''The Butt'' is a satirical novel by

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. Sel ...

, published in 2008.

Content

The story revolves around Tom, a tourist (presumed to be American, although that is never made clear) visiting an unnamed country that seems to be a mix of Africa, Middle East, Caribbean and Australia. He becomes embroiled in a legal minefield when flicking a

cigarette A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opp ...

butt, his last before quitting, off his holiday apartment balcony. The resulting arc causes the butt to burn and injure an elderly man. His ensuing journey to make suitable

reparations Reparation(s) may refer to: Christianity * Restitution (theology), the Christian doctrine calling for reparation * Acts of reparation, prayers for repairing the damages of sin History *War reparations **World War I reparations, made from G ...

takes him across the entire country with its different territories and rules. His company on this trip comes in the form of Brian Prentice, another tourist (presumably British) who is concerned more with the

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

match in the capital than the dangerous trip, and whom Tom suspects is a paedophile.

Reviews

Writing for ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'', Jane Shilling wrote...

''Self writes here with an adroit impersonation of coarse exuberance that makes The Butt as readable as a blokeish airport novel (though with a fuddlingly large vocabulary). But just beneath the brash surface shimmer the unmistakable apparitions of Self’s masters: Swift, Voltaire and Lewis Carroll are all partly responsible for the ingenious, mephitic invention that is The Butt.''

Michael Bywater Michael Bywater (born 11 May 1953) is an English non-fiction writer and broadcaster. He has worked for many London newspapers and periodicals and contributed to the design of computer games. Biography Bywater was educated at the independent Nottin ...

, writing for ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' wrote...

''Hard to enumerate what Self has sodded up here, right? Australia. Aboriginal councils. Sharia law. Live Aid. Western "respect" for other "folkways". The whole damn planet. And all the things Self's Australia isn't, or might be: Africa, the Middle East, Papua New Guinea. He's wrapped it up and crushed it out of shape, and the absurd ending exists really to be unnecessary. Things have gone far enough, anyway. The Butt is a hideously engaged, overwritten, barking masterpiece. You're going to read it, that's for sure, but don't say I didn't warn you.''

References

External links

Official Will Self site
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Butt 2008 British novels Novels by Will Self Bloomsbury Publishing books