This sounds like a very interesting book and I am tempted to read it, but I am a bit squeamish about it since I know there is a particularly violent scene in it. Nevertheless, I might give it a try. On a really nice, sunny day, I might read just try. Maybe.

I read an article, written by one of my university professors, about the linguistic aspects of this book, which is why I want to read it. What really interests me in it is the main character's linguistic identity. Among other things, there is Hungarian dialogue in the book, untranslated, which turns out to be excerpts from an old Hungarian story, Kékszakàllù herceg vàra. The Hungarian in me feels obliged to read and find out how it all fits together. (I already know that the use of the Hungarian story is to foreshadow the violent scene, and that is the reason I DON't want to read the book.)

In the end, I will probably cave sooner or later, shamefacedly joining all the other people in society that have become desensitized to violence, and read the book.

In the past, I have read another of Yann Martel's books called "The Life of Pi". Based on how much I liked that one, I decided to read "Self" for a Canadian Literature class project.

Now, I must say, at first read, this book is VERY confusing. The main character has a habit of changing gender and sexual orientation at random, and until you realize that this is just something left unexplained and doesn't quite follow our common views on the subject, it will confuse the heck out of you. However, going back and thinking it through, that's one of the main themes of the novel - why should it matter what gender the main character is? We ought not to get bogged down by something so trivial.

While the author does occasionally get a little too enthusiastic with his descriptions (I don't need to know the details of a teenage boy masturbating. Really I don't.)overall it was a pleasant read. The book is full of very rich descriptions and thoughtful phrases that leave you thinking about your own values and pondering the bigger picture.

I liked this book, although not as much as "The Life of Pi". Three out of five stars for confusing the reader and excessively graphic content.

This is a great example of how amazing writing can carry an entire book. I tried to explain to a friend why I loved this book and why they should read it but literally I've no idea how to explain. Yann Martel has a talent for story telling. I think unlike a lot of readers because I read 'life of Pi' about 7 years ago (when it first came out), I wasn't expecting anything like that when I picked this up. This was a story about life, about love, travel, growth, language, friendship, men, women sex, gender, coming of age, trauma, heart break, healing. It wasn't perfect, but it was such a true representation of what it is to be a human being, that I'll take the flaws.

I was intrigued by the aspect of growing up without religion and how that changes the way you view love and the role of men and women. So it's about a man who wakes up when he turns 18 to realise he's now a woman. But this isn't really what drives the plot because Yann almost ignores the 'impossible' aspect of this phenomenon. The protagonist just continues on with life. The main thing that this event did with the plot was made us realise the subtle every day differences between being a man and a woman. His/her first period was hilarious and heart breaking. His/her first sexual experience with a man as a woman was bizarre. There were many romantic interests but this isn't a romance. It's probably one of the most realistic representations of a life in a book (besides the whole sex change event).

'Self' was honest, transparent and unashamed. But it's kind of ruined me for mediocre writing for a while...

Note there is a very graphic(like everything else in this book) and horrible rape scene in this book, I don't feel it was necessary at all. The reason why I wouldn't let this put people off is that although it was horrible, I think it might be quite an honest representation of how rape victims in real life feel. Surprised, pained, angry, sick. A sudden horror in your everyday life that changes you (but doesn't necessarily break/ruin you) forever

Charming and different. This book has no chapters and at first that bothered me, then I came to like it. This book walks to the beat of its own drum. A must read from the author

meh it was pretty boring for me LOL

I just don't think I understood this book. It was written like a diary but there were (almost) no chapters or dates. One of the comments on the back of my copy of the book says the novel is a meditation on identity but I only really noticed one aspect of identity and that was an exploration on sexuality. So I didn't really notice too much exploration into the character's identity.

One of the issues I have with this novel is that it's about a writer trying to write a novel. I think this is a theme with Martel because I know at the start of Life of Pi one character is looking for inspiration for a story and, if I remember correctly, in Beatrice and Virgil a character was also a struggling writer. So I find it annoying there is this consistent theme through his books. Self is even more annoying because there are so many "unwritten" stories of the main character.

