Wilt In Nowhere

Wilt #4

by Tom Sharpe

Wilt In Nowhere [Hardcover] Sharpe, Tom

Genres: Humor, Fiction, Comedy, Ebooks, Audiobook, Modern, British Literature

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

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

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Sharpe ist ein Garant für witzige Literatur zwischendurch zum Entspannen. Sein fatalistischer Antiheld, Henry Wilt, der wie ein schwarzes Loch Unglück und ernsthafte Kalamitäten aufsaugt, hat sich bereits in Band 1 - Puppenmord - nachhaltig in mein Herz geschlichen. Das ist so wie Slapstick auf Literatur, sprachlich sehr gut ausgeführt.

Henry ist wieder mal völlig unschuldig in ernsthaften Kalamitäten, da er von einigen Menschen mit bösen Absichten als Opfer, Tatverdächtiger etc. missbraucht wird, dabei wollte er doch nur durch das ländliche England wandern. Gleichzeitig teilt auch seine seine Frau Eva mit den Kindern dasselbe Schicksal, da sie auf einer erbschleicherischen Reise zu ihrem reichen Onkel in Amerika als Drogen-Kamel im Flugzeug missbraucht wird.

Ein paar böse Menschen mit - sagen wir mal typisch britisch obszönen Angewohnheiten und Rachegelüsten - und dann noch die atemberaubende Inkompetenz einiger Polizeieinheiten, diesmal diesseits und jenseits des Atlantiks, ein paar gruselige Schrulligkeiten des US-Erbonkels und seiner Frau gekrönt von den subversiven Grausamkeiten der pubertierenden Vierlingstöchter Henries und fertig ist der Cocktail einer rasanten wahnwitzigen Geschichte.

Wenn ich Kömodie schreiben könnte, würde ich mir wünschen, es genauso wie Tom Sharpe zu machen!

Leidiglich vom Schluss bin ich diesmal ein bisschen enttäuscht, er ist so traditionell, es explodiert nichts und die Polizisten sind bei der teilweisen Auflösung des Verbrechens auch nicht ganz so gemein diskreditiert beschämt und verarscht wie sonst immer. Das liegt aber auch daran, dass sie sich schon an Henry gewöhnt haben und sich nicht mehr ganz so leicht aufs Glatteis führen lassen.

Fazit: Wenn ihr Henry noch nicht kennengelernt habt, schnappt Euch Band 1 Puppenmord und lest die Reihe bis zu diesem Band durch, es lohnt sich sehr.
Subversiver schwarzer Humor auf höchstem Niveau ganz meine Baustelle

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've recently been working my way through the Wilt series. There are five in all and I'd only read a couple back in the day. My teenage memories were of inappropriately hilarious novels complete with over the top plots. And so it has proved all these decades later. Wilt On High (1984) (Wilt #3) is an absolute corker.

Wilt In Nowhere (2004) (Wilt #4) is not quite up to the levels of its predecessor however there's still plenty to appreciate. My main complaint with Wilt In Nowhere is the lack of Wilt. There are two concurrent plotlines. One involves Eva and the quads stateside, and the other starts with Wilt on a solo walking holiday but that soon becomes more about other characters. Still this is a minor quibble and Tom Sharpe still delivers in this latter day work.

Whilst nothing like as laugh out loud funny as Wilt On High (1984) (Wilt #3) Tom Sharpe still tickled my funny bone and I had sufficient chuckles to make it all well worth a read.

Looking forward to The Wilt Inheritance (Wilt #5), the fifth and final book in the series

4/5




When his endlessly capricious wife Eva receives plane tickets for the family to visit Auntie Joan and Uncle Wally in Atlanta, Wilt knows only one thing - that nothing could entice him to fly three thousand miles over the water, and especially not two rotund Americans with more money than sense. What better way to escape and find equilibrium then to embark on a walking tour? Just Wilt, the countryside, and an ill-judged bottle of whiskey...

Meanwhile, Eva finds her plans to inherit Joan and Wally's fortune slipping away faster than her sanity, thanks to a combination of sinister teenage quadruplets with foul mouths, and her unexpected role as lead suspect in a drug-trafficking plot.

Outrageous, darkly comic, and packed with calamity on top of calamity, Tom Sharpe's latest episode of Wilt's misadventures is a razor-sharp farce that will delight fans both old and new.

[Mark Tilbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom is one of my favourite authors, and this is my favourite book of the Wilt series.
If you like your humour on the inappropriate, non-pc and dry side, then this series would be for you.
Wilt's quads steal the show in this book as they travel with Eva (their mum,) to America to visit family. They have no idea of appropriate behaviour and make full use of all the 'weapons' at their disposal to create havoc!
A true laugh-out-loud book.

[Pablo Estevez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as 'Wilt', because there was less of the man in it.

