Whittling down a shortlist of six ‘good reads’ from a longlist of 12 must be a real ‘mare’ for The Man Booker judges. Firstly, they’ve got to get through  (from having attempted Self) a dozen rather meaty reads, then to only narrow them down to six that will make the grade. What makes is this even more an unenviable task is that in Man Booker territory it’s not only the selected books that are reviewed but the list itself. Come up with one considered ill-conceived, off the mark or lacking and it will not go unnoticed (‘readability-gate’ anyone?)

This year’s list, conceived for ‘power in prose’ comprises of previous Man Booker winner (Hilary Mantel), two debut novels (the stuff that every author’s dreams is made of) and three published by small, independent publishers (same as before, just omit author and replace with publisher).  So which novel did I get? Will Self. I say ‘I got’ because I sent out a tweet asking if any other blogger fancied joining me in a Man Booker reviews linky. After all the books had been chosen I ended up with Umbrella. I don’t think it was left to last by chance…

Review: Umbrella

I could la-de-da and skip around the issue for a bit but in essence Umbrella is a hard work. No, make that near- impossible. The first time I sat down to a session I had to shake my head Scooby Doo style. A stream of consciousness poured from the page without ever managing to be acknowledged by my brain. On and on it went, the lyrics of a song mixed with thoughts and actions, voices and little punctuation. Words that could be joined together were rare indeed, a fully intelligible sentence – pah!

I can count on all my fingers and toes the number of times I have tried, unsuccessfully, to ‘stick’ with Umbrella. I’ve read daytime, night-time, on buses, tubes and in parks. Nothing seems to work. Failed attempt after failed attempt, at most I’ve been walking away from a reading having managed to join together one or two sentences, led me to do the honourable thing. Cheat. I read a review of the novel by The Observer’s Sam Leith in the hope that it would at least point me in the direction of a plot.

Sam Leith described Umbrella as: ‘not, be warned, altogether easy going: 400 pages of unbroken stream-of-consciousness dotted across three time frames, leaping jaggedly between four points of view, and with barely a paragraph break, let alone a chapter heading.’ Yup. That’ll be it.

Leith also very helpfully informed me that the novel was about Audrey Death (yes, I had read her name somewhere), a patient in a mental hospital attended by a psychiatrist Zack Busner – (this helped me appreciate Self’s choice of the stream of consciousness). Busner manages to recognise the symptoms of Sleeping Sickness in Death and some of the other patients and begins to treat them with L-Dopa.

One fifth of the way through the novel (I can tell you this exactly as I’ve clocked every single % marked by my Kindle) and there is slight improvement (not altogether sure if it’s mine or the book’s) and I’m maybe gleaning three sentences per page. Not exactly motivational, is it? However, I have, read, heard and watched more about the novel than any other book I have ever read.

My own review must end here as I simply haven’t been able to finish it. However, the judges of the Man Booker have (or at least that’s what they’ll have us believe). They and some other literary know-alls are the ones who are touting it as Self’s best work and a as a good bet down at the bookies. For good measure they are peppering reviews with the following words:  ’Joycean’, ‘Radical’ and ‘experimental’ – why not have a go yourself and pretend you’ve read it too?

So I’m afraid that is my review. If I ever make it through I will let you know but I reckon I need about 6 months to drag myself through it and come out the other side.

Fancy a challenge? Will Self’s Umbrella “>Umbrella is publishedby Bloomsbury

This review is part of Blog Linky: The Man Booker Prize shortlist