Edition: U.S. / Global  Bizarro World  By Jonathan Lethem
Published: June 20, 1999   By Will Self.  244 pp. New York:
Grove Press. $23.  WHAT more do we want from Will Self? To make
the obvious pun, are we after more Will or more Self? In
''Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys,'' his third
collection of short fiction to be published in less than a
decade -- or fourth, depending on how you count the paired
novellas of his American debut, ''Cock & Bull'' -- Self provides
more, much more, of his vibrantly caustic prose and his anarchic
and florid satirical premises. If Self isn't funnier than he's
been before, it's only because that would be impossible. He is
flaunting his distinctive gifts again, with riotous, if
inconsistent, results. Once again, Self hasn't bothered to
deepen his engagement with character -- that customary virtue of
serious fiction -- or temper his outrage with more than a
smidgen of empathy.  It's fair to suppose that Self has become
the writer he means to be -- a truly odd one, that is,