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Zack Busner
Zack Busner is a recurring character in the fiction of British author Will Self, appearing in the short story collections '' The Quantity Theory of Insanity'', ''Grey Area'', '' Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe'', the novels ''Great Apes'', '' The Book of Dave'', and the 2010s novel trilogy ''Umbrella'', ''Shark'' and '' Phone''. Appearances As one can never tell if Self intends there to be a coherent storyline, piecing together a backstory for Dr. Busner can be exceedingly difficult. In the story "Inclusion", he is seemingly absorbed by the character Simon Dykes. While some might consider this the end of Busner, he reappears in ''Great Apes''. Employment and characteristics He apparently holds an institutional position in the stories "Dr. Mukti" and "Ward 9". Because his previous work is referenced throughout the latter, it can be safely assumed that these events take place after "The Quantity Theory of Insanity". Busner has also lectured for the Royal Society of Ephemera and has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Will Self
William Woodard Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English author, journalist, political commentator and broadcaster. He has written 11 novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and nine collections of non-fiction writing. Self is currently Professor of Modern Thought at Brunel University London, where he teaches psychogeography. His 2002 novel ''Dorian, an Imitation'' was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and his 2012 novel ''Umbrella'' was shortlisted. His fiction is known for being satirical, grotesque and fantastical, and is predominantly set within his home city of London. His writing often explores mental illness, drug abuse and psychiatry. Self is a regular contributor to publications including ''The Guardian'', '' Harper's Magazine'', ''The New York Times'' and the '' London Review of Books''. He currently writes a column for the ''New Statesman'', and he has been a columnist for the ''Observer'', ''The Times'', and the ''Evening Standard''. His col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
''The Quantity Theory of Insanity'' is a collection of short stories by Will Self. It won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1993. Publishing details First published in 1991 in paperback it was the first published collection of the author's short work and includes themes and characters (such as Zack Busner) that are common throughout Self's shorter and longer fiction. Self received an advance of £1,700 for the work. Within this collection, as well as Dr Busner appearing in two of the stories, the fictional tribe the "Ur-Bororo" are a touchstone. Specifically in the story "Understanding the Ur-Bororo" and subtly in "Ward 9" and the title story. The book is prefaced by the traditional Ur-Bororo saying "However far you may travel in this world, you will still occupy the same volume of space." Praise for the collection came from fellow authors and critics. "If a manic J. G. Ballard and a depressive David Lodge got together, they might produce something like ''The Quantity Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grey Area (book)
''Grey Area'' is the second collection of short stories by the author Will Self. Publishing Details The collection was first published in 1994. It comprises some of Self's commissioned work as well as a number of stories written specially for the anthology. As with Self's other collections the stories deal with post modern ideas and situations with Zack Busner reappearing in a number of the stories. Unlike Self's other short fiction there is very little in the way of connection between the stories, certainly not from a plot and character point of view. In an interview with the Boston Phoenix Self said "I wasn't altogether happy with Grey Area. I think it would have been a better book if I'd made all the stories link."http://www.bostonphoenix.com/alt1/archive/books/reviews/03-96/WILL_SELF.html Boston Phoenix Each story in the book is titled with a small picture to illustrate a facet of the story. The book is dedicated to the author's brothers and is prefaced by the epitaph of Dr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Apes (novel)
''Great Apes'' is a 1997 novel by Will Self. Plot synopsis After a night of drug use, Simon Dykes wakes up in a world where chimpanzees have evolved to be the dominant species with self-awareness In philosophy of self, self-awareness is the experience of one's own personality or individuality. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is being aware of one's environment and body and lifesty ..., while humans are the equivalent of chimps in our world. Reviews ''"Planet of the Apes meets Nineteen Eighty-Four. Simon Dykes wakes up one morning to a world where chimpanzees are self-aware and humans are the equivalent of chimps in our world. Simon has lived a life of quick drugs, shallow artists and meaningless sex. But this London, much like a PG Tips advert, has chimps in human clothing but with their chimpness intact. The carnivalesque world is humorous, gripping and provocative."'' References External linksOfficial Will Self s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Book Of Dave
