The Throwback

by Tom Sharpe

When Lockhart Flawse is catapulted out of his upper-class and rapunzel-esque life with the curmudgeonly Flawse Senior, he must enter the world of suburbia, and marriage. Rendered an absolute twit in modern society by his medieval upbringing, Lockhart must resort to drastic tactics in his attempt to return to Flawse House. Faced with the horrors of suburbia, he must either terrorise, blackmail and potentially kill an entire street of his tenants, or attempt to find his unknown and elusive father in order to inherit the estate. However, with the belief that he was dropped into his mother's arms by a stork, killing a street of people may be the wiser option for the socially inept young man. He is also under mounting pressure, as it may all be in vain if his gold-digging mother-in-law has her way. Now the wife of Flawse Senior, she has decided that if Lockhart's wealthy grandfather can't have the decency to die on his own, she will take matters into her own hands.

Genres: Humor, Fiction, Comedy, Satire, Modern, 20th Century, British Literature

356 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Tom Sharpe was an English satirical author, born in London and educated at Lancing College and at Pembroke College, Cambridge. After National Service with the Royal Marines he moved to South Africa in 1951, doing social work and teaching in Natal, until deported in 1961.

His work in South Africa inspired the novels Riotous Assembly and Indecent Exposure. From 1963 until 1972 he was a History lecturer at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, which inspired his "Wilt" series Wilt, The Wilt Alternative, Wilt on High and Wilt in Nowhere.

His novels feature bitter and outrageous satire of the apartheid regime (Riotous Assembly and its sequel Indecent Exposure), dumbed- or watered-down education (the Wilt series), English class snobbery (Ancestral Vices, Porterhouse Blue, Grantchester Grind), the literary world (The Great Pursuit), political extremists of all stripes, political correctness, bureaucracy and stupidity in general. Characters may indulge in bizarre sexual practices, and coarser characters use very graphic and/or profane language in dialogue. Sharpe often parodies the language and style of specific authors commonly associated with the social group held up for ridicule. Sharpe's bestselling books have been translated into many languages.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was completely taken by surprise.

After reading Riotous Assembly and Indecent Exposure, two Tom Sharpe novels firing caustic satirical zingers at the South African police force and everybody else in sight, I anticipated the same sum and substance with the author's 1978 humdinger, The Throwback. However, in addition to the whirlwind of loony events as a rustic country gentleman educated in the old ways deals with modern English society, alas, there is another aspect - what Joseph Campbell refers to in the world of myth as The Hero's Journey.

Indeed, one could easily chart protagonist Lockhart Flawse's progress through the various archetypal stages along the journey - the call to adventure, encountering helpers and mentors, radical transformation, return. This mythic dimension bestows a depth absent in those other two Tom Sharpe books - in this way, not only is The Throwback bonkers hilarious, it is also profoundly moving.

Turning to the story itself, it all started back in 1956 when Lockhart's mother, having been hurled from a horse while out hunting, spent her last living hour giving birth to a son right there on the spot under a dry-stone wall but refused to divulge the name of the boy’s father to her own father, Old Mr Flawse. What she did do was wail and shout ‘Great Scot!’ during delivery which prompted the old man to name his grandson after the biographer of Sir Walter Scott.

And so, despising his daughter’s behavior, the old man took it out on her bastard son – Lockhart was allowed nothing, not even a birth certificate. Old Mr Flawse made sure the boy grew up with none of his mother’s faults. “At eighteen Lockhart knew as little about sex as his mother had known or cared about contraception.”

The boy was raised in isolation at Flawse Hall, up on the bleak Northumberland moors, in the strictest Puritan ethic and home schooled in mathematics, hunting and the Bible. Since Flawse Hall was graced with neither heat nor electric, young Lockhart might as well have been brought up in the days of Lord Byron and Thomas Carlyle. An authentic throwback, for sure.

Age ninety, Old Mr Flawse acts on medical advice and takes a cruise ship to points south. Lockhart now a handsome youth of eighteen, comes along. It’s there on the ship Lockhart meets beautiful, comparably naïve Jessica and falls, nay, plunges, head over heels in love. Upon setting eyes on a dashing gentleman right off the pages of all her nineteenth century British romance novels, Jessica’s heart is likewise aflame.

