Sharpe, Tom

Average customer rating:

Tom Sharpe does it again.
The Master of the Absurd
Out Loud Funny
I laughed like I was crazy....
Fantastic clever, witty and dirty British humor...

Wilt
Tom Sharpe
Manufacturer: ARROW (RAND)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Riotous Assembly
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Wilt on High
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Porterhouse Blue

ASIN: 0099435489

Book Description

Wilt is given to elaborate and vindictive fantasies about his wife, the massive, domineering Eva. But when Eva becomes a Missing Person, following an embarrassing incident at a party they both attend, the police want to question Wilt.</p>

Customer Reviews:

Tom Sharpe does it again........2006-07-15

Henry Wilt is just a regular guy with 'semi' normal thoughts and ambitions, trying to get somewhere in life, except that those around him pay little or no attention to him at all. This drives him to conconct some wayward plan to remove the main thing that's kept him where he is: his wife, Eva. All things are going swimmingly until a chance-meeting with their new neighbours shifts his whole world to one where anything ridiculous and downright unbelievable ends up making a lot of sense.

It's the effortless way that Tom Sharpe interlocks the characters and circumstances in his books that makes them so addictive. I've never read a book where I literally burst out laughing, only to have to sink deeper into my seat to avoid the quizzical looks from those around me. I loved Blott On The Landscape and Porterhouse Blue (and I didn't think he could top them!), but Wilt is by far the best one I've read...and judging by the reviews that Amazon readers have been giving his other books, it seems the journey for me has just begun.

The Master of the Absurd.......2006-03-20

Out Loud Funny.......2002-12-10

This is Sharp's best novel yet, the second detailing the life of Wilt a college lecturer and his severely disfunctional family. In what is basically a farce Sharpe's satire bites deep into every subject he touches, as Wilt comes under investigation by the police for drug dealing, infiltrates a US nuclear air base and has to use face cream to cool his burning uncontrolable penis. If my description of this novel sounds manic, the reason is simple, the book is manic. As an Englishman living in the US I am not sure if the humor travels well, but I hope my American friends can appreciate it, because this book is one of only three (all written by Tom) capable of making me laugh out loud wherever I am reading it (which can be most embarrasing). Try it and enjoy a different view of life and then be thankful you don't have to live Wilt's life.

I laughed like I was crazy...........2002-08-06

I bought this book 15 years ago when traveling. While waiting for a change of planes at Heathrow, I started reading, and couldn't put it down. I started chuckling to myself, then laughing out loud, then laughing so it hurt!! Other passengers were staring at me. I showed them what I reading and some of them nodded knowingly.

It is the funniest book I have ever read!

Fantastic clever, witty and dirty British humor..........2001-09-01

If you enjoy satire, and you like it laced with sexual innuendo, profanity and wit, you will love Tom Sharpe's books, but you will particularly love Wilt, which takes you into the world and never-ending irony of lower-class British academia. Henry Wilt is miserable in his existence as a "Tech" lecturer, married to Eva, his incorrigibly energetic, enthusiastic and critical wife. He attempts to escape by way of fantasizing how he might murder Eva, who has recently taken up with the sexually wacky American couple next door. After an embarrassing encounter with an inflatable doll, Wilt decides to practice murder on it, and ends up being accused of murdering Eva. A fantastic read.

Average customer rating:

Over the top political farce--funny but crude
To Be Read Not For Plot
Keystone Kops Kapers in the RSA
Funny but unexceptional
a laugh riot

Riotous Assembly
Tom Sharpe
Manufacturer: Atlantic Monthly Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Indecent Exposure
Porterhouse Blue
Wilt
Blott on the Landscape
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ASIN: 0871131439

Book Description

When Miss Hazelstone of Jacaranda Park kills her Zulu cook in a sensational crime of passion, the gallant members of the South African police force are soon upon the scene: Kommandant van Heerden, whose secret longing for the heart of an English gentleman leads to the most memorable transplant operation yet recorded: Luitenant Verkramp of the Security Branch, ever active in the pursuit of Communist cells; Konstabel Els, with his propensity for shooting first and not thinking later - and also for forcing himself upon African women in a manner legally reserved for male members of their own race. In the course of the strange events which follow, we encounter some very esoteric perversions and some even more amazing perversions of justice when Miss Hazelstone's brother, the Bishop of Barotseland, is sentenced to be hanged on the ancient gallows in the local prison.

