Book Review: The Quantity Theory of Morality by Will Self
Review by Ed Meek
I’m late to reading Will Self, author of 22 works of fiction and 9 works of nonfiction, shortlisted for the Booker prize numerous times, ditto the Whitbread novel of the year, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. The Quantity Theory of Morality is a bookend to The Quantity Theory of Insanity written 35 years ago. The former claims there’s a surfeit of insanity; his current novel brings back a character to argue there isn’t enough morality in our age to keep us on track.
The novel focuses on a group of upper middle class British friends, gathering together over a period of years. Self includes a character named after himself. Each chapter is written from the point of view of one of the characters. Self plays with their identity by having them straight, gay, and trans in different chapters. Through the novel he lampoons middle class professionals, psychiatrists, government workers, spies, lawyers, financiers, Jews, AI, funerals, mortality, etc. It is clear they’re in a decadent era after the fall of the British empire-a fate we are soon headed for.
Self is a writer’s writer. He’s constantly pushing the limits of fiction. He knows and uses multiple languages and has an amazing word-hoard. The novel is packed with references. He knows his bible. Above all, he is laugh out loud funny and if someone else is in the room when you are reading him, you’ll want to read passages aloud.
As to the title, “The quantity theory of morality, Bettina, concerns the human propensity to do things they hold to be either right or wrong—to commit themselves to this exercise of justice, or injustice; and to allow either evil, or righteousness to enter into their being.” This brings up a question many of us find ourselves asking these days. How can these people running our country live with themselves? Self seems to think they are aware of what they are doing. His character, Dr. Busner, goes on to explain that if a group is immoral, their immorality causes others to also be bad. So, in a corrupt, immoral administration, the tone is set for bad behavior by characters like Noem and Patel and Witkoff (and the entire Trump family) by the President and his close associates. In the novel, moral laxity results in direct harmful consequences (as in the Epstein story).
Self’s writing is a pleasure to read. “I remember it was dark out as I walked towards the Barbican through the sepulchral emptiness of Smithfield on a Sunday.” The novel is replete with such sentences.
And what about the humor? “After all, we’ve all known each other for years, and we don’t have any real secrets, do we?” No, I thought to myself sardonically, except what we do for a living, how much we earn, how much we have overall, who were sleeping with, what we truly, in our innermost hearts believe, together with whatever we really think about someone…and everyone.”
For satire to really bite it has to be true. I have no idea how much any of my friends are worth and I’ve known them for 60 years! And who knows what we really think in our hearts? Or how about this? “On and on she went: I suppose Joanie was attractive once, but I think she must have sampled her own breakfast pots too much; so that now she’s just another big, solid, pear-shaped Englishwoman of uncertain age, draped unsuitably in flower-patterned cotton and with a face as red as a poppy.”
Lastly, each chapter is written in a different yet fully developed voice. If you are a reader hooked on detective novel plots or page turning thrillers, this is not the book for you. But if you love good writing and enjoy
invention and satire, you will thoroughly enjoy The Quantity Theory of Morality. And, as is the case with all good satirists, Self gives us plenty to think about.
