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becki_c's review against another edition
5.0
I think I bruised a few ribs, the first chapter alone had me howling with laughter.
Tom Sharpe is masterful in shining a bright light on the absurd follies of mankind. Will now read through the rest of his novels.
Tom Sharpe is masterful in shining a bright light on the absurd follies of mankind. Will now read through the rest of his novels.
sjg2023's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
shane's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed this. I've read a couple of the Wilt novels before now but never did get round to reading this. I didn't even see the t.v. series either, so I came to it with a clear view as it were. I wasn't disappointed. There are a lot of novels that inspire reviews along the lines of 'laugh out loud' and so on but rarely do they actually deliver, but this one does. The characters are wonderfully English, even though one of them isn't, and simply draw you into their lives with such ease.
I really enjoyed this and look forward to continuing this journey through the world and imaginings of Tom Sharpe. Very enjoyable, and very funny.
I really enjoyed this and look forward to continuing this journey through the world and imaginings of Tom Sharpe. Very enjoyable, and very funny.
thomasgoddard's review against another edition
3.0
Whilst away I couldn't help myself but buy a few books. I decided to buy a lot of thin books again. Just to try to keep my backpack light for the return trip. I ended up buying seven.
Sharpe is an author I've always seen, but assumed was for old people. The books have that whiff of shillings and pence to them. Bawdry and a little crass. The prawn cocktail pong. That undeniable essential quality of a pre-internet world.
They still do. I have to be honest. As much as I loved this book it was for the same reason that I enjoyed reading Confessions of a Window Cleaner by Christopher Wood. The two books just have this, admittedly nostalgic, aura of taboo to them. There's at least twenty moments where you have to read the section again to ensure you're not just misunderstanding the sheer flippant racism or misogyny.
The storyline is about an unhappy landed couple. The husband is into fetish. The wife just wants kids. They aren't compatible. Their gardener is a German-Jewish mistaken for Italian WW2 plane crash survivor with buried munitions. A motorway is proposed that threatens to level Handyman Hall where they live. The husband uses his connections to attempt to stop it (but has no intention of stopping it, as he proposed it as a nefarious scheme to extricate himself from his marriage in the first place). The wife too begins a campaign.
Chip in a few more oddball characters and you have the sort of 1970s Carry On nonsense that just.... Works. Their various motives and intentions shift due to amusing misunderstandings and mistakes. It all becomes elegantly farcical.
It is offensive. It is crude. But it is also like getting read to by your drunken grandfather. There's a charm to it that is undeniable. I found parts really amusing. I think a few jokes land really badly, but it doesn't come across as hateful, so much as just tone deaf.
Sharpe is an author I've always seen, but assumed was for old people. The books have that whiff of shillings and pence to them. Bawdry and a little crass. The prawn cocktail pong. That undeniable essential quality of a pre-internet world.
They still do. I have to be honest. As much as I loved this book it was for the same reason that I enjoyed reading Confessions of a Window Cleaner by Christopher Wood. The two books just have this, admittedly nostalgic, aura of taboo to them. There's at least twenty moments where you have to read the section again to ensure you're not just misunderstanding the sheer flippant racism or misogyny.
The storyline is about an unhappy landed couple. The husband is into fetish. The wife just wants kids. They aren't compatible. Their gardener is a German-Jewish mistaken for Italian WW2 plane crash survivor with buried munitions. A motorway is proposed that threatens to level Handyman Hall where they live. The husband uses his connections to attempt to stop it (but has no intention of stopping it, as he proposed it as a nefarious scheme to extricate himself from his marriage in the first place). The wife too begins a campaign.
Chip in a few more oddball characters and you have the sort of 1970s Carry On nonsense that just.... Works. Their various motives and intentions shift due to amusing misunderstandings and mistakes. It all becomes elegantly farcical.
It is offensive. It is crude. But it is also like getting read to by your drunken grandfather. There's a charm to it that is undeniable. I found parts really amusing. I think a few jokes land really badly, but it doesn't come across as hateful, so much as just tone deaf.
whogivesabook's review against another edition
3.0
Whilst away I couldn't help myself but buy a few books. I decided to buy a lot of thin books again. Just to try to keep my backpack light for the return trip. I ended up buying seven.
Sharpe is an author I've always seen, but assumed was for old people. The books have that whiff of shillings and pence to them. Bawdry and a little crass. The prawn cocktail pong. That undeniable essential quality of a pre-internet world.
They still do. I have to be honest. As much as I loved this book it was for the same reason that I enjoyed reading Confessions of a Window Cleaner by Christopher Wood. The two books just have this, admittedly nostalgic, aura of taboo to them. There's at least twenty moments where you have to read the section again to ensure you're not just misunderstanding the sheer flippant racism or misogyny.
The storyline is about an unhappy landed couple. The husband is into fetish. The wife just wants kids. They aren't compatible. Their gardener is a German-Jewish mistaken for Italian WW2 plane crash survivor with buried munitions. A motorway is proposed that threatens to level Handyman Hall where they live. The husband uses his connections to attempt to stop it (but has no intention of stopping it, as he proposed it as a nefarious scheme to extricate himself from his marriage in the first place). The wife too begins a campaign.
Chip in a few more oddball characters and you have the sort of 1970s Carry On nonsense that just.... Works. Their various motives and intentions shift due to amusing misunderstandings and mistakes. It all becomes elegantly farcical.
It is offensive. It is crude. But it is also like getting read to by your drunken grandfather. There's a charm to it that is undeniable. I found parts really amusing. I think a few jokes land really badly, but it doesn't come across as hateful, so much as just tone deaf.
Sharpe is an author I've always seen, but assumed was for old people. The books have that whiff of shillings and pence to them. Bawdry and a little crass. The prawn cocktail pong. That undeniable essential quality of a pre-internet world.