Customer Reviews:

Over the top political farce--funny but crude.......2007-05-17

This is political farce with a vengeance. The back jacket on the paperback says this book is not a political book in any imagined sense of that term and that's essentially true. The author's position on the old South African regime is pretty clear from the word "go" but it never dampens the fun.

The book is so over the top that its characters come off as cardboard cutouts of a caricature--yet, somehow, Sharpe still finds a way to imbue them with enough connective personality that we are drawn into the farce willingly. The book is extremely funny--I laughed out loud at least twenty times. It is a rather crude undertaking--but then again, so was the old South Africa, and this books achieves the unique aspect of being extremely sexually explicit while never actually rendering an actual sex scene--not for want of trying on the "heroines" part.

All in all a lot of fun is the crudity and explicitness don't put you off. If that's the case, seek humor elsewhere.

I enjoyed it enough that I have ordered another couple of Sharpe's books to see if they are as good. I have high hopes on that score.

To Be Read Not For Plot.......2006-02-19

This decidedly intemperate dark jewel has been criticized for, among other things, being short on a coherent logical plot. Fair enough. And saturated with unsympathetic characters. Point taken. So what? If you can find a better written rant of absurd, politically incorrect, howlingly hilarious black (as in motif, not ethnic) humor by all means set Riotous Assembly aside and go with your more entertaining discovery, and be so kind as to post its name here so that we may all partake.

Compared to Riotous Assembly, Mel Brooks' best sounds like a grim Savonarola tract.

Keystone Kops Kapers in the RSA.......2004-08-13

If you're ever in the mood for a hugely over-the-top farce about apartheid-era South Africa, well, this is the book for you. Sharpe spent a decade there before being deported as a subversive, and after reading this unrestrained comic pummeling of the RSA, one can only wonder why it took the authorities so long to give him the boot. Indeed authority is target number one in this fast-paced story set in the small city of Piemburg. It all starts when an elderly semi-aristocratic Englishwoman calls the police to report that she's shot her Zulu cook. Refusing police Kommandant van Heerden's best attempts to cover up the matter, she reveals that the cook was also her lover, which so appalls him that he immediately declares a state of emergency and mobilizes the entire police force. And so begins a massive comedy of errors, in which a "Kaffir-Killer" Konstabel Els plays a large role, as does the slimy Luitenant Veerkamp, and matters take a turn for the utterly bizarre, as rubber fetishes, bondage, a drunken bishop, porno films, cross dressing, and penile novocain injections are all introduced to the plot. As one might surmise from such a litany, the plot spins ever more wildly out of control until events come to a head at--appropriately enough--the insane asylum. All the antics are intermittently funny, and it's somewhat refreshing to see the horrors of apartheid treated with rather less than the usual gravitas. Worth a read if you've got a special interest in South Africa or a soft spot for broad farce, otherwise not all that noteworthy

Funny but unexceptional.......2002-10-31

In many respects, apartheid South Africa provides a great setting for farces and satirical novels. Tom Sharpe ably exploits the possibilities in this tale involving an interracial affair, a bishop who ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a murder investigation by irredeemably dumb and racist Afrikaner policemen.
Parts of Riotous assembly are very funny and Sharpe maintains the hectic pace of the narrative throughout. But in the end, I was disappointed with this book. My dissatisfaction had nothing to do with being an Afrikaner or with an aversion to dark humour. Carl Hiaasen is one of my favourite authors, and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie version of Sharpe's Wilt. My problem was with the characters, who seemed to have no personalities whatsoever beyond the stereotypes they represent. To truly enjoy a book (even a farce), I have to develop an interest in or establish some kind of rapport with the characters, and in the case of Riotous assembly this never happened.

a laugh riot.......2002-08-29

A friend in Britain and I sent each other some favorite books. Since David hadn't read much SF/F, I sent him Jonathan Carroll's Bones of the Moon and James P. Blaylock's The Last Coin. In turn, he sent me some British humor: Tom Sharpe and Clive James. James' books were quite interesting--a well-written autobiography with some sly touches that never quite had me belly-laughing, but kept me reading. Sharpe, on the other hand, I fell into with a gusto. From page one of Riotous Assembly, my hands were doing double-duty turning pages and trying to keep my sides from splitting.