The next morning the couple are married by the captain. This as part of a grand scheme thanks to conniving, calculating Mrs. Sandicott, Jessica’s mother, a widow – and part of her plan for wealth and estate: herself wedding ancient Mr Flawse, soon to be pushing up daisies (or so she thinks). My good lady, if you only knew who really set the trap!

Thus, the stage is ready and "the play's the thing" complete with Monty Pythonesque hilarity and outrageous farce, startling X-rated shenanigans, painful pandemonium and bawdy burlesque (not Lockhart and Jessica who kiss and hug and think babies come from storks). Oh, my clash of culture past versus culture present - no matter what the situation: Lockhart working in a London tax office, Mrs. Sandicott enduing Flawse Hall (ah, my God, no heat, no electric, no neighbors, no car!), the young romantic couple living on an affluent suburban street, Tom Sharpe sets to work with his searing, scorching comic wit. Here are several juicy bits of mayhem:

A MODERN DAY OFFICE
Through Mrs. Sandicott, Lockhart is given a job at the London office of her departed husband’s tax accounting firm, apprenticing under a Mr. Treyer. The first thing Mr. Treyer tells the new employee is “Income and Asset Protection has a more positive ring to it than tax avoidance. And we must be positive.” Lockhart takes these words of wisdom to heart and proceeds to deal with the letters from the Income Tax authorities in the same manner he learned from his grandfather – over the course of the next week, when the daily mail arrives, he gathers up every single piece of correspondence from the government and uses the bathroom toilet as an incinerator. Upon learning of Lockhart’s direct and unorthodox approach to protecting client assets, Mr. Treyer nearly has a heart attack.

The new employee is relegated to a separate office handling more peripheral responsibilities like wining and dining clients on the expense account. Again, Lochhart takes his new duties seriously and, in the spirit of saving money, treats an important client to a grand lunch at a local fish & chips joint. Mr. Treyer's reaction is anything but positive – he almost has a nervous breakdown.

The next incident seals the deal: Lockhart is instructed not to let anyone have access to company files. A few days later, when an officer from the Customs and Excise VAT department reaches for a file, Lockhart slams the cabinet drawer on the officer’s hand, breaking every finger and a few other bones. Thereafter a new arrangement is formulated: Lockhart will be given his full salary and benefits if he never sets foot in the office again. Lockhart is flummoxed, not understanding why the business world thrives not on honesty but hypocrisy.

SUBURBAN NEIGHBORS
Jessica will come into a fortune once she can sell all the upper middle class houses she owns on their street. However, the occupants must move out for this to happen. But with the current rent control laws, nobody is about to move. Lockhart to the rescue. Through a series of well timed maneuvers, the placid suburban street is turned into an exploding inferno. The local police force and fire department are called to the scene. In short order the neighborhood is transformed yet again, this time into a war zone.

As part of Lockhart’s tactics to create chaos, he feeds a neighbor’s bull-terrier doggie treats lacked with LSD. The desired effect is achieved. The bull-terrier sinks its teeth into a number of unfortunate residents and ravages houses left and right, and then “harbouring psychedelic vision of primeval ferocity in which policemen were panthers and even fence posts held a menace. Certainly the bull-terrier did. Gnashing its teeth, it bit the first three policemen out of the Panda car before they could get back into it, then the gatepost, broke a tooth on the Colonel’s Humber, sank its fangs into a police car’s front radial tyre to such effect that it was knocked off its own feet by the blow-out while simultaneously rendering their escape impossible, and went snarling off into the night in search of fresh victims.”

When the dust and ashes settle, Lockhart and Jessica are neighbor-free. In addition to the monies from the sale of the houses, the couple are now the proud owner of something else – a much loved pet bull-terrier Lockhart renamed Bouncer.



