The Book of Dave: A Revelation of the Recent Past and the Distant Future

i read a positive review of this book months ago and picked it up. but when i started reading it on my last silent retreat, i had no idea what to expect, and merely chose it because i like to start those retreats with something story-driven and fictional, as a detox. what i didn't expect was a long (475 pages) and challenging read that blew me away in both its creativity and it's allegory nature. more on what it's an allegory of in a moment. first, a description. the book of dave takes place in two times: current day london, and an extremely distant future london. we don't know the actual date of how far in the future the future-scenes are, as the calendar system resets with the discovery of "the book of dave" at some point in the future, and those future-scenes takes place about 500 years after that point. in the current time, dave rudman is a bitter london cabbie, working through an ugly divorce and custody issues surrounding his son. his obsession with "the knowledge" (the massive and perfect memory of all streets cab drivers have to have in london) informs just about everything in this life. after things take a decidedly bad turn for him (and, fueled by anti-depressant meds), dave writes a book -- a missive about what's wrong with society and the rules that should govern everyone. this book he writes starts with the "runs and points" of "the knowledge", and shifts into a diatribe about the inability of men and women (mommies and daddies) to live together. dave has this tome printed as a one-off book, on metal plates (for indestructability), and burries it in the backyard of the home where his estranged wife and son are living. eventually, dave gets some things figured out in life, finds love and peace, and after discovering that his hidden book is irretrievable (due to a new concrete deck built over the spot), writes a second book as a personal cathartic exercise, overturning much of what he wrote in the first book. dave's story is really a beautiful story of redemption. in the future time, a catastrophic world-wide episode of some sort (some allusions to polar ice-caps melting) has wiped out most of the world with noah-like effect. all technology as we know it is gone (and forgotten). things seem to be as they would have been in, say, the 1500s (or so). oh, and the geography of southern england has completely changed. most of the future-story takes place on a small island off the coast of england where a primitive clan of families live a simple isolated life, under the burden of "daviantity", the hard-core state religion that took hold of all of england in the wake of the discovery of the book of dave. this religion is mostly incomprehensible in it's meaning, but the rules are all very clear: particularly the rules about the complete seperation of men and women, with children spending half the week in "daddy time" and half the week in "mommy time". the language of this time is part of what makes this book a challenging read: it's a pho

The book of Dave is an entertaining and demanding work that amuses and enlightens at the same time. The cast of characters, including Dave and the post apocalyptic Dave followers are an interesting study into the dark nature of man and the survival of hope and faith. Its a great book and Will Self is now one of my favourite authors.

I'm a speed reader. When I encountered this book, I found myself forced to slow WAY down, even to read out loud, so I could understand the dialect in which the dystopian sections are written (kind of like a text-messaged cockney). As a Mormon, I found the treatment of revealed religion had a special resonance with me--the buried plates were such a clever twist. Overall, I felt like I left this book knowing more about the human condition than when I started, and I was also thoroughly entertained. I highly recommend The Book of Dave.

