What do you think?
Rate this book
Henry Pratt #3
The Cucumber Man
It is 1957. The Suez Crisis has been and gone. Henry Pratt has completed his National Service and is putting his unsuccessful career as Thurmarsh's cub journalist behind him. Leaving Yorkshire, he's taking on a new role and a new challenge - working for the Cucumber Marketing Board in Leeds.Stumbling through the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties, Henry Pratt accumulates jobs, marriages and children on the way as he embarks on a touching, painful and hilarious switchback ride through a divided Britain.
- GenresFiction
Hardcover
First published November 6, 1995
22 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 23, 2024
While David Nobbs has attempted a greater literary ambition with this third Pratt novel by expanding the range of years he is willing to investigate within Henry Ezra Pratt (and he also repurposes the William Manchester-like ticker of news events every time he advances a year), this still doesn't quite work as well as Perrin. There are so many aloof and implausible moves, such as Pratt running for political office and being thrust in the public eye, that feel more like desperate situations trying to siphon life from his flat protagonist. But Pratt really isn't all that interesting of a character. And while Nobbs proved he could follow a series of characters over the course of many years in the Reginald Perrin books, he's not as successful here. This is probably the best of the three Pratt novels, but that's not really saying much. Reading this trilogy, I felt like I was being forced to watch a CARRY ON film festival. Sure, there's occasionally something amusing. But why am I trapped in something so banal? Particularly when we all know that Nobbs can write!
October 9, 2009
An easy and entertaining read
Poor Henry Pratt! Having failed in his career as a journalist, he finds himself jobless in Thurmarsh, South Yorkshire, in the late fifties. This book tracks his life through the next four decades, through three marriages, numerous children, interesting incidents with relatives and friends, a career with the Cucumber Marketing Board in Leeds, a skirmish with politics and an unlikely international mission to promote, you've guessed it, English cucumbers. Most of his life, Henry has found himself in situation thinking one thing, saying another and wishing, almost immediately, that he'd said another. That approach causes enormous problems for him and the reader cannot imagine how Henry can ever enjoy success at anything. However, having seen the passing of all of his relatives in the next generation up, Henry finally finds something that he's good at.
I would hardly describe the book as hilarious, as does the cover blurb, but it is certainly very entertaining and continuously amusing. There are patches of personal tragedy that probably seem familiar to most readers.
This is the third in the Pratt series and I would recommend reading the series in order. First, Second from Last in the Sack Race then Pratt of the Argus, and then read this one. Easy to read, humorous nostalgia.
Poor Henry Pratt! Having failed in his career as a journalist, he finds himself jobless in Thurmarsh, South Yorkshire, in the late fifties. This book tracks his life through the next four decades, through three marriages, numerous children, interesting incidents with relatives and friends, a career with the Cucumber Marketing Board in Leeds, a skirmish with politics and an unlikely international mission to promote, you've guessed it, English cucumbers. Most of his life, Henry has found himself in situation thinking one thing, saying another and wishing, almost immediately, that he'd said another. That approach causes enormous problems for him and the reader cannot imagine how Henry can ever enjoy success at anything. However, having seen the passing of all of his relatives in the next generation up, Henry finally finds something that he's good at.
I would hardly describe the book as hilarious, as does the cover blurb, but it is certainly very entertaining and continuously amusing. There are patches of personal tragedy that probably seem familiar to most readers.
This is the third in the Pratt series and I would recommend reading the series in order. First, Second from Last in the Sack Race then Pratt of the Argus, and then read this one. Easy to read, humorous nostalgia.
July 26, 2016
Read as the third instalment of the wonderfully titled "Complete Pratt." Possibly less strong than the preceding two but still entertaining, and essential if you're this far into the story. I had to return my omnibus edition to the Library as Mr Nobbs sadly died after I booked it out, and was naturally in demand at that time. I chose to buy the Kindle edition to finish things off. Glad I did.