Our Northumberland gentleman continues his tussles with the modern world, including a libel suit against uppity romance novelist Miss Genevieve Goldring and then dealing with an invasive tax man back at Flawse Hall. There's also the matter of his grandfather's will. And much, much more. For readers who enjoy Tom Sharpe's over-the-top and at times shocking humor, The Throwback is a hoot and a half.

Recall I said this is also a profoundly moving tale. At the conclusion of his own, very individual hero's journey, Lockhart comes into the full blossom of manhood and recognizes the truth of Joseph Campbell's words: “The fundamental human experience is that of compassion.” Well to keep in mind when reading this overlooked modern classic.





"In place of thrift there were expense-account lunches and rates of inflationary interest that were downright usury; instead of courage and beauty he found arrant cowardice in men - the doctor's squeals for help had made him too contemptible to hit - and in every building he saw only ugliness and a sordid obeisance to utility, and finally to cap it all there was the omnipresent concern with something called sex which grubby little cowards like Dr Mannet wanted to substitute for love." - Tom Sharpe, The Throwback

[Akira Watts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Possibly the most cheerfully cruel thing I've encountered since the live organ donor sketch in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. The body count is immense, the characters vacillate between vile and moronic, and I cannot see much by way of redeeming social qualities in the work. It is also the funniest book I have ever read and, beneath the humor and bloodshed, it is incredibly well-written. Sharpe has a recognizable and finely honed style, and he is every bit as capable of turning out a beautiful sentence or phrase as more recognized literary craftsman.

Not really for everyone, as the wanton abuse of the characters can be a bit much. But once past that, a wonderful book.

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine the tale of a young man on a quest to discover his paternity, to remove the tag of "bastard" attached to him at birth.

Also, imagine a wickedly satirical take on English society, filled with gross exaggerations, and raunchy jokes on almost every page.

Can they both be married? They can, if you have a pen with power enough. Apparently, Tom Sharpe does.

Lockhart Flawse is the bastard son born to the daughter of the curmudgeonly old Mr. Flawse of "Flawse Hall situated on Flawse Fell close under Flawse Rigg some seventeen miles from the nearest town and on the bleakest expanse of moorland north of the Roman Wall". He is brought up by his maternal grandfather without a birth certificate and no other records to prove his identity; because Flawse senior would acknowledge his grandson only after his father has been discovered and "flogged within an inch of his life". So the boy grows up home-schooled, purposefully kept away from the facts of life, and tutored only in mathematics and hunting. Things would have continued like this - but as in any fairy tale, the prince falls in love with an equally naive princess, Jessica Sandicott of 12 Sandicott Crescent, East Purseley, Surrey, and marries her. Things become complicated when her widowed mother marries Lockhart's grandfather on the hope that the nonagenarian would pass into the great beyond and leave her his huge estate. However, the old man is too clever for her and ties up his entire estate that she cannot inherit it unless Lockhart fails to find his father before his grandfather dies.

Lockhart is forced to move into Jessica's house and take up a position in her mother's firm of tax consultants. He proves himself totally inept for the job as he can't make head or tail of the legal robbery we call tax and tax avoidance. Sitting at home without any job, Lockhart decides to make money by selling the twelve houses of Sandicott Crescent that his wife owns. However, since according to the laws of the country, he could not get the tenants to vacate the houses neither raise the rent, he employs some unusual methods of eviction. It is here that the story moves into the region of total hilarious insanity: which is kept up to the very last page, the tempo never flagging, by the author.

This is not a novel to analyse. You just have to get lost in it, and ride with the hero as he moves across the landscape, killing giants and dragons (in this case, policemen and tax collectors). And as he finally succeeds in his quest, you just have to put the book aside, with tears in your eyes...

... tears of laughter, that is.

[César · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lo mejor, las góticas y grotescas escenas de la metamorfosis del bastardo.