Imagine the writer you would get if you mixed P.G. Wodehouse and Hunter Thompson, and then placed them in South Africa; that's Tom Sharpe. He indeed manages to combine the wit and language skills, as well as the awkward situations of Wodehouse with the sharpened pen of satire and low opinion of humans from Thompson, and his target is South Africa and the police forces there (I believe that he was jailed there for awhile, and ultimately deported).

Upon finishing Riotous Assembly, I rushed to see if I could find any more by this Sharpe fellow. Luckily, Vintage has brought him across the sea for our enjoyment. Indecent Exposure is the sequel to Riotous Assembly and just as funny; perhaps even funnier, given the satire of the Dornford Yates club (a group of Englishmen who adore the veddy British writer Dornford Yates who is clearly an analog for Wodehouse) within the larger South African satire. I also read Wilt, in which he drops some of the satirical and plays the perverted Wodehouse more. Wilt is okay, but I would suggest you try the South African novels first. If you're like me, you'll have to read Wilt or any of his other novels then--just because you can't get enough of this amazing fellow.

The Midden
Average customer rating:

grasping at straws

Save your money

not actually very funny

Not his best,but still hilarious.

Such a plot !

The Midden
Tom Sharpe
Manufacturer: Overlook TP
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0879519282

Customer Reviews:

grasping at straws.......2006-03-11

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.

Save your money.......2006-02-27

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".

not actually very funny.......2005-09-05

Never having read any Sharpe and being aware of his reputation as one of our leading comic writers I thought it about time I gave him a go. The upper classes are inherently amusing and he is held in high regard so I was looking forward to a bit of a chuckle.

50 pages in and with not so much as a ripple of mirth I gave up. Comic writers should be funny, or am I being too demanding?

Not his best,but still hilarious........2004-02-11

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.

Such a plot !.......2001-08-24

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.

Average customer rating:

The best of Sharpe
a hilarious spin of South Africa of days gone by...
Indecent Exposure
Perhaps the funniest book I've ever read!!!!!
Absolutely brillant and funny

Indecent Exposure
Tom Sharpe
Manufacturer: Atlantic Monthly Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Satire, General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Riotous Assembly
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ASIN: 0871131420

Book Description

Once against the setting is Piemburgem, the deceptively peaceful-looking capital of Zululand, where Kommandant van Heerden, Konstabel Els and Luitenant Verkramp continue to terrorize true Englishmen and even truer Zulus in their relentless search for a perfect South Africa. While that great Anglophile, Kommandant van Heerden, gropes his way towards attaining true "Englishness" in the company of the eccentric Dornford Yates Club, Luitenant Verkramp, whose hatred of all things English is surpassed only by his fear of sex. This sets in motion an experiment in mass chastity, with the help of the redoubtable lady psychiatrist Dr. von Blimenstein, which has remarkable and quite unforeseen results. Once more, Konstabel Els, homicidal to the last, saves the day - or what's left of it - in one of the most savage hunts ever chronicled in fiction.

Customer Reviews:

The best of Sharpe.......2005-11-01

Hilarious, extremely funny. This is one of the fiction works that have made me laugh more in my life, including films, comics, or whatever.
I read this book after discovering Sharpe trough Wilt' s saga. One tip: read the african novels first! I have read almost all the books from Sharpe, and I think the two south-african satiras are the best, specially Indecent Exposure.

a hilarious spin of South Africa of days gone by..........2003-10-31

Tom Sharpe's novels, always popular in Britain, are known for being rude spoofs on the political establishment and of the upper echelons of British society. However his earliest works, as in 'Indecent Exposure', the setting is apartheid-era South Africa. His humour is still very baudy, perhaps repetitively so, and his target are the hypocritical, racist white establishment. Some of the language is a bit vulgar, and I imagine some folks might be offended. But Sharpe hits the bulls-eye on his target: the squabbling, pretentious and myoptic white (English/Afrikaan) establishment.

As for the story? Well, it somewhat doesn't matter. Some nonsense about a rural town's police force trying to fight (imagined) communist insurgents using some rather ridiculous means. It's all very slapstick, farcical. Enjoy the book for its now dated (historical) view of South Africa, not for its paper thin story.