They still do. I have to be honest. As much as I loved this book it was for the same reason that I enjoyed reading Confessions of a Window Cleaner by Christopher Wood. The two books just have this, admittedly nostalgic, aura of taboo to them. There's at least twenty moments where you have to read the section again to ensure you're not just misunderstanding the sheer flippant racism or misogyny.
The storyline is about an unhappy landed couple. The husband is into fetish. The wife just wants kids. They aren't compatible. Their gardener is a German-Jewish mistaken for Italian WW2 plane crash survivor with buried munitions. A motorway is proposed that threatens to level Handyman Hall where they live. The husband uses his connections to attempt to stop it (but has no intention of stopping it, as he proposed it as a nefarious scheme to extricate himself from his marriage in the first place). The wife too begins a campaign.
Chip in a few more oddball characters and you have the sort of 1970s Carry On nonsense that just.... Works. Their various motives and intentions shift due to amusing misunderstandings and mistakes. It all becomes elegantly farcical.
It is offensive. It is crude. But it is also like getting read to by your drunken grandfather. There's a charm to it that is undeniable. I found parts really amusing. I think a few jokes land really badly, but it doesn't come across as hateful, so much as just tone deaf.
bookpossum's review against another edition
3.0
Very clever and totally absurd. Sharpe has some shrewd and funny observations in among the nonsense. In describing one of the principal characters, a government bureaucrat called Dundridge:
"In practical terms Dundridge was clearly a disaster. On the other hand he did have a flair for public relations. His schemes sounded good and year by year Dundridge had been promoted, carried upward by an ineluctable wave of inefficiency and the need to save the public the practical consequences of his latest idea until he had reached that rarefied zone of administration where, thanks to the inertia of his subordinates, his projects could never be implemented."
Then there was this description of a not so stately home:
"Ahead lay Handyman Hall. It stood, an amalgam in stone and brick, timber and tile and turret, a monument to all that was most eclectic and least attractive in English architecture. To Dundridge, himself a devotee of function, for whom simplicity was all, it was a nightmare. Ruskin and Morris, Gilbert Scott, Vanbrugh, Inigo Jones and Wren to name but a few had all lent their influence to a building that combined the utility of a water-tower with the homeliness of Wormwood Scrubs."
Very good fun. 3.5 stars.
"In practical terms Dundridge was clearly a disaster. On the other hand he did have a flair for public relations. His schemes sounded good and year by year Dundridge had been promoted, carried upward by an ineluctable wave of inefficiency and the need to save the public the practical consequences of his latest idea until he had reached that rarefied zone of administration where, thanks to the inertia of his subordinates, his projects could never be implemented."
Then there was this description of a not so stately home:
"Ahead lay Handyman Hall. It stood, an amalgam in stone and brick, timber and tile and turret, a monument to all that was most eclectic and least attractive in English architecture. To Dundridge, himself a devotee of function, for whom simplicity was all, it was a nightmare. Ruskin and Morris, Gilbert Scott, Vanbrugh, Inigo Jones and Wren to name but a few had all lent their influence to a building that combined the utility of a water-tower with the homeliness of Wormwood Scrubs."
Very good fun. 3.5 stars.
sassenak's review against another edition
4.0
4,5/5. J’avais lu ce roman des années 1970 il y a très longtemps (probablement en 1987 ou aux alentours) et j’avais beaucoup ri au point de me souvenir du titre malgré les années. Donc, je me suis dit que ce serait une bonne idée de le relire mais cette fois en anglais (vu que ma première lecture était en français ... à cette époque, il était moins facile de trouver des livres en VO). Et en plus, pour ce roman, on a fait une lecture avec mon chéri donc on a pu partager nos moments de rire ! La chose qui m’a le plus marquée en lisant cette histoire est le style typiquement british et le vocabulaire délicieusement suranné utilisé par moment : j’ai appris des tas de mots que je ne connaissais pas (je connaissais des synonymes plus récents). Mais cela n’a pas été difficile à lire malgré tout car l’histoire est pleine de rebondissements et de scènes savoureuses. Je ne me rappelais pas des déviances de Sir Giles (qui ont dû paraître étranges à l’époque où a été écrit le livre car je ne pense pas qu’on en parlait beaucoup mais bon, ça ne m’avait pas du tout choquée quand je l’avais lu alors que j’étais bien plus jeune !) mais elles m’ont fait bien rire car les scènes sont très visuelles et assez ridicules comme il se doit. Forcément, Lady Maud, qui est souvent présentée peu à son avantage, est pourtant très attachante car elle semble être la seule personne presque normale, avec Blott, alors que les autres personnages ont tous des défauts et des comportements bien détestables et surtout très amusants. On voit souvent où va se diriger le récit, un peu comme on voit qu’un personnage va droit dans le mur sans s’arrêter, et puis, l’ensemble rebondit vers un autre moment grandiose de bêtise humaine, de rapacité, d’égoïsme et de magouilles en tous genres. C’est un humour typiquement anglais, parfois subtil, parfois un peu gras, mais qui n’a pas vraiment vieilli : l’histoire pourrait tout à fait se passer à notre époque et d’ailleurs, certains passages m’ont fait penser à des sujets d’actualité récents. L’auteur tire à boulets rouges sur de nombreux travers de nos sociétés, que ce soit dans l’administration, la justice, la politique, le mariage et les relations entre sexes et j’en passe. En tout cas, cela me rassure de voir que mon sens de l’humour n’a pas trop changé au fil des ans car j’ai une nouvelle fois bien ri et j’ai passé un excellent moment de détente !
persey's review against another edition
4.0
Typically Sharpe; scintillating, absurd, intricately plotted, vulgar, hilarious. The David Suchet narration is sheer joy and adds to the merriment.
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