[Sam Reaves · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've enjoyed several of Tom Sharpe's novels and will happily read the next one I come across, but for some reason this one struck me as crueler and less funny than the others. The attraction of his books is their black humor and outlandish comic situations; this one fell short of the standard in my estimation. It is the tale of an illegitimate son raised in isolation by a wealthy and eccentric grandfather in a castle on a Yorkshire moor. When the pair go on a doctor-ordered cruise they meet a fortune-seeking widow and her comely daughter, and a double wedding ensues. The contrived plot involves scheming on the part of the widow and the bastard to get their hands on the wealth they feel is their due; these machinations I found less engaging than other of Sharpe's tales. Maybe it's just me, but it left me cold.

[Geoff (G. Robbins) (merda constat variat altitudo) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always loved Tom Sharpe's books and The Throwback is one of the best examples of his work.

Lockhart Flawse (aka The Bastard) left orphaned at birth and illegitimate is raised by his grandfather and taught by private tutors who were specifically informed to avoid sex education. Both grandfather and grandson marry on a cruise ship to a mother and daughter. The mother, a scheming gold digger and the daughter who has been raised on romantic novels and for whom the term 'chaste' is an understatement.

As a result, the stage is set for a rippingly funny novel of sexual misunderstandings, skullduggery, low cunning and surreal violence as Lockhart sets off to claim his inheritance.

[M. Jose · Rating 4 out of 5]

En su momento me gustó mucho

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very few books make me laugh out loud but this one did and it brought tears to my eyes.The best Tom Sharpe novel I have read.

[Lynn Neeves · Rating 5 out of 5]

by far the funniest book i have ever read and can read again and again and still find it hilarious, particularly the main main character's antics to get rid of his tenants!

[Tim Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a somewhat muted start, this book did not disappoint. If you want work-stopping, chest-hurting, tear-inducing laughter then this book delivers. Clever use of zeugma adds to the humour: ‘Dodd gave the window a wide berth and Mrs Flawse no dinner’. It’s one of the funniest books I’ve read!

[Emilia O’Keeffe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a quirkier read, still undecided whether I enjoyed it or not. Really liked some of the humour, the comical irony was funny at points but a little bit ott pantomime esc at others. I liked the pictures painted of East Putney and Northumbria (two places I know well), Sharpe really hit the nail on the head with describing the essence and stark contrast of those places. Not sure I would reach for another Sharpe book, you definitely have to be in a specific mood.

[Alien · Rating 2 out of 5]

Das zweite Buch über Wilt, der inzwischen zum Abteilungsleiter für Allgemeinbildung in der Berufschule aufgestiegen ist.

Komik, die aus dem alltäglichen Leben erwächst. Zuviel alltägliches Leben. Wieso hat mir das mal gefallen?

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

While not as widely known as the Wilt books, the Porterhouse novels or his blistering South African satires, this pitch black comedy has a twisted appeal all of its own.

Perhaps best described as 'Kind Hearts and Coronets turned up to eleven', The Throwback is the story of Lockhart Flawse, the illegitimate scion of an old Northumbrian family who seizes his birthright with both hands and disposes of anyone in his path in a number of wickedly funny ways.

It's a very typical Tom Sharpe novel, full of culture clashes, grotesque characters and elderly Englishmen who consider eccentricity to be for amateurs and have merrily plunged into outright lunacy. The main character himself is a force of nature and many of the laughs derive from the horrified reactions of doctors, VAT inspectors, accountants and other denizens of the late 20th Century when they encounter a man who neither understands their world or wants to. "[He's] like something off the fucking Ark," remarks one waiter on a cruise liner. "And I don't mean something cuddly."

Tom Sharpe has, of course, been gathered up by what old Mr. Flawse would refer to as The Great Certainty, but it was with a certain fond regret that I noticed many of his fans pointed to this book as their favourite. I'd have to say it's also one of mine.

[David Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book served as my introduction the incredible British humour of Tom Sharpe. I was immediately hooked. I don't read too much fiction, but I have read just about every book of Sharpe's and have even re-read them, and will probaby re-read them again. This one combines the mystique of old money, the belligerence of the rebellious, broadsword- carrying highlander (in this case Northumbrian--but there's a bit of Scottish there too), a bit of history, and the awkwardness of a social misfit tryig to make it in modern-society who is both handicapped and super-advantaged by an intellect that is too high for his own good. Add in some sexual tom-foolery, and you've got the making of that journey down the 'How-can-things-get-any-worse-oh-that's-how' Road that good British humor can take you down like no other. Tom Sharpe, influenced by the British art of the understatement, will make you do a double-take: More than once I have had to go back and reread a sentence, and then break out laughing!