''The Book of Dave'' is a 2006 novel by English author Will Self. Content ''The Book of Dave'' tells the story of an angry and mentally ill London taxi driver named Dave Rudman, who writes and has printed on metal a book of his rantings against women and thoughts on custody rights for fathers. These stem from his anger with his ex-wife, Michelle, who he believes is unfairly keeping him from his son. Equally influential in Dave's book is The Knowledge—the intimate familiarity with the city of London required of its cabbies. Dave buries the book, which is discovered centuries later and used as the sacred text for a dogmatic, cruel, and misogynistic religion that takes hold in the remnants of southern England and London following catastrophic flooding. The future portions of the novel are set from 523 AD (After Dave). The book alternates between Dave's original experience and that of the future devotees of the religion inspired by his writings. Much of the dialogue in ''The B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umbrella (novel)
''Umbrella'' is the ninth novel by Will Self, published in 2012. It was List of winners and shortlisted authors of the Booker Prize for Fiction, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2012, Will Self's first shortlist nomination, although his 2002 novel ''Dorian, an Imitation'' was longlisted for the prize. Content The Stream of consciousness (narrative mode), stream-of-consciousness novel tells the story of a psychiatrist Zack Busner and his treatment of a patient at Friern Hospital in 1971 who has encephalitis lethargica and has been in a vegetative state since 1918, when she was a munitions worker. The patient, Audrey Death, has two brothers whose activities before and during the First World War are interwoven into her own story. Busner brings her back to consciousness using a new drug (L-Dopa, which was used for the same purpose by Oliver Sacks in the 1970s). In the final element of the story, in 2010 the asylum is no longer in existence and the recently retire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shark (novel)
''Shark'' is the tenth novel by Will Self, published in 2014. Content The stream-of-consciousness novel continues the story of psychiatrist Zack Busner. The novel is written in a flowing fashion without chapters and with no paragraph breaks. It is "a book-length paragraph, beginning and ending mid-sentence", which hops "between characters and time periods with the agility of a mountain goat." Self indicated that ''Umbrella'' was the first part of a trilogy against his own initial expectations. The final part of the trilogy is '' Phone''. Plot Reviews The critical reception of Shark has been generally positive, with the challenging style of prose dividing opinion. Writing for ''The Sunday Times'', Theo Tait wrote... "Overall, Shark generates a dream-like synthesis of rational and irrational, familiar and strange... it’s clear that, with this trilogy, Self is creating something rather grand." Stuart Kelly, writing for ''The Guardian'' wrote... "Shark" is angrier, more bru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phone (novel)
''Phone'' is the eleventh novel by Will Self, published in 2017. It concludes a "modernist" trilogy also consisting of ''Umbrella'' and ''Shark''. Content The stream-of-consciousness novel continues the story of psychiatrist Zack Busner. Reviews Writing for ''The Sunday Herald'', Todd McEwan wrote: "You begin to realise that this is not art, and it’s not even satire. It’s just stuff that oozes out of a writer who is floundering in the tar pit of the establishment. Jon Day, writing for ''The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...'', noted: "''Phone'' isn’t an attempt to inhabit the language of modernism but an attempt to exhaust a style. There’s still plenty of fun to be had spotting references to Self’s lodestars...It’ll take you a couple of weeks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Wolf Sacks, (9 July 1933 – 30 August 2015) was a British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and writer. Born in Britain, Sacks received his medical degree in 1958 from The Queen's College, Oxford, before moving to the United States, where he spent most of his career. He interned at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco and completed his residency in neurology and neuropathology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After a fellowship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, he served as neurologist at Beth Abraham Hospital's chronic-care facility in the Bronx, where he worked with a group of survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness encephalitis lethargica, who had been unable to move on their own for decades. His treatment of those patients became the basis of his 1973 book '' Awakenings'', which was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated feature film in 1990, starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. His numerous other best-selling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
