sashinka | observation orientated, with a twist of lime | a blog

Selfless Self?
Just got back from Foyles' Will Self reading of Dorian at the Conway Hall.

I've heard Will read/speak before, and I'm a fan, despite his ocassionally self-hating perspective. De-racinated Jew, he calls himself. Also, he has a look and feel so remarkably like my friend P - and I have never seen them in the same room - that I wonder if they were separated at birth.

He read powerfully. No flab, no blurb; short intro, then he strode across the stage, opened the book, and read from chapter one for an hour and five minutes. He's something of a showman, and evidently enjoys his own words. He looked frighteningly angular, all any-colour-so-long-as-it's-black suit, and heroin chic palor, and when lights were turned down while he was reading, his eyes looked like two huge holes had been sunk in his face.

Then he snapped the book shut, jumped off the stage, and strode purposefully to the back of the hall. And he was gone. It was left to the giggly girlie from Foyles to apolgise in her twinset-and-pearls way; he had unfortunately double-booked himself with Shooting Stars and had to leave. Personally, I think his behaviour is somewhere on the arrogant-rude spectrum, just don't know where.