The Passion of Will Self (newstatesman.com)

He seems to be as miserable and misanthropic in real life as he is in his books.

Such an irony/nominative determinism around his name. The self cannot will its way out of the tangled mess, cannot will to be the good Christian he dissociatively admires.

“it is not in the individual gift to will belief. Self has tried to believe – and cannot.”