreckage of modern London and surrounds. A mediaevalish society regards Dave as a god, uses lists of London navigation points as religious incantations, and organizes ordinary family life along the lines of a nasty divorce settlement.

This is a nice conceit, and having the ravings of a psychotic cabbie taken with such solemnity and deep meaning lets Self score many points on the absurdity of religion. The book can't just be seen as a satire on religion though. There's much time spent on family relations, particularly between fathers and sons, and these ideas never clearly come together. The connection between the two stories becomes problematic as the book progresses, and is left ambiguous, to no purpose.
This book will take you all around London as well one that exists in a past or future you never knew. It even provides a glossary to get you through vernacular of that first trying chapter. The work required to let oneself become absorbed into this world; this outrageous fiction, pays off big. As it progresses we come to realize we're reading our own history. The story gradually shows up our ignorance and gullibility, as we play into the most absurd religious dogmas , contradictions, and brutality invoked in name of said religion. It also holds up a mirror to that other absurdity British society. All of this and it's a heck of a lot of fun.
i read a positive review of this book months ago and picked it up. but when i started reading it on my last silent retreat, i had no idea what to expect, and merely chose it because i like to start those retreats with something story-driven and fictional, as a detox.

what i didn't expect was a long (475 pages) and challenging read that blew me away in both its creativity and it's allegory nature. more on what it's an allegory of in a moment.

first, a description. the book of dave takes place in two times current day london, and an extremely distant future london. we don't know the actual date of how far in the future the future-scenes are, as the calendar system resets with the discovery of "the book of dave" at some point in the future, and those future-scenes takes place about 500 years after that point.

in the current time, dave rudman is a bitter london cabbie, working through an ugly divorce and custody issues surrounding his son. his obsession with "the knowledge" (the massive and perfect memory of all streets cab drivers have to have in london) informs just about everything in this life. after things take a decidedly bad turn for him (and, fueled by anti-depressant meds), dave writes a book -- a missive about what's wrong with society and the rules that should govern everyone. this book he writes starts with the "runs and points" of "the knowledge", and shifts into a diatribe about the inability of men and women (mommies and daddies) to live together. dave has this tome printed as a one-off book, on metal plates (for indestructability), and burries it in the backyard of the home where his estranged wife and son are living.

eventually, dave gets some things figured out in life, finds love and peace, and after discovering that his hidden book is irretrievable (due to a new concrete deck built over the spot), writes a second book as a personal cathartic exercise, overturning much of what he wrote in the first book. dave's story is really a beautiful story of redemption.

in the future time, a catastrophic world-wide episode of some sort (some allusions to polar ice-caps melting) has wiped out most of the world with noah-like effect. all technology as we know it is gone (and forgotten). things seem to be as they would have been in, say, the 1500s (or so). oh, and the geography of southern england has completely changed. most of the future-story takes place on a small island off the coast of england where a primitive clan of families live a simple isolated life, under the burden of "daviantity", the hard-core state religion that took hold of all of england in the wake of the discovery of the book of dave. this religion is mostly incomprehensible in it's meaning, but the rules are all very clear particularly the rules about the complete seperation of men and women, with children spending half the week in "daddy time" and half the week in "mommy time".

the language of this time is part of what makes this book a challenging read it's a phonetically-spelled goulash of extreme cockney, mixed in with text-message shorthand, and a whole new set of slang vocabulary that only starts to make sense as the book unfolds (though there is a glossary in the back of the book to unpack some words). at first, i found myself reading some of this dialogue with only partial understanding of what i was reading (even regular words). but i got used to it, and really got a kick out of it. many of the slang words are cab-driving-related (for instance, the only acceptable greeting upon meeting someone -- used when we would say "hi", or "how are you?" -- is "ware to, guv?". and the only acceptable response, for followers of davianity is, "t' nu london").

we follow two generations in this future time, over about 30 years, or so. the chief protagonist is a boy without a father. he doesn't know much about his father, but eventually learns that his father was declared a heretic for claiming to have found a second book written by dave that overturns much of davianity (i'll not go much further there, as i don't want to spoil anything). eventually, the boy, along with a heretically-leaning tutor, discovers some truth about the second book and his father, and embarks on an epic journey to new london (still a major city, but more like what london would have been like in the 16th or 17th century) to find truth, escape the island, and search out the rest of his father's story.

now the author clearly intended the book as commentary on a whole bunch of things, not least of which is the role of religion in society. and, clearly, the author does not have a positive view of the church or religion. this is postmodern commentary, though, as the heroes of the story still have ardent and passionate faith (in dave, no less!), but not in the structures and strictures of the religion set up to encase it, or the forceable control this religious system has over all people (in england, davianity hasn't reached the rest of the world), all practices, all life.

on one hand, that's the commentary in a nutshell. at first, it struck me as an allegory (whether the author indended this or not) of the law and grace, of an old testament system and the threat of a new testament system - the threat of jesus, if you will. but I found myself seeing another level an allegory of the current church in america (or, to be fair, around the world), and the church's response to the "threat" of the emerging church. over and over I found myself drawing parallels and connecting dots. certainly, the author can't have intended this but I found so much resonance at this level.

a fascinating book, at face value, and at these "other" story levels.
I sometimes like something very different partly for the sake of it being very different. This wasn't my favorite book ever, but it was good in many ways, just one of which was its originality. While largely serious, I laughed out loud quite a few times. Self is a quite good writer, which never hurts. Although many books switch from character viewpoint to character viewpoint, or flashback to earlier times in character(s) lives, this book is almost like two different books - one about a modern-day disgruntled London cabbie, angry at his ex-wife for restricting his access to his son, and another about a primitive civilization 500 years in the future whose society is based on a drug-fueled screed written by Dave in our time. There are stabs at religion, government, cultural mores, etc., whether today's or extrapolated into the dystopian future of 'Ham' and 'New London'.
I sometimes hesitate to read book, often in the SF realm, which have either a huge cast or have an invented language that requires a lot of work to follow. I was afraid this book would be the latter, since there's a glossary of terms from the future 'Ham' in the back. I'm glad to say that the effort wasn't that huge - I didn't find myself flipping back to the glossary as often in every future chapter after the first one (and remember, half of the book is set in the near-present in London). A minor criticism, though, is that I often tried to look words up in the back that weren't there. Yeah, some were probably Cockney slang of the present, but I'm pretty sure quite a few weren't, so maybe the glossary was a half-hearted attempt to cover the future vocabulary.
Still, a very original book that I'm glad I made the effort to read.