My Idea of Fun was published by Bloomsbury in 1993. Ian Wharton possesses an eidetic memory of extraordinary power — he can recall any image with perfect fidelity, manipulate visual information in his mind, and project hallucinations onto the external world. As a child, this gift attracts the attention of Mr. Broadhurst, “The Fat Controller” — a monstrous, obese figure who may be a corrupt businessman, may be the Devil, and may be both simultaneously.
The Fat Controller initiates Ian into what he calls “fun” — which turns out to be progressively more extreme acts of violence, degradation, and moral transgression. Ian’s eidetic gift is simultaneously his talent and his curse: his perfect visual memory means he cannot forget what he has seen and done, and his ability to project images means reality and hallucination blur into indistinguishability.
The novel is Self’s Faustian narrative: Ian sells his soul (or rather, has it stolen) for power, and the narrative traces the consequences across his life — from childhood through a career in market research (Self’s satirical target: consumer capitalism as organized evil) to a marriage in which his past threatens to destroy his present. The prose is Self at his most linguistically extravagant — sentences of extraordinary complexity and precision deployed in the service of genuinely disturbing content.
Collecting My Idea of Fun
First edition (Bloomsbury, London, 1993): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $25–$60
- Very good: $10–$25