---
product_id: 57818923
title: "Will SelfUmbrella"
brand: "will self"
price: "R519"
currency: ZAR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.co.za/products/57818923-will-selfumbrella
store_origin: ZA
region: South Africa
---

# Will SelfUmbrella

**Brand:** will self
**Price:** R519
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Will SelfUmbrella by will self
- **How much does it cost?** R519 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.za](https://www.desertcart.co.za/products/57818923-will-selfumbrella)

## Best For

- will self enthusiasts

## Why This Product

- Trusted will self brand quality
- Free international shipping included
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## Description

Full description not available

## Images

![Will SelfUmbrella - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51L7oHiHVTL.jpg)
![Will SelfUmbrella - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/3190Gpq4uxL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Satisfying for those with the fortitude to get through it
  

*by A***R on Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2015*

This book sets the stage for "Shark," so you will presumably want to read both. Therefore, I am writing essentially the same review for both books. Not everybody will like these books, as they are not page-turners. But if you love a literary challenge, on the order of, say, "Finnegan's Wake," you are in for a treat. Self doesn't bother with literary conveniences such as chapters, or, by the time you get to "Shark," even paragraphs.Sentences go back and forth between present observations and the babble inside the minds of the characters, the most important of whom are mental patients on powerful drugs. And in the middle of any sentence, one may jump from one person's mind to another, without warning or notice. Somewhat similar to techniques mastered by Pynchon, but compared to this book, Gravity's Rainbow is like Cat in the Hat. If you get through it, you will feel satisfied--in the way you might take pride in completing a 25,000-piece jigsaw puzzle depicting a psychedelic pattern. You may also emerge with some new insights about war, mental illness, psychedelics, and life in general. I'm glad I made it to the end, but my head is exhausted and I'm ready to relax with a nice, relatively linear Jo Nesbo mystery.

### ⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Not what the author intended, I think (Kindle version)
  

*by C***S on Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2013*

I was having a lot of fun reading this novel. Will Self's work was new to me, so I was encouraged by a rave review to pre-order "Umbrella" and, at first, I was glad I had. (I also ordered every other book of his that I could find at the time.)Very enjoyable though a puzzle at times is his attempt at transcribing Cockney into prose. "Double-you-see" took me a moment, but a reference to "the jakes" made it clear that WC was meant. Very funny.Less enjoyable was the more and more frequent mishandling of text, with for example double-effs rendered as "[" (but not always) or words simply with holes in their middles ("naming these things as they are shur ed before her" - huh?).Finally (at 19% into the book) I gave up and returned it for credit. Too bad. Now I'll have to get the print version, hoping that a competent and complete copy editing job has been done. The Kindle version (as of today) just doesn't cut it.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    OUTSTANDING NOVEL THAT DOESN'T NEED THE GIMMICKS
  

*by J***R on Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2013*

Umbrella may now become the greatest novel I've ever read; until now it was Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, which I now have to go back and re-re-re-read. Many others have compared Umbrella to Gravity's and the comparisons are apt. Both works are brilliant, both require you read carefully and with a dictionary at your side (and maybe an additional medical dictionary in the case of Umbrella), both take risks with the numerous interconnections, digressions and changes of scene or viewpoint and both try to explain the meaning of modern life, including the impact of technology on personality. My take on Gravity's has always been that sentence by sentence it was the best ever but, at the end of the book, I really didn't understand it. Umbrella may now be the better book IMO because sentence by sentence it is superb and, at the end of the book, I do feel that I understand well, much of it.I've now read Umbrella  three times: once on my ipad, and then reading in hard cover during the day and re-reading much of the same again on my ipad at night. That immediate reinforcement of what I just read helped immeasurably. Of course, i could still read it again profitably.Umbrella, however, has its problems. Most importantly, Self's gimmicky refusal to use paragraphs or chapters just doesn't add anything. Not that I am against what he is attempting, to force the reader into an immediate "thisness" (my word) of what is happening and the connections to memory, to the concept of time, and to the other characters. Perhaps if he had actually changed scenes and perspectives in a way that eventually made sense, say the same event as viewed by different characters, or an event triggering a memory of the same character, i would say well it was difficult but in the end it worked. Here I think in the end, the formatting, actually lack of formatting, did not work.  I do not think the reader receives a payoff for the pain she has to go through. Finally, there are just too many confusion-causing sentences that are not later addressed or explained. Most of the questions I wrote in the margins as I read still were not answered at the end. Just one example, I did happen to know who "Ronnie" is--brilliant but controversial psychiatric theorist R.D. Laing, who rose to fame, especially in the mental health counter culture, in the 70s. But if a reader didn't know that at the beginning, she still wouldn't know it at the end.All in all a superb work. I absolutely recommend and i think it is important to read in a physical book, as opposed to ipad--ipad is ok for an additional reading. But Self  too often played with the readers in a way that ultimately was a bit unfair.Now, I have to get onto Gravity's again!

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*Product available on Desertcart South Africa*
*Store origin: ZA*
*Last updated: 2026-03-28*