Will Self and Psychogeography

(Okay, sorry this is late)


So, Will Self is a self proclaimed flaneur, or person who likes to stroll. In an interview with Frank Bures for Worldhum.com, Self explains his interest in psychogeography, its background and how it helps him understand urbanity. 


Coined by Guy Debord in 1955, psychogeography is "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals" (link). The exploration of one's environment in the frame of Debord's definition is only fully understood via a detached sense of observation. As Self says in the interview, "the solitary walker ambles through the metropolis, experiencing its richness and diversity when freed from the need to use it" (Worldhum). There is an emphasis placed on the necessity of anti-capitalist attitudes. This "work, consume, die" lifestyle mentioned in the interview is a dark sentiment shared by many of the transgressive authors we have and will study in class. 


The "Cock" half of Cock and Bull follows Carol as her views on life change with the growth of her penis. A brief synopsis: she realizes her husband, Dan, doesn't make her feel like a woman; she begins to masturbate; she grows a penis; Dan joins AA; she gets her drivers license; she walks to the liquor store and buys an enormous quantity of alcohol which she feeds to Dan; she rapes and kills him. If psychogeography is an understanding of surroundings via walking and observing, then what is the significance of Carol's license? She spends her entire life walking or being driven because she is legally incapable of driving herself so she has spent her life taking in her surroundings without actively participating in them. The securing of her license is in step with her mental transformation into first, an independent person and secondly, an ambiguously gendered human. Self equates the ignorance of one's environment to a "benighted peasant" (Worldhum) and questions the "human-defined geography." Carol spends most of the story as a pretty pathetic or, at best, nonchalant woman; basically indifferent to her husband's alcoholic benders, her lack of education or work, or Beverly her lesbian pseudo-partner. After she begins to plan the rape of Dan, however, her attitude becomes focused and thorough. Once Dan is dead she quickly takes care of Dave 2 and as it becomes clear later, many other men. Perhaps Self is indicating that her lack of enthusiasm was a dam of oppression released by her destruction of her husband?