Abstract

This article seeks to demonstrate that Will Self's novel The Book of Dave (2006) is concerned with apocalyptic literature and sacred texts, and the potential for their disclosures to be misrepresented by fundamentalist interpretations, limiting their utopian promise. Self's novel draws much of its energy from the recontextualization of the Curse of Ham, as described in Genesis 9, used by Self to map a conception of history as an apocalyptic cycle, in which the inhabitants of the distant future are destined to become both the victims and repeat-perpetrators of the abuses of the recent past. The apocalyptic catastrophe of the distant future gives rise to utopian potential, to the revelatory vision, but Self presents us with a bleak view of the prospect for the material realization of utopian desire. In Self's novel we are all cursed like the Canaanites, condemned by the mistakes of our ancestors, destined to repeat their errors. Self addresses how present crises—personal and cultural —might have future consequences, and by doing so explores those aspects of human nature which give rise to 'a series of small botched actions, which, although instantly forgotten, nonetheless ruined everything'.

Keywords

apocalypse, The Book of Dave, the Curse of Ham, Will Self, utopia

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