[Adam Gower · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given to me on recommendation by a friend as an easy read, which it is, it's part comedy, part mystery/crime (I guess) and was quite forgettable.

Don't get me wrong, there were some real good laughs and Sharpe writes witty crude banter well but when you try and make everything funny, you cease to be funny at all. This is my take away from this book.

Will be for some but just not for me.

[Diskojoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom Sharpe is usually compared with Wodehouse & Waugh, but I think I see a lot more Waugh than Wodehouse. For one thing, there's no real snap in the language as compared to Wodehouse & Henry Wilt is just not as warm a character as Bertie Wooster. As I said before, this is a lot closer to Waugh in a modern setting.

[Josh T · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.6/5

While I found this one fast paced, I didn't find it nearly as funny as the other five books I've read of Tom Sharpe's. I believe I mildly laughed on just one occasion. That said, the book was amusing. Smile worthy, so to speak. I enjoyed it, but have to reduce my rating on account of having not found it quite as funny as I'd hoped in contrast to other books.

Thus far it seems the older the Tom Sharpe book, the funnier it is.

[Kit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un sólido 4 estrellas, no falla nunca la lectura de las aventuras de Wilt.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/895971.html[return][return]I read the first third and cannot care enough about any of the characters to finish it: the bits set in England are tired ranting, the bits in America are unfunny stereotypes. As a teenager I read the first two Wilt books and was mildly bemused by the adult humour; in this latest book Sharpe has clearly lost his way. Wilt and his wife central characters were children during the second world war and yet themselves have pre-teen children in 2002, and they are not really timeless characters. I picked this up last year in Heathrow airport where someone had cast it aside. Now I know why they did so.

[XandreRL · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una nueva entrega de la saga de Wilt. Está algo tardía, comparado con las tres primeras. Bien, es un poco exprimir las ubres de una saga maravillosa y desternillante. Sharpe le otorga aquí más protagonismo a la esposa de Wilt y de este intenta dibujar un perfil más reflexivo. Se queda a medias, ni Ruth llega a mantener su trama sin dificultades ni te acabas de creer el nuevo rol de Wilt. Pero solo por la original, dentro de lo que cabe, premisa y de las siempre desternillantes situaciones que nos regala Sharpe merece la pena.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quick read. I've never thought these Wilt books have lived up to the quotes on the book jacket. They're mildly amusing diversions at best. I think this is the weakest, coming 20 years after Wilt on High. Every mention of peadophiles, sodomy and the like seems designed to be shocking and thus somehow funny in itself, but it just comes off as crude, and coupled with unpleasant characters it adds up to a pretty inconsequential, unsatisfying whole. A shame, as I quite enjoyed the original Wilt.

[Robert McGrail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best anti depressant ever

If you're one of the newly oppressed middle income 100th generation British males ditch the pills or herbal meds and get into Wilt ....I would recommend watching the one and only Wilt movie on YouTube to enhance the reading experience as the casting is brilliant with Mel Smith brilliant as the bumbling police inspector Flint and Griff Rice Jones as the caustic indomitable Henry Wilt.

[Alberto G. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably the worst book of all Wilt's life. The main character was not Wilt, in fact, the argument roles by his wife and daughters and the unpleasant (misunderstood) inspector Flint.
I miss more Wilt's peculiar action in this story.

[Doug Lewars · Rating 5 out of 5]

*** Possible Spoilers ***

I read this one out of order. While I enjoyed the final work in the series, I think this one is best of all. I also like a number of things the critics don't. The POV changes frequently. In fact, for much of the book Wilt plays a fairly minor role. I found the other characters much more amusing. And in particular I enjoyed the quads - fourteen year old sociopaths that they are. The pacing was good and I enjoyed most of the humour.

Having sat that, this book is definitely not for everyone. Once critic complained it was written by 'an angry old man venting his spleen' while another suggested it's 'outdated and boring'. I agree with the first individual and the 'outdated' part, but boring it was not. Still, if you're under the age of 45 you'd likely be better off reading something else. As for the venting of spleens, the author clearly prefers a Britain of the past before liberal politicians converted it into a dung heap.

This work is a farce. If you don't like farce, move on. Don't expect character arcs. Don't expect a character driven story. True, most of the characters are two dimensional. They are simply used to advance the plot and aid in the satire. The author is taking a shot at aristocratic perverts, politicians and their hypocrisy, and certain police forces, forces in which, if jumping to conclusions was an Olympic sport, they'd be candidates for gold medals.

I do have one criticism of the Wilt series. They work because Wilt is forever stumbling into weird situations and mix-ups. Often he gets into difficulty because he's drunk. To me it seems like cheating to constantly use inebriation as a plot device to get him into difficulty. Personally I think he should have found other means and I will concede, on some occasions Wilt's messes are the result of his prudish attitudes. Still, far too often the author relies on his character being drunk and while it advances the plot in the way the author desires, it seems a bit facile.