Bottom line: a very curious and funny piece of Sharpe's earlier works. Certainly not his best, but he delivers the laughs.

Indecent Exposure.......2000-02-12

This book must be one of the funniest I've ever read. My girlfrind threw me out of bed at four in the morning because I'd apparently been laughing in my sleep after having read the book. The best thing about any of Tom Sharpe's books is that you can read them again and again and still laugh all over again! Superb!

Perhaps the funniest book I've ever read!!!!!.......1999-08-26

What more can I say? Go read it! I read it about 12 years ago or more. It was fantastic. I read it at least once every 2-3 yrs after that and it has never failed to make me laugh again and again. Though Apartheid is dead, the humor is still valid worldwide. Read it as satire or just for its humour. Either way, you'll love it. By the way, dont be put off that its British and thus a bit heavy in the reading department. Its not. Its a great read and you could easily finish reading it in one day unless, of course, you fall off your chair or bed and injure yourself laughing. Believe me, I'm not exaggerating.

Absolutely brillant and funny.......1998-12-07

Tom Sharpe is one of the funniest writers on the planet, and this is his masterpiece. It takes place in the days of southafrican apartheid, and it's weird, wild and wonderful and imposible to explain. For your own good: Read it!

Average customer rating:

The Hilarious world at the top of British academia
The humour is academic.
Rip Roaring Fun...Hilarious Academic Farce
Very funny, but somewhat inaccessible
A first class read!!

Porterhouse Blue
Tom Sharpe
Manufacturer: Secker & Warburg
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

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ASIN: 0436204932

Customer Reviews:

The Hilarious world at the top of British academia.......2005-01-19

A hilarious tale of the strange world that one finds at a place like Cambridge. While one is almost tempted to say, 'yes, but it's actually fiction,' the truth is not far from Sharpe's tale of disaster and woe at this fictional Cambridge college.

The humour is academic........2004-01-29

A satirical leg-pull on one of Britains most august institutions, the Oxbridge College. All the pomp is there, the swan stuffed with widgeon, ageing dons clinging to their chairs with dead cold hands, gate porters who have more in common with east european secret police than with door men.

Within this stuffy and pompous world Sharpe sets a hilarious story. Gas filled condoms bobbing on the lawn, exploding chimneys, numerous haircuts on the one day. All the elements of a good farce are brought together to give a really good funny read. Not the funniest Sharpe novel, but definitely on form.

Rip Roaring Fun...Hilarious Academic Farce.......2003-11-15

There's an out loud laugh a minute in this university life farce. The old verses the new, tradition and progress, black humor and farce abound..Some eccentric characters even by Brit standards, and written so well you'll breeze right through it! Also great descriptions, and you'll feel you're a casual witness to the academic shenanigans all the way through. My only criticism is some very serious situations (like a murderous fire) may be taken a bit too casually..Still, with a touch of class and bawdiness, this one is a real winner!

Very funny, but somewhat inaccessible.......2003-04-24

Of all Tom Sharpe's novels, _Porterhouse Blue_ is perhaps the least accessible. It helps to know something of Cambridge, Peterhouse in particular. Hugh Trevor-Roper, Lady Alexandra, Brian Wormald, and others make barely disguised appearances. Likewise does it help to know something of the Cambridge tripos system and the actual role of the colleges in undergraduate life. Helps to know something, that is, but not too much, as "true insiders" have told me it barely scratches the surface. Overall, funny and viciously satirical, but not Tom Sharpe at his best.

A first class read!!.......2001-12-27

Sharpe is very sharp indeed with Porterhouse Blue. He captures the atmosphere of English academic conservatism at its very funny and ironic best. And the best that can be said about PB is that you won't want to put the book down until it's finished - definitely a one-sitting read! So many plots and counter plots that will keep you guessing and wanting to turn the page. Go buy it immediately, before you have a Porterhouse Blue...

Average customer rating:

Bloody Mary.
Tom Sharpe
Manufacturer: Goldmann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Midden
The Great Pursuit
Wilt in Nowhere
Wilt on High
Riotous Assembly

ASIN: 3442446732

Average customer rating:

<still giggling>
Hysterically Funny!
Another Sharpe one
Funny without doubt

Ancestral Vices
Tom Sharpe
Manufacturer: ARROW (RAND)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Throwback
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ASIN: 0099435535

Customer Reviews:

<still giggling>.......2005-08-25

Tom Sharpe writes some very wicked satire. His victims are typically the upper class, snobby English or, in his earlier works, the hypocritically rascist South Africans. Although very popular in the UK, his books are almost unknown in America ... too bad!

