Literary Style
According to M. Hunter Hayes, Self has given his reason for writing as follows: "I don't write fiction for people to identify with and I don't write a picture of the world they can recognise. I write to astonish people." "What excites me is to disturb the reader's fundamental assumptions. I want to make them feel that certain categories within which they are used to perceiving the world are unstable."
The influences on his fiction mentioned most frequently include J. G. Ballard whom he considers "a great mentor", William Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson. He has cited such diverse writers as Jonathan Swift, Alasdair Gray, Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll, Joseph Heller and Louis-Ferdinand Celine as formative influences on his writing style.
Zack Busner is a recurring character in the fiction of Will Self, appearing in the short story collections The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Grey Area, Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe, as well as in the novels Great Apes, The Book of Dave and Umbrella. Busner is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst practising in London, and is prone to self-promotion at the expense of his patients. He is often the antagonist of the stories he appears in, although not always with villainous intent.
Among his admirers are Harold Bloom.
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