The Book of Dave

[gully_foyle]

The Book of Dave by Will Self

The Book of Dave is a daring and frightening extrapolation of contemporary society into the future. A millenia or so from now the sea levels have risen and England is now the Arhipelago of Ing. Society is governed by laws interpreted directly from a religious manifesto called The Book of Dave. This book determines how men and women should interact and how they should share the raising of children. It also contains incantations called The Knowledge that sets out the streets of London and thus guides the construction of New London.

Flashback to London of the 80's, 90's and the 00's and we follow the torturous descent into hell of Dave, a London cabbie, as he becomes estranged from his wife and son and, filled with bitterness and loathing, loses his mind. Ultimately he pours his bile into a book, that includes a lament for his lost son, his view on how society should be structured, and his knowledge of the routes around London. This book he buries in his ex wife's garden, hoping one day his son will dig it up and get guidance and council from it. But, instead, it gets dug up 500 years in the future, and five hundred years after that we get to see the bizarre society that has sprung from the cabbie's embittered and blackened heart.

I don't think I have given away any more than what was on the dust jacket of the book. This is just the premise. The Book of Dave follows the lives of two individuals, Dave, who wrote the book, and Carl, who seeks meaning from the mess of the society that Dave's book has created, and ultimately wants to find his Dad. The book spins out a story of loss and isolation between the two worlds and makes a few good broadsides about modern consumerist society too.

This was a great book, up to a point. It was a challenging read and I found it hard to follow Dave the Cabbie's descent into madness as we listen to every voice that is inside him, even if we sympathise with this hapless man screwed over by society. However, this is a butterfly effect story. We get to see the extremes that his bitterness leads to. I enjoyed Self's bleak extrapolation of cockney London into a future mediaevalist society. I found some things a bit confronting and brutal, such as the ritual slaughter of the genetically modified herd animals. I found it helped having lived in London and knowing some of the events he was talking about (the storm of 87, though I think he says it happens in 86). Ultimately the book fizzled and sputtered out, which was disappointing. One of the stories did not close satisfactorily and the other left a few loose ends. There were no great revelations at the end, they all came earlier on.

Still, I really enjoyed this one and found it quite a worthwhile diversion from the mainstay of SF and F. Ud ve entrested 2 no wot Dave (our Dave) med of iss.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by gully_foyle

Still, I really enjoyed this one and found it quite a worthwhile diversion from the mainstay of SF and F. Ud ve entrested 2 no wot Dave (our Dave) med of iss.

I'm half-way through it actually!

I'm also finding parts heavy-going with the pigeon mockney-cockney-cabbie-speak and the jumping around of the story (which isn't in chronological order even within the two time periods.) There are very amusing things in the book.



I now have my own book and my own TV channel.

[gully_foyle]

When can we expect to see a lager called Dave?

[Dave]

I don't know, why don't you brew it? The idea of calling the TV Channel 'Dave' (it used to be 'UK Wacky Panel Games' or something unforgettably similar) was that "everyone knows someone called Dave." This is actually true, my wife's name is Susan, and David and Susan were the most popular names for one of the years in the early sixties. One of my friends knows several couples called Dave and Sue. It does get confusing though.

Back to the book... I'd like to discuss it but I have to finish it first. I hope the "Motos" get some explanation. I'm guessing their origin is a fairly important plot development. And don't spoil, I'll get there eventually.

[Dave]

I'm almost done, but I've been reading something else at the same time.

The other book is a book on family history research called 'Skeletons in the Cupboard' and in one section it discusses Cant, the secret language of the criminal underclasses from the 17th to the 19th Century. Cant was much discussed in literature of the time, and fascinated contemporary observers, but we have largely forgotten about it today. It consists of many Romany, Latin, Welsh, Gaelic and dialect words, as well as some back-read words such as reeb for beer. To the uninitiated it was all but gobbledegook.

It suddenly struck me that Wilf Self's language in the 'Book of Dave', either deliberately or accidently, is similar to Cant. The odd Cant word survives today in cockney rhyming slang, and even into general English, and Self uses a few. Examples are Lag for prisoner, Stir for prison, flash for ostentatious and drag for street.

[Dave]

I finished it, but don't have much to add to your excellent review.

Originally Posted by gully_foyle

Ultimately the book fizzled and sputtered out, which was disappointing. One of the stories did not close satisfactorily and the other left a few loose ends.

That was disappointing, the best way to put it was that the two different worlds were mirrors without reflecting anything (something I read in another review.)

No explanation for the 'Motos' - I thought I saw one coming when Dave got friendly with Fred Redmond's pigs, but ultimately Wilf Self shied away from that.

I also didn't feel much sympathy for Dave, even if he had changed in his later years, and mellowed his racist, misogynist views.