In 'Ancestral Vices' we have a loosely stiched story about a crusty and warped aristocratic family, a befuddled biographer, victimized dwarves, and a murder. It's a total farce. However the author's wit and humor are lethal, and the story somehow holds together until the very end (or near so).

Bottom line: perhaps not a classic but 'Ancestral Vices' does Tom Sharpe some justice. Recommended.

Hysterically Funny!.......2003-01-11

Introduced to Tom Sharpe's work by a Brit friend, I can't get enough of this amazing author! "Ancestral Vices" literally made my cry with laughter. Yapp's horrifying experience with the "Ablution Bath" sent me into gales of giggles, as did the run amok motorized wheelchair scenario. Lord Petrefact, Willie Coppett, the sex toy factory...all of it was enough to make a cat laugh. Sharpe is warped, twisted, and totally delightful! Simply, hysterically funny!

Another Sharpe one.......2002-12-19

Tom Sharpe is the most hilarious writer. Ancestral vices is another piece of mad cap mayhem from the master.Fast paced laugh out loud parts. Its always one thing after another with Tom sharpe. Left-wing academics(Yapp)put up against,right-wing capitalists(the Petrefacts),throw in a sex toy factory a bunch of country bumpkins,and dwarves and this is what you get. Like I said total hilarious mayhem.

Funny without doubt.......1999-10-22

This book is funny - if you can stand grown-up humor and aren't one of those sexophobic weirdos. And besides being hillariously funny (had to laugh out loud just thinking about it), it is very highly intelligent, massively satiric, thrilling and thoroughly British. Not too intellectual, but not for dimwits either. If you don't like this book you are probably dead.

Average customer rating:

Ears Better Than Eyes
Not Sharpe's best, but very good
Brian Evans - Abu Dhabi
further adventures of poor Wilt; not amongst the best
Hilarious as all the other "Wilt" books

Wilt on High
Tom Sharpe
Manufacturer: ARROW (RAND)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

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Midden
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ASIN: 0099466481

Book Description

It’s high jinx when Wilt’s old adversary Inspector Flint suspects him of somehow being involved in drug dealing at Fenland College. But neither his wife nor his colleagues at the Tech have reckoned with Wilt’s unique talent for making new enemies.</p>

Customer Reviews:

Ears Better Than Eyes.......2007-05-04

Alas, too few of Sharpe's novels are available in an audio version. This one is, in full-length, and is capable of sending you off the road many times, if listening, as I did, on a long car trip. I have all of Sharpe's novels, and have concluded that he is an acquired taste. Too bad the BBC TV hasn't seen fit to do more of them.

Not Sharpe's best, but very good.......2006-05-09

It might be (and has been) said, with some justice, that this novel is one of Sharpe's crueler and more mean-spirited efforts. Well, at least Wilt is not plotting to murder his wife in this one! I'll grant that there's a hard, bitter edge to the book (especially in the treatment of the Satanic quadruplets), but nevertheless I thought it was very funny, and Sharpe's sense for the absurd is on target as usual. I burst out laughing at least half a dozen times while reading it. It's a rare book that can get any outburst from me other than, "What a pile of *!%@", so clearly I enjoyed it. I haven't read any of the other Wilt novels, and now I plan to get them all.

I've read "Porterhouse Blue", "Riotous Assembly", and "Blott on the Landscape" by Sharpe, and I give them all the thumbs up.

If you like wickedly black satire that isn't afraid to plunge into the gutter in its efforts to mock our gutter society, then you'll like this book.

Brian Evans - Abu Dhabi.......2005-06-12

This book suprised me because I did not find it at all funny and this is a first for this author. The usual dark humor and madness was mostly of a cruel bland content. The quadruplet daughters lacked depth of character to be believed in their antics. The humour is just not up to the previous standard which make me wounder who is acutally writing this book. The first book 'Wilt' was really 'Funny' but sadly this sequel falls a long way short.

further adventures of poor Wilt; not amongst the best.......2004-02-02

'Wilt on High' is another installment of our hapless suburban lecturer Henry Wilt who somehow gets into a total mess with his befuddled wife, demonic quadruplet daughters, the neighbours, the police, and the militia. The story is typical Sharpe craziness; it really isn't worth trying to explain it all. However 'Wilt on High' strikes me as one of Sharpe's weaker efforts, which is especially disappointing since the book starts off rather nicely.