[Penny Blanch · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my favourite books ever - it takes you on a hilarious journey that will make you wet your pants laughing so hard!

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, Tom Sharpe. I doubt any mainstream publisher would touch him, these days. His heart might be on the side of humanity, peace, justice and goodwill but his characters definitely aren't. This is one of his three or four very best, in which the noble-minded outsider Lockhart Flawse takes a savage and unconventional revenge on the prim and prissy establishment that excludes him. It's a raw, howling, black-hearted farce that's about as un-woke as it's possible to be, and in the worst possible taste. Drug-crazed dogs. Drunken taxidermists. Prophylactics filled with oven cleaner. Tax collectors routed. And a happy ending.

For me, Sharpe was at his best when aiming at big targets, apartheid especially; he didn't seem as energised when guying (say) Home Counties further education in Wilt. And coming back to him now there isn't the sense of daring and danger that there was on first reading, many years ago. How much further would he push things? What scabrous escapade will he think of next? But how I wish he was still around to take on Brexit and all that surrounds it. The old boy would have had a field day.

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a bizarre read. As a boy I was fascinated by this book; a strange, disturbing cover that would be on my Dad's bookshelf; a book he always told be I could read when I was older due to 'adult themes'.
He certainly wasn't wrong. The Throwback was a hilarious and vivid satire on everything from sexual repression to economic mismanagement.

Sharpe would occasionally fire off a salvo of explicit description to be followed by a light, matter-of-fact account of a place, person, or thought. His literary style picks the reader up and carries them through this scathing, hilarious satire, and it was brilliant.

As a resident of Northumberland I found the book particularly funny. Despite being written in the 1970s, a context to which many references are owed in the book, I found the read to be startlingly well-observed.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Un Sharpe, quizá, más Slapstick que otras veces.-

Género. Novela.

Lo que nos cuenta. El libro El bastardo recalcitrante (publicación original: The Throwback, 1978) nos presenta a Lockhart Flawse, huérfano de madre al nacer, sin padre conocido y un abuelo muy particular que lo educa en una propiedad aislada en Escocia mediante un pensum todavía más particular. Al cumplir el chico los dieciocho años, para que madure un poco, el abuelo decide que ambos disfruten de un crucero en el Ludlow Castle donde conocerán a la señora Sandicott y a su joven hija, Jessica.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Farhad Shawkat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom Sharpe has written some of the funniest books ever. And this is one of his funniest. I didn't exactly have the fondest memories of this book, for some reason. But this time around, on my 2nd (maybe 3rd) reread, I absolutely loved it, and it's now become one of my favourites. It has all the elements of a typical Tom Sharpe book, with crazy incidents happening that are surreal at times, highly improbable, but nevertheless possible. A bloodyminded protagonist who is extremely simple, yet insanely cunning. All Her Majesty's horses and all Her Majesty's men (well, tax collectors really) are no match for him. Great plot, brilliantly executed by a master of humour

[Pat Morris-jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It was amusing, although I didn’t laugh out loud as critics said I would. It was also witty. The characters should have been terribly unlikeable but they weren’t. In a reverse of what people usually think the, usual good guys, were disliked and the ones who committed crimes I, and I’m sure others, egged on and hoped all would be well with them. The end was good too. Easy to read and fun. I am sure, technically, it should be 4 star or more but, as I’m not convinced it is as clever as it appears to be, it’s a 3 and a half. As it’s beginning of year I’ll be mean and call it a 3. Good fun though.