There is a section on page 272 and 273 that describes this novel well, "I finished my novel. It was a bad novel...I would return to (the novel); then salvage parts and incorporate them into my next novel." I think Martel had so many little ideas that he wanted to turn into novels but could never fully complete them. He put them all into this novel and made a significant part of Self about all these little story ideas.

My favourite line of the whole book was from page 231 which reads " ...love, like any living thing, settles where is feels it has a future"

Also I don't even know if the character's name is mentioned.

I still don't get this book

Self is the book that you're not expecting from an author whose work you have vast appreciation and for whom you have great respect. Where Life of Pi and The High Mountains of Portugal are both spiritual journeys, speculative, searching, and piercing in their expression of language and allegory, Self is raw, meandering, painful, and entirely unashamed in being so.

It is about what it is to seek and to be; a questing sentience; and what it is to be a specific thing. How you see the world while embodying that idea, and what happens if we decide to grow outside those boundaries and examine the world in entirely different ways. Told entirely from the viewpoint of a single narrator, it follows that person from birth into their thirties. As is often with Martel, there is a great deal of allegory, though not as much as with Pi and Portugal, much is suggested, very little is obvious, which is perhaps another point to the author - it's a mirror image of the search for self.

The integration of several different languages and how they're presented in the book in columns is very effective, creating a metaphor for the blending of personality, and place. The narrator drifts between genders, lovers, countries, jobs, and ideas.

Many portions of the book are practically pornographic, the narrator seeking identity almost entirely in the physical, sexual identity acting as a muse, of sorts, for purpose. But Martel also explores language, love, nationality, craft, trade, art, and education as factors contributing to the whole of a person, and their identity. The latter are by far the more interesting, exquisitely written as is the norm for Martel, though somewhat marred by the former. While I did find the lewd aspects excessive at points, I do think they serve the larger narrative in establishing the context and tour of the narrator's journey. It also presents some very thoughtful questions. What happens if we identify ourselves entirely by the physical? Isn't the physical a large part of identity? Is it not? What happens if how someone identifies themselves gets taken away? What then?

Self is, unsurprisingly, undeniably human; a spiritual search for personal identity as much as it is an earthly dance with debauchery. It's the Sistine reach of Adam tainted with puberty and a long stare into a hand-mirror. It's beautifully written, engaging, a coming-of-age story of sorts as much as it is Martel meditating on life. It's a complicating, dividing, work. I very much enjoyed most of it, and I may return at some point. It's certainly not for everyone, and I'd only recommend it to a specific audience for which I have no specific criteria at the moment.

Complete utter boring ass garbage.

Well, I was told this story featured some friends of mine - their names have been changed to protect the innocent so it was a little odd to see snippets of their university years viewed by an outsider who is a man, writing as a man who has been turned into a woman who eventually turns back into a man. A little autobiographical though the switching genders perhaps not, though maybe? definitely odd, serious hints of the genius behind his next works. I cannot honestly say I'd recommend though Martel fans may wrinkle their noses at me and frown.

it's one of those books that you feel like you're long time friends with the character, who's hiding nothing from you. very personal and emotional, it surprised me time and again. being really bold in some descriptions. funny at times but also dramatic and sad.

It's almost unbelievable that this and Life of Pi were written by the same author.
The tone of Self is so absurdly different from Pi's. It offers no conclusion to speak of, nor explanation, it is ragingly atheist almost to the point of being nihilistic.

And yet it is just as enlightening.

That is to say, it's a much more difficult read. Self holds your hand less than the grand majority of books, offers no guidance as to what you are supposed to grasp from it, yet it offers so much to the philosophical reader.

Martel writes at top form here ( though I expected no less ), with the book feeling more like a conversation than a grand Author talking down at you.

The content is much more difficult though, with parts so personal reading them feels like intruding, and a final act difficult to read even for my jaded self.

All in all I recommend tremendously ( five stars ) but only to those who can stomach it ( and this is where it loses a star. ).

Couldn't stand this one. What a complete 360 from The Life of Pi.