It is advisable to read 'Wilt' before 'Wilt on High' since it is more or less a sequel. Besides 'Wilt' is a much better read - a classic.

Hilarious as all the other "Wilt" books.......2001-02-11

Somebody said the humor is the most subversive of the arts. While I do not think that this book have embodied any kind of social message, it satirizes everything from family, the army, politicians, education, wealth, prestige etc.(Actually religion is left alone). Wilt is a professor at a polytechnic who like to think of himself as a humanist, and a no nonsense guy. Nevertheless, when female student dies of an overdose of heroin he becomes the main suspect of the police as being a provider of the substance.

Customer Reviews:

Better than Porterhouse Blue.......2001-05-10

Although this book is the sequel to Porterhouse Blue, I liked it better. Not as good as Wilt or Blott on the Landscape, but still pretty good. My other favorites are Ancestral Vices and The Great Pursuit.

England's funniest writer strikes again!.......2001-04-01

Unfortunately Tom Sharpe is not the most prolific author, consequently it is exciting whenever he chooses to grace the marketplace with another offering. Grantchester Grind is a sequel to the Porterhouse series, and is yet another wickedly irreverent satire from the master.

Laugh out loud.......2001-02-11

Typical Sharpe fare-but reveals more about Sharpe himself than his usual. A Sharpe fan will find his understanding of the author considerably deepened. Henry Wilt and Commandant Van Heerden could have collaborated on this book. I was grateful for this, but some reviewers seem to be disappointed. Funnier than average. As many uncontrollable laughter moments as Indecent Exposure. Logical development of Porterhouse Blue. I will never forget how to make a Dog's Nose. Sharpe's understanding of American business practice may leave a lot to be desired, but I don't see why this bothers some people so much.

Grindingly boring.......2000-08-11

Sharpe is living on his reputation with this one. I suggest you avoid buying it and read Porterhouse Blue or the Throwback to see Sharpe at his very best.

Sorry Tom, but you need to keep your writing sharp!

Not his best, but still a Sharpe classic!.......1998-12-18

Although not his best, Sharpe still tickles the correct ribs with this, his longest book. Porterhouse Blues was Sharpe's first venture into the academic humor that Kingsley Amiss exploited so well in Lucky Jim, and in Grantchester Grind Sharpe takes the reader deeper into the daffy world of Cambridge. For one who missed Sharpe's 10-year hiatus, Grantchester Grind and his latest book, The Midden, was a welcome return for the reigning king of British humor. Let's just hope he doesn't keep us waiting that long again for his next work.

Average customer rating:

What's going on?
gone off the boil
Still the master?

Wilt in Nowhere
Tom Sharpe
Manufacturer: Arrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Wilt on High
Midden
Wilt
Throwback
Ancestral Vices

ASIN: 0099481731
Release Date: 2005-04-24

Book Description

In Tom Sharpe’s fourth uproarious Wilt novel, the indefatigable Henry Wilt embarks on the voyage of a lifetime — a cross-country trip through England, without map or compass, carrying little more than a backpack and the boots on his feet. A week later sees him drunk and unconscious in the back of an arsonist’s pickup truck. His trip goes even further downhill from there until he revives in the hospital, unable to figure out how he could possibly stand accused of arson, assassination and robbery.

Meanwhile, Eva has taken the quads to visit Uncle Wally and Aunt Joan in Tennessee. With the four girls leaving their customary trail of insanity and destruction wherever they go, not to mention a mob of embittered drug enforcement agents, Eva’s journey has also spiralled out of control.

Bitingly funny, Wilt in Nowhere pits Wilt against the intricacies of police persecution and the underbelly of Britain’s medical facilities, brilliantly exposing the farcical realities of small-town England and America.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews:

What's going on?.......2006-03-24

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.

gone off the boil.......2006-03-21

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.

Still the master?.......2006-03-20

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.

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