[Leila Eshmawi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hysterical. Funny. Lockhart Flawse is the illegitimate grandson of Old Flawse. His grandfather raises him far from the eyes and influence of the world, hoping to keep him from cultivating the sins of his deceased mother and (the reader may guess) the incorrigible grandfather. Lockhart's learning is focused on the classics and maths. School inspectors who argue that Lockharte should come to the public system are dumbfounded when they discover he can multiply in Latin and read the Old Testament in Urdu. Nonetheless, Lockhart is officially non-existant as his grandfather has steadfastly refused to get him a birth certificate. This is a wonderfully irreverent book, full of irony.

[Sonia GV · Rating 3 out of 5]

Se trata de un género que o está entre mis preferidos.
Nos cuenta la historia de un chico cuya educación ha sido un tanto peculiar y los efectos que tiene en su vida adulta. Se muestran los dos aspectos opuestos de una persona, la capacidad de maldad así como la bondad absoluta.
El protagonista nace en la campiña inglesa y cuya madre muere en el parto con lo cual ha sido el abuelo quien se ocupó de su educación. El abuelo es una persona que se quedó anclada en una época pasada y se niega a registrar a su hijo porque no se conoce a su padre. Con esta base se generan una serie de situaciones hilarantes que en más de una ocasión te arrancan una carcajada.

[John Appleton · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd sort of novel, entertaining enough with some excellent comedy moments, but with a plot that seems patchy and almost as though it was made up as the author went along.

It's a decent enough satire of the upper and middle classes, though the humour does get dark and twisted on regular occasions - not a criticism, I hasten to add. At other points it is farcical and madcap, and at others bitingly satirical.

But the plot feels a bit too madcap at times, as though it's following no real structure, or at least a flimsy one. I may choose to read another of this author's works, but I won't be in a hurry to do so.

[Mark McTague · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable read for those who like their farce broad and somewhat brutal. Readers of some of Sharpe's other comic novels (e.g., Wilt, Indecent Exposure, Blott on the Landscape) know to expect dark humor and outrageous situations, and this novel delivers those. What it doesn't do, that some other works of his do (notably Wilt), is provide both a tightly coherent plot, fuller character development, and few if any plot weaknesses. But if you just want some good laughs, this novel has an abundance of those.

[David Triviño · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una comedia dura, de humor inglés, que literariamente tiene un gran nivel. Violencia, embalsamamientos, planes ocultos y mucha mala leche en una crítica a la sociedad moderna, a los bancos y a las costumbres sociales.
Lo único malo del libro -de esta edición- es que la ilustración de portada es muy naïf y no define nada bien lo que realmente sucede en el libro, que es bastante duro, como ya he dicho.

[James Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Tom Sharpe's humour and have read all his books (many years ago now). I'm always happy to re-read him because - my other favourite, P G Wodehouse, apart - I've never been able to find any other writers who tickle my funny bone the way he does.

That said, though this one is as clever as always, the characters were a little too harsh and unpleasant for my liking. But still a good read from a super-imaginative humorist.

[Anaïs · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve had a hard time finishing this book. The adventures of Lockhart are so absurd, and he lacks so much realism that I felt bored most of the time. The efforts of the author to shock the reader is a bit pointless. I won’t recommend the book. Maybe I missed the point, but it was not even funny. Weirdly though, the end of the book is a bit a return back to reason. What is sure is that book won’t leave you neutral.

[Teddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This entire story was mad-capped mayhem with a touch of hilarity. I spent most of the book in disbelief that that had just happened and it had a quite a bit of slap-stick misunderstandings, but it struck me right and I just thought the whole thing very funny. I actually laughed out loud at several points. Probably one of the weirdest books I have read.

[Ricardo Zamorano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una trama de enredos, inverosímil que desafía toda lógica, desternillante gracias a un humor negro y absurdo que no para página tras página, frase tras frase, repletas de doble sentido y juegos de palabras. Todo ello escrito con una prosa desenfrenada y un misterio que no se revela hasta la última línea.

[Doug Lewars · Rating 5 out of 5]

*** Possible Spoilers ***

Once again Tom Sharpe has provided readers with a fine romp. The characters are unbelievable but that's fine. Likewise the plot is fantastical but put together in such a way as to provide plenty of chuckles. Those who like farce will enjoy this book while those who take the world, and literature, seriously won't like it at all.