Book Review - Wilt by Tom Sharpe

First published 1976
Version read: Kindle edition

I first read this book many many years ago when I was in my mid-teens, and I remember loving it. I decided to revisit it as an adult but was slightly dubious. Would it be as good as I remembered?

 To be honest it was even better - most of the humour is broad enough for even a teenage reader to enjoy but there's a sophistication here that must have gone over my head years ago. I think with this re-reading I got more out the book. It had me laughing like a loon several times and my heart was totally taken by Henry Wilt, the downtrodden everyman who manages to stand up to and best the establishment after a comical series of events culminate in him being arrested for a murder he didn't commit.

 Several scenes are genuinely side-splitting - the section where the inflatable doll (with a vagina!) is pulled from the concrete filled tomb had me roaring and I had to look around several times in embarresment. I was reading the book while parked up in Tesco's carpark and people passing must have thought that I had lost my mind as I sat there  screaming with uncontrollable laughter. The highlight of the book for me, were the interrogation scenes between Henry Wilt and the non nonsense policeman, Inspector Flint. These scenes are a masterclass in comedic writing and are among the best written comedy I have ever read. Inspector Flint starts out in control but gradually Wilt turns the tables, and it is the policeman who ends up being worn down as the tables are turned on his interrigation. In face Wilt takes strength from the constant police attacks and even drives a psychiatrst ,called in to examine him, to the brink of madness. The Wilt character may belong to the middle classes of the times but he comes across as a true working class hero in his dealings with the pomposity of the establishment.

How could I pick fault with this book when it is just so entertaining? Of course modern readers may find it a little misogynistic and while some of the attitudes expressed in these pages may belong firmly to the era in which the book was written, to condemn it for these reasons would be a mistake. Eve Wilt is painted as a truly formidable character. So much so that the reader can empathise with her husband's murderous intentions towards her, and at no point does she feel like an helpless victim. Quite the contrary it is her husband, Henry who comes across as the victim. He is just a passive personality who bumbles his way through the book, while events befall him that will result in him regaining - no not regaining but  discovering his manhood for the first time, and coming out very much on top.

At the end of the book both Henry and Eve Wilt have undergone a transformation and this reader was left with split sides and an urge for more Henry Wilt.

Hugely entertaining...

Wilt in Nowhere by Tom Sharpe

Wilt in Nowhere
Tom Sharpe
Available in both print and eBook


There are many kinds of heroes - there are the strong silent types as personified by the characters John Wayne used to play, the good/bad guys like Han Solo and Batman, the suave action men such as James Bond and Simon Templar, and then there's, er - Henry Wilt. A true champion for our troubled times, a small man biting back at bureaucracy and the insanity of modern life.

This is the first Wilt novel in over twenty years and although not quite as laugh out loud funny as the original trilogy featuring the character, the book has a lot going for it. Wilt has not changed in the slightest since he's been away and nor has the world he inhabits - it's a kind of alternative seaside postcard Britain that Political Correctness completely bypassed. The  jokes are aimed at all the old targets - homosexuals, the ruling classes, Americans, psychiatrists, kinky politicians, liberals and any authority figure that happens to be at hand.

The British fascination with schoolboy innuendo is running through the DNA of this book.

One of the highlights of the first Wilt novel was the brilliantly written exchange between Wilt and his nemesis, the policeman Flint, and there are several exchanges between the two in this book, though Flint's funniest moments this time out are when he is confronted by Wilt's formidable wife, Eve. It's been some years since I've read the original Wilt novels but Flint's character seems to have mellowed over the years and now he even refers to Wilt rather fondly as, "Wilty", which, I must admit, I found rather off putting.

The plot sees Wilt getting out of a trip to America with his wife and four lovely daughters, and instead setting out alone on a walking holiday to rediscover the England of old. And as expected misunderstanding builds on misunderstanding and very soon chaos reins. Wilt finds himself up to his neck in trouble involving ferocious dogs, paedophiles, arson and bondage gear while his wife is being investigated by the drug enforcement agency while his children are causing an international incident in the USA.

There are several stand out moments where it's difficult not to laugh out loud, and the book moves at a ferocious speed so that the reader doesn't get a chance to reflect on the absurdity of it all. If you liked the original Wilt novels and have missed Tom Sharpe then this book will be a treat - true it's not quite as funny as the classic originals, but it's still a great read and highly recommended to anyone who fancies a good comedy.

FRIDAY'S FORGOTTEN BOOKS :WILT - TOM SHARPE

This is part of the Friday's forgotten books meme - for others go HERE

Wilt
Tom Sharpe
Originally published 1976


Not sure if this really qualified as a forgotten book,it's still in print, but it's certainly not as well known these days as it should be. It's a comic masterpiece. There are so many great set pieces - the interrogation between Wilt and Police Inspector Flint are excellently structured with dialogue that reduces me to tears of laughter. Wilt, you see, is suspected of killing his wife after disposing of a rubber sex doll by stuffing into a hole that is then filled with concrete. Though in actuality Eve, Wilt's wife, has run off and is busy trying to avoid being seduced by a vulgar American lesbian. When the doll is eventually excavated Sharpe piles more comic mayhem upon mayhem.

I must have first read this book when I was a teenager and I've read it several times since - as well as all the other Wilt titles. But this book, which introduced the downtrodden Wilt is the best of the bunch and given the quality of all the other titles that is very high praise indeed.

The book could have only come from a British writer - it's imbued heavily with the type of saucy humour that has filled the Carry on films, inspired many dirty postcard images and should have schoolboys snickering in school yards up and down the country. But it's need not be insular and it has universal appeal.

I love this book with a passion - it's one of the funniest things ever written but it's paced like a thriller and uses many conventions of the crime genre - missing wife, husband wrongly suspected of murder - in order to tell its story. And the author is a genius for dialogue and the previously mentioned scenes between our hero and the no nonsense copper, Flint are a master-class in comedy writing.

The book was made into a movie starring Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith but although the film had its moments it was flawed and didn't contain a single iota of the class of the original novel. The film was average but the book is excellent - one of those that you feel sad when your read the last page simply because it's all over and you never wanted it to end.