Posted on 3rd March, 2024 in Blog posts
The fascination of Tom Sharpe
Whenever I saw a Tom Sharpe novel, I used to feel a shudder go through me. I felt that his sardonic, cruel and even bitter farces had no relation with what I thought of as literature. That was when I was in my twenties.
Recently I re-read Porterhouse Blue and realised I had been wrong. Notwithstanding the silliness, the vulgarity and the obsoleteness of this novel about 1970s Cambridge, Sharpe’s observations of human nature are telling, his social criticism powerful and not at all irrelevant. There may not be functionaries such as Skullion and the Dean any more, but the types they represent and the emotions they express are everywhere. It may not be acceptable now to be anything but progressive, but this is itself a kind of conformist conservatism in the manner of Skullion and the Dean. The character of Sir Godber, the casually cruel politician who preens himself on being a social activist, and his snobby wife Lady Mary, who is so busy doing good works for the poor and afflicted that she cannot notice anything around her, are as true to life today as when Sharpe immortalised them.