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A review by thomasgoddard
Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe
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.