Those things aside, I thought the book was great and I'm sorry to have come to the end of the Wilt series.

[Saurio Saurio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Después de leer "Las Grope" tenía mis dudas de leer al Tom Sharpe de los últimos años. Este libro, si bien es mejor, no llega a los niveles del mejor Sharpe ni por asomo.

El mayor problema es que es una novela de Wilt en la que Wilt es un personaje secundario, con lo que gran parte del encanto de la serie se pierde.
Pero igual de problemático es que hay demasiados focos argumentales abiertos al mismo tiempo, con lo que la gracia se pierde ya que no hay suficiente desarrollo de nada.

Por ejemplo, si toda la novela se tratase de la visita de los Wilt (Henry incluido) al tío Wally tal vez la cosa hubiera sido diferente. No sé si mejor (al fin y al cabo lo escrito se apoya en los trazos gruesos de los ingleses viendo a los norteamericanos como unos palurdos racistas y fanáticos religiosos) pero diferente.
O si, al menos, las cuatrillizas estuvieran más desarrolladas y con más profundidad como personajes. Tal como están son como una versión descontrolada de los sobrinos del Pato Donald cuando, si uno lo piensa, tienen mucho potencial y, a mi entender, merecerían una novela para ellas solas.
También el final decepciona por el simple hecho de que todo se aclara y se vuelve al statu quo inicial. Que en una novela que basa todo su humor en los malentendidos producidos por personajes obtusos termine con estos personajes obtusos reconociendo que todo fue un malentendido deja un sabor amargo bastante similar al "Y entonces me desperté".

Dicho esto, hay bastante momentos en los que el libro es gracioso y recuerda mejores épocas y, para completistas como yo, resulta imprescindible.

[Pep Bonet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me admit it from the start: I have bad taste. I can enjoy haute cuisine and some philosophy, a good opera and some Stockhausen, but I also like street food (no burgers please), norteño/conjunto music or books like this one. You can't be high brow every day and Sharpe is a bloke who can be very funny. One thing I've been discovering of late is that I don't laugh with the same things I used to in my younger days, but a good comedy makes me laugh as always. Wilt In Nowhere was written by an old Sharpe and it's the fourth one in the Wilt series. Humour becomes a bit repetitive, it turns much around sex, or absence thereof, around his fatty wife and the four quads. The plot is nonsensical and so extreme that only a plainly humouristic book could resist it. Sometimes, especially in the beginning, I was tempted to think that one thing is not being PC and another one is being vulgar. The author seems to be depleted of some resources and any situation he describes tends to be the worst he can think of, but he died before Trump came to be known as a politician. But, what the heck! I need a Sharpe from time to time. I can read it in a go and enjoy. It still makes me laugh (which Groucho Marx doesn't any more, by the way) and have a good time. Therefore, call me what you like, but I'll continue revisiting his complete works. Amen, he said.

[Barry Lillie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I remember reading Wilt years ago and finding it amusing, so why didn't this instalment hit the spot?
Maybe because it was unfunny and crass.

The book seemed to be a mish-mash of ideas with words thrown in to shock (paedophiles, S&M and the C word) plus a pointless narrative. Written towards the end of his life, this seems to be an angry old man venting his spleen. The US stereotyped sections were as funny as nettle rash and the UK saga was wordy nonsense that didn't go anywhere.

The storytelling is basically a few ideas that are resolved by a couple of sentences in the final chapter. It's sad that Sharpe's legacy should be tainted with this drivel. I gave it a two-star rating, one for the fact a publisher took it on and the other for myself for not putting it down and persevering with it to the end.

[Anne Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read a Tom Sharpe book in years but always enjoyed them and found it hard not to laugh out loud. 'Wilt in Nowhere' is the fourth in the Wilt series and has been on my shelf for ages. Sometimes, when I've read a lot of a particular author and then come back to them after a long gap, it just hasn't been the same and I haven't enjoyed them nearly as much. I thought this might happen with this book as I didn't really get into it to start with. But the further I read, the more I laughed. Wilt's wife takes their 4 daughters (14 yr old quads) on a holiday to visit to visit the rellies in America and Wilt takes himself on a walking holiday in the Cotswolds. Of course things go hilariously wrong on both trips and it all gets sillier and sillier. I think there's a fifth in the series so I might have to get myself a copy.

[Johan D'Haenen · Rating 3 out of 5]

In de jaren '70 en '80 las ik systematisch elk boek van Tom Sharpe bij publicatie. Voor mij was het één van mijn topauteurs.
Maar Wilt kon het voor mij niet halen van Indecent Exposure, Blott on the Landscape, Riotous Assembly, enzovoort. Ook de volgende episodes van de Wilt-saga konden mij niet zo bekoren, ook al las ik ze met plezier.
En dat is niet anders voor dit "Wilt is nergens"... het verhaal is een beetje magertjes en ik mis die wilde, oneerbiedige humor, die bijtende satire die zo kenmerkend is, zeker voor het vroege werk van Tom Sharpe.
Al bij al een leuk boek, maar ver beneden de vintage Sharpe.

