''My Idea of Fun'' is the second novel by
Will Self, and was published in 1993.
Plot summary
A lonely boy grows up just outside
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
in a caravan park with his over-sexual mother and the tenant Mr Broadhurst, who takes the boy on a disturbing and often violent journey.
The novel works as a strange
Bildungsroman, in which the main character, Ian Wharton, learns the art of black magic from Broadhurst, who is also known as the Fat Controller. At the Fat Controller's behest Ian engages in a series of strange acts including time travel and trips to an alternate reality called the Land of Children's jokes, a grotesque alternate universe inhabited by the menacing and deformed characters from jokes. The protagonist's education culminates in bizarre rites of bestiality and necrophilia. However, he finds that in exchange for knowledge of the black arts Broadhurst begins to take over more and more aspects of his life.
The novel may also be seen as an example of an
unreliable narrator, as it is unclear whether the strange events in the novel are meant to be real or hallucinatory.
Reviews
Nicholas Lezard said of the book that "No one else I can think of writes about contemporary Britain with such elan, energy and witty intelligence. Rejoice."
References
External links
Official Will Self site*
1993 British novels
Novels by Will Self
Fiction with unreliable narrators
Novels set in Brighton
Bloomsbury Publishing books
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