Customer Reviews

Wilt in Nowhere

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Well. I read the two reviews on this book and didn't believe them. Then I read Wilt in Nowhere and couldn't believe that. I just cannot believe that Tom Shape can write a book that is so unfunny. What is going on? We all love the outrageous Tom Sharpe, not this domesticated charicature. Was this book ghosted? Hard to believe, since the ghosts would have been a lot more Sharpish than is evident in this book. Not only did I fail to laugh as I read this book, I cried. I've lost my favourite author. Read every Tom Sharpe. Think I'll go back and read the earlier ones again. Better not to produce this kind of stuff and to leave a legacy to Tom Sharpe fans that until now was reliable in its riotous-ness. Like to forget this one ever happened.

Wilt began Tom Sharpe's peculiar and irreverant view of life that is expanded throughout all his books since. One step outside the normal leads to two steps and before we know it we are in a parallel universe of the absurd that is very, very funny, outrageous, and essentially human, warts and all. Tom Sharpe has inspired some of the best new humour writer's of today. I think particularly of Robert Fox, who in Red Fox Goose Green takes the everyday in English village life -- the fox hunt, the church service, the pub -- and breathes Tom Sharpe style farce into the institutions that made Britain what it is. However, with this latest Tom Sharpe, I am forced to ask myself if the much admired Master of the Absurd is still the master. There are few traces of Tom Sharpe's brilliance in this book, and I think the mantel of the master of modern farce has passed to one of his disciples. To be quite honest, I liked better the Tom Sharpe-like Red Fox Goose Green (Robert Fox, Sharpe's adoring disciple). I found the work of the disciple much more Tom Sharpe-like and much funnier than this real Tom Sharpe.

I never thought I would say it, but since the reviewer before has led the way, I summon my powers to hurt and destroy and hold down my lifelong love for Tom Sharpe -- the real Tom Sharpe that is -- the TS of Porterhouse Blue, Wilt, Indecent Exposure, etc, etc. And I have to admit, with regret, that Tom Sharpe, usually so scaldingly hot, has gone off the boil with this latest adventure, which takes place in a sane world, well almost, and has none of the bite we expect from Tom Sharpe. Where has that farcical satyre gone? Like the previous reviewer, I think it has passed from the master and now resides in the likes of Robert Fox, who with his Red Fox Goose Green rekindles the grotesque fires of Sharpe in a riotous review of English village full of god-fearing fox-killers. The bumbling Wilt created by Sharpe has passed his mantel to 'the Colonel', who just happens to turn a normal situation into a naked orgy of the absurd. I read this latest Wilt and then I read Red Flag Blue Member, Robert Fox's second adventure of the Colonel. Sharpe's Wilt has become a cardboard character, not recognisable. Fox's Colonel, crazy like a fox, now wears the mantel of the King of the Absurd. Long live the legacy of Tom Sharpe, and long may his clones rekindle his fantastic view of the world.

I'm not sure why there are so many negative reviews here but I read the book and I couldn't stop laughing (a few times my wife had to shush me because we were in public). A bitingly sharp (no pun intended) satire of the NHS (anyone who has had to deal with the NHS can well sympathise), Polytechs, English inner cities and the type of Republicans ruling the roost today seen through the hapless Wilt and his wife Eva. Every page is vintage Sharpe and the humour shines through with vigour.

As other reviewers have said, this book simply does not measure up to the hilarious standard established in Tom Sharpe's earlier books.

Of all the books Sharpe has written his character Henry Wilt is the most enduring. No matter where he goes or what he does poor Wilt seems to attract trouble and misunderstanding. Wilt in Nowhere shows that even when Henry tries to disappear and spend time alone bad luck and hilarious confusion pursues him.
I've been a huge fan of Tom Sharpe for years and as an aspiring writter myself I aim to emulate his style of far-fetched, creative humour.