[Thomas Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed Wilt's exploits when I was a teenaged reader. Unfortunately, that was decades ago and my taste and the world have changed. It appears Wilt's world hasn't, which is a shame. I never felt grounded in reality with this book. The points of view shifted so often (sometimes mid-paragraph) that I couldn't root for any particular character and Wilt himself didn't appear nearly enough. The key to the other Wilt outings was the bewildering verbal volleys from Henry (mostly towards Inspector Flint) but there was little of that here. All in all, a disappointment.

[Cinuco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cierto que en esta cuarta entrega, Wilt da un paso al lado y aunque, com siempre, estando en el ojo del huracán de despropósitos que ocurren en la historia, su participación se limita en cierto modo a mero espectador empujado por la tormenta. En cambio, otros personajes de nuevos o de libros anteriores, cogen un papel más determinante, con una mayor caracterización de sus personalidades. La historia, encuentro que tiene sus lagunas, pero la visión que da, contrapuesta de varios tópicos, sigue siendo acertada.

[Julie Dunnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wilts story moved on to 2004 and life and attitudes have changed but the humour is still there. He and Eva now have 14 year old identical quadruplets- girls, who are a major handful. When Eva takes the girls to America to meet her rich uncle in the hope of securing an inheritance, she decides that Wilt might not want to play ball. He does not want to go and dreams up an excuse. All goes horribly wrong of course and poor old Inspector Flint has to try to discover what’s been going on when Wilt claims amnesia. Laugh out loud funny again!

[Vanyo666 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The lesser of the Wilt books so far. Sharpe got more and more savage in his later output, but this remains a Wilt book and therefore a bit more restrained. Plotwise, he throws a lot of ideas to the wall but fails to develop most, and brings the novel to a hasty conclusion that sounds more like he tired of the situations he created. Despite many cringe-worthy situations, this manages to pull a few hearty laughs here and there. Let's see if #5 has anything better to offer.

[Cristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had not read anything by Tom Sharpe before and not about the genre in general either I could say. In any case, not knowing the previous adventures of the main character in the other books, I found this story very wit but somehow I wouldn't say particularly amusing per se. The most amusing bit of the story is the perspective of how a bunch of unexpected and unrelated situations can align to generate a completely chaotic situation with what dangerously may seem to be connected events.

[Farhad Shawkat · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of the same from Tom Sharpe, which is great if you’re a fan. Though this one was definitely not as Wilt centric as the previous books in the series. Eva and the quads were as expected, but otherwise it was a typical Tom Sharpe book with some not so nice people with odd sexual proclivities finding themselves in completely messed up situations. You’ll enjoy this one, as long as the last Tom Sharpe book you read was at least six months or so ago. Definitely not the Best of Wilt.

[Nešo Shonery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ponovo smo sa čudnjikavim profesorom Viltom. Ovog puta, njegova žena i kćeri odlaze u Ameriku da se druže (čitaj, dodovore) sa njihovim bogatim rođacima bez dece, u nadi da će ovi makar malo potpomoći školovanje Viltove dece. Naravno, iako nema Vilta, tamo će opet doći do brojnih iščašenih situacija. Sa druge strane, Vilt je uspeo da se izgubi u sred Britanije i da, a kako drugačije, upadne u raznorazne komične neprilike. Urnebesno kao i ranije. Preporuka.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuación de la saga que, estando bien como en las últimas entregas, Wilt pierde algo de protagonismo en favor de Eva y las cuatrillizas. El protagonista no despliega tantas estrategias como anteriormente, aunque sí volvemos a ver al de siempre en la última parte de la novela. Cada vez mejor el personaje del inspector Flint.

[Robert Fornes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rotundo. Magnifico. Con algunos pasajes magistrales. La escena en la que las cuatrillizas graban la conversación de alcoba de Wally Immelman y la tía Joan y después la ponen en el sistema de alta fidelidad ya es uno de los mejores pasajes de cualquier libro que haya leído. Una vez más, y allá donde estés, gracias Sharpe, por estos ratos de literatura brillante.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slight entry in the confused and confusing life of college lecturer Henry Wilt. Better than I remember, really a three-and-a-half star rating as it was more enjoyable than the previous novel, The Midden. And nice to see Inspector Flint finally appreciating Wilt’s view on life.

[Sonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

He echado de menos a Wilt. En esta cuarta entrega, apenas ha salido, y ha habido demasiadas tramas abiertas. No me ha gustado tanto. Aún así, el autor nos regala buenos momentos, pero un gran error apartar a Wilt