Customer Reviews

The Midden

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4 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

OK so it doesn't quite match the hilarious mayhem of The Throwback or reach the heady comic heights of the Wilt trilogy, but The Midden rattles along at a fair old pace and had me laughing out loud about a dozen times (which is at least 11 more laughs than Grantchester Grind). The Midden's gloriously chaotic denouement in particular is something of a comic masterpiece. This is some of Tom Sharpe's strongest characterisation in a long time and is simply crying out for a sequel. I genuinely want to know what adventures the indomitable Miss Midden gets up to next. Surely the unfortunate Chief Constable will be plotting some horrible revenge? What about the creepy Major? and can poor Timothy Bright escape Piggy Chops for ever? So come on Tom Sharpe, let's have "Middenhall Revisited"!

An amazing history, just like Sharpe is able to make them. As a respectable English humour writer, he throws his characters in incredible situations, and mostly what can happen worse... just happens, with an almost mathematical regularity. I just like such "complicated", incredible stories.

Tom Sharpe is an absolute madman. The Midden is another example of that. Timothy Bright is in his late twenties. Finicial advisor with nothing but a bright future. Then it all goes into disarray when his advice just fails. Totally in debt,Timothy hooks up with the mob,robs his Aunt,and has to frame one of the top judges or else the mob turns him into "piggy chops".

Timothy sets out on his mission,shacks up with his Uncle for a bit before moving on. Tired of Timothy leaching and stealing his tobacco,the Uncle decides to slip some "toad" into the tobacco which Tim has been smoking. Toad is some kind of hallucinogetic that sends Timothy off on his scooter naked at 140 mph. Timothy finds a houseboat,finds a way in and hops into the bed. Unknowingly the house boat belongs to the Chief Constable and the bed is also occupied by the chiefs wife. The chief beats the heck out of Tim and chucks him in the basement. Trying to figure away to dispose of the intruder without causing any seen of finding a naked man in bed with his wife he decides to dump him off at the hated Middens mansion.

It was insane up to this point,then it just gets off the hook. The chief in his worries of getting pinned in dumping the the naked boy,decides he will frame the Middens with acts of child abuse. From here we get bumbling policemen acting like sheep to get closer to the mansion,an old geezer remembering his buffalo hunting days trying to shoot the cops. A church group on a retreat and on and on,and when it all comes down all heck breaks loose.Absolute chaos and hilarity. A must read for Sharpe fans.

I was thrilled to find a new Tom Sharpe when looking through the shelves at the airport. Just what I needed for a week on the beach in Fiji. Sadly though it stuttered and fired here and there but never really lived up to his earlier classics. Characters of interest were developed and then disappeared leaving many questions unanswered. It was a shame that I finished this book so quickly then left Captain Carelli's Mandolin on the plane unfinished. I will just have to buy it again.

As an ex brit who was raised in a british boarding school in the 50's and who is painfully familiar with the foibles, follies and general demented attitudes of the british upper classes,i found this novel to be extraordinarily dull. There are traces of Sharpe in it,but i feel Sharpe has succumbed to what i gratutiously call the "Hollywood" syndrome. Find something which appeals to the masses, then flog it to death. This book is really nothing more than nastiness without a real purpose to it; money and sales seem to be the motive behind it. The constant emphasis on lesbianism and sexual escapism (and i am not a prude) are simply crude and unamusing. Shame on you Mr Sharpe for descending from brilliance into mediocrity.

I've long been a Tom Sharpe fan, but "The Midden" just doesn't live up to his previous books. Three specific criticisms:

(1) it's just not very funny. Sure, there are occasional amusing passages, but nothing that gives rise to the uncontrollable laughter we've come to expect from Sharpe.

(2) a lot of the writing is gratitously nasty. Sharpe's writing has always been 'edgy', and that's okay ... but here he includes long irrelevant passages, filled with unnecessarily coarse language. The personal attacks on Margaret Thatcher and John Major strike an unpleasant note, too.

(3) much of the book reads like a badly done pastiche of "Blott on the Landscape" and "Riotous Assembly".

On the lookout for new novels by Tom Sharpe, I scoured
the bookstore shelves under "S" for years. The howls of
delight that Riotous Assembly, Indecent Exposure,
Blott on the Landscape, Wilt and The Great Pursuit elicited
from me and from anyone I lent them to were loud and long.
Although I never saw his other novels as the equal of that
quintet, I enjoyed them all, even "Wilt on High."
I waited years for a new novel, only to be saddled
with "Grantchester Grind," a true dog of a novel.
With "The Midden," Sharpe shows flashes of his form,
but the assembly of the story is flawed. The beginning
introduces us to a character who then spends the rest of
the novel either unconscious or imprisoned and out of most
of the action. We then only have the rest of the novel to
become acquainted with the new characters centered
around the Middenhall. This is unfortunate, because
we are reminded of Lady Maud in "Blott on the Landscape,"
and Inspector Flint in "Wilt." Moreover, we have a
failed attempt at an irreverent attitude to today's
headlines with references to AIDS. It takes a very
deft hand and a good grasp of these types of issues to
mock them and Sharpe comes up short. Nevertheless,
there are amusing characterizations, a brutal ridicule of
authority and some amusing passages. This is the closest
the world has been to a Tom Sharpe novel of the old type
in many years, and a vast improvement on "Grantchester Grind."
I can only hope Sharpe keeps improving at the same
pace so that his next book will be top drawer.
I'm still waiting for "Blott" part two