Wednesday, October 24, 2007

The Book of Dave



Will Self is never a cosy read, and The Book of Dave is no exception. Its central conceit is that, in a Britain where the waters rose calamitously centuries ago, the primitive people who inhabit what's left of England have founded a religion based on the sacred texts of Dave, a depressed cab driver. The text is Dave's rants about his miserable life, and as a kind of coda, he's added the "knowledge" which becomes the mantra of all true believers. The novel veers unexpectedly between various dates in the late 20th century and various dates in the 5th century after Dave.
What makes this novel noteworthy, though, is the language (Mokni) used by the Hamsters (residents of what was Hampstead) in the future. It's a bizarre mix of cod cockney and oddly childish chat, the cockney being rendered almost like Dickens with Sam Weller. Self uses an idiosyncratic spelling system, and some strange diacritical marks to render it. The result is at once oddly familiar and rather unsettling. "Ow mennë tymes av Eye erred all vis bollox ... iss gotta B a fouzand aw maw". No wonder the French translator gave up...
It's funny quite often, but more frequently stomach-churning. A graphic slaughter scene in the opening chapter sets the precedent for several other set pieces of visceral violence. The novel to which it clearly owes a large debt is Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker and it comes as no surprise to discover that Self wrote a preface for the reissue of that book a few years ago.
In the end, a clever idea is over-cooked. The book could do with being trimmed, and perhaps it would have been graceful to acknowledge its relation to the Hoban book, even down to the maps which begin both narratives.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I keep meaning to get to this one, but I'm put off a bit by the language. How the Dead Live is very funny, and thought-provoking, and I did like the idea of Crouch End standing in for Eternity.

Rob said...

The trick with the language is to read it aloud, and you soon get the hang of it.

Nogbad said...

I gave up on this book - something I very rarely do. It was simply too bleak.

Rob said...

Bleak is the word, Nigel. Will doesn't really do cosy does he?

Nogbad said...

Not sure I need cosy but some light and shade is useful in the end I found it unremitting. Mokni made me laugh though - I hear it every day so I could read it and hear the cadences straight away.