This is a wonderfullly mind-bending book that works on so many levels it would definitely reward a second reading. Its premise is pretty strange: in a post-apocalyptic England, turned into an achipelago by global warming, a brutal and backward society is ruled by a religion based on a holy text of "revealed truth," The Book of Dave. Fast-rewind to the present and it soon becomes clear that The Book is the psychotic rantings of a London cabbie of the same name, engraved on stainless steel plates and buried in his estranged wife's garden. The purpose of this insanity is to pass to his son "The Knowledge" of London streets, routes and points of interest that cabbies need to memorize to get their license. Intewoven with this is Dave's worldview, venomously warped by rage at the ex-wife, longing for his "Lost Boy," and the side-effects of a stew of mis-prescribed drugs. The first chapter of Will Self's book, set in 522 AD (After Dave) was almost incomprehensible, even though I lived and studied in England for years and I am quite conversant with cockney and London lore. It is worth persevering, however. Slowly the realization dawns that many of the strange vocabulary and practices relate to taxis and their drivers. The ubiquitous holy (or "davine") greeting, rendered in horrible texting abbreviation, is "Ware2, guv?" Anyone who ever hailed a cab in London knows that these are the first words out of the driver's mouth. In the dystopian future these are words that connect one to Dave's sacred world. Priests are "Drivers," prayer is "intercom," wise and exalted people are addressed as "rearview," souls are "fares," heretics are "fliers." The last one took a while to decipher: in the present, fliers are people who take a cab to Heathrow to leave London, and they are by definition heretics, leaving behind the familiar, wondrous, endlessly interesting London. The novel unfolds in 16 chapters that alternate between the dystopian future and the blighted present, skipping back and forth even within their own era. In the future there is rigid separation of the sexes, with the children spending exactly half a week with each parent (as Dave the cabbie prescribed in his Book). The routes and sights ("runs and points") are endlessly recited by rote, even though they have disappeared for centuries, although some of them are being rebuilt in grotesque caricature by people who have no idea what they looked like. The people are kept in brutal servitude for the benefit of King Dave III and his Lawyers (feudal landlords) by a combination of religious doctrine, a cadre of Drivers (state-sanctioned priests), Examiners, spies, and armed thugs. That the rantings of the demented cabbie become the holiest of holies and the entire basis of a society is exactly the point: Dave's steel-engraved bile served the purpose of the rulers, but then, as the author redundantly points out, they would have used whatever else was at hand and fit the need. In the parallel na

The novel is long and complicated. It necessitates consulting with a glossary of invented words and a dictionary. Prepare for an aggressively dark narrative of misogyny, religious repression, domestic violence. There is enough portrayal of cruelty and bigotry, mental illness and torture to evoke intense revulsion and disgust, a hallmark of this British writer's fiction. The Book of Dave is sometimes as off-putting as Self's five previous novels but arrives at a pinnacle of accomplishment. The plot is sturdy and the prose is voluptuous. The emotional range he hones is symphonic, retaining the initial simple notes of rage of the character. Dave Rudman, a balding London taxi driver undergoing a nasty divorce, holds a lot of rage. His wife, Michelle, wrings him over a custody battle over their son, Carl. He expresses his rants and buries them. His denied fatherhood is a mortal blow, unsoothed by the "Fathers First" support group Dave attends. Alternating with these chapters is a narrative that unfolds hundreds of years later. A flood has devastated London and its surrounding areas. The most vital relic from the antediluvian world? The "Book of Dave," exhumed long ago and worshiped as a bible with Dave as its god. On one outer island, Hams, residents live a primitive farming life. Their theocracy is organized around their deity's ordained sacred scriptures: 21st-century cabbie lore and child-custody laws. In daily prayers, the Hamsters pay fervent thanks to Dave. They chant the names of extinct London streets from obsolete cab-driving routes. Men must live apart from women. Women are routinely abused and forced to do most of the work. Children religiously observe Changeover, spending half the week with their mothers and half with fathers. Anyone who dares to transgress the scriptures risks a public trial followed by excruciatingly tortuous punishments. No actual taxi cabs exist in this post-technological future world. There are, in fact, no wheels at all, except in the capital some distance away. There, a huge, Inquisition-like wheel of torture is used to punish heretics. As a futuristic fantasy, Ham resembles Hundred Acre Wood more than "Blade Runner." The contrast between Ham's primitive culture and Dave's current day London, with its "neuralgia of ceaseless communication," is part of the writer's larger point about the circular spiral of history. Self's alternating chapters ingeniously show how fragile new civilizations are, constructed atop the past and never really advancing. Dave daydreams about a great flood while stuck in traffic; stuck on their island, the Hamsters aspire to plastic fragments stamped "Made in China." A brilliant work that incisively stirs, disturbs and enlightens. This is a book to have and to give. The prose alone is impeccable and lush.