February 15, 2017
Really great read! The lead character, Henry Pratt, is impossible not to like. He is so well-meaning yet so fallible. A great, light sense of humour is carried through out, but this novel is also surprisingly thought-provoking, as Henry and his friends move through various marriages and he progresses through his stream of uninspiring, cucumber-related jobs!
July 1, 2020
Hilarious
May 19, 2024
The third volume of the series and, predictably perhaps, diminishing returns. The personal problems of the younger Henry Pratt were understandable and involving. However in this volume, the older (well, approaching middle-aged) man seems to re-hash older "adventures" as he goes on to the fairly inevitable ending.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 8, 2023
Very enjoyable, but I didn't find it as funny as some reviewers. I found it amusing and melancholy in equal parts.
July 16, 2016
This is a worthy end to a marvellous trilogy. Not perfectly written but thoroughly enjoyable with a creasing laugh every now and then. (That may sound like faint praise. It isn't these are seismic laughs and there are not many episodes from any book that crease you with laughter. When Nobbs gets it right all the lights flash on the fruit machine).
Henry is a good pair of eyes to see the world through. Perceptive enough to see through the surface of people and events, forgiving enough (on the whole) to live and let I've and resentful enough to add grit to the wheel and move along the plot. He's an Everyman character; a celebration of the ordinary. Unfortunately, for me, Nobbs decides to elevate all of his sympathetic and long-suffering characters into the world of success at the end. It doesn't damage the book, but it undermines the message. (If I were the editor I'd lop off the last twenty pages; it wouldn't lose anything. I actually sniff (thanks Cousin Hilda) that an editor may well have been responsible for this unhappy happy ending. It seems so, well, unNobbsian.
It's over thirty years since I began Second From Last in the Sack Race, so I find that I've actually read the trilogy at almost real time. I don't believe in several characters. They are largely moulded to fit the plot. No bad thing with a minor character or two but both Hilary and Diana fit this and they are far too significant to the novel to be so utilised. It doesn't matter too much and doesn't affect enjoyment. Just makes them a little hard to believe in. The true major characters; Henry, Auntie Doris, Cousin Hilda, Uncle Teddy are wonderful. We care about them. Feel good when things go well and are upset when things go badly. A few tears were spilled at key moments.
Is it a great Northern novel? I don't think so. I think it was intended as intelligent entertainment and as such is aimed at the same prime time TV audiences he delighted with Reginald Perrin. True popular culture with a real sense of history.
Henry is a good pair of eyes to see the world through. Perceptive enough to see through the surface of people and events, forgiving enough (on the whole) to live and let I've and resentful enough to add grit to the wheel and move along the plot. He's an Everyman character; a celebration of the ordinary. Unfortunately, for me, Nobbs decides to elevate all of his sympathetic and long-suffering characters into the world of success at the end. It doesn't damage the book, but it undermines the message. (If I were the editor I'd lop off the last twenty pages; it wouldn't lose anything. I actually sniff (thanks Cousin Hilda) that an editor may well have been responsible for this unhappy happy ending. It seems so, well, unNobbsian.
It's over thirty years since I began Second From Last in the Sack Race, so I find that I've actually read the trilogy at almost real time. I don't believe in several characters. They are largely moulded to fit the plot. No bad thing with a minor character or two but both Hilary and Diana fit this and they are far too significant to the novel to be so utilised. It doesn't matter too much and doesn't affect enjoyment. Just makes them a little hard to believe in. The true major characters; Henry, Auntie Doris, Cousin Hilda, Uncle Teddy are wonderful. We care about them. Feel good when things go well and are upset when things go badly. A few tears were spilled at key moments.
Is it a great Northern novel? I don't think so. I think it was intended as intelligent entertainment and as such is aimed at the same prime time TV audiences he delighted with Reginald Perrin. True popular culture with a real sense of history.
April 17, 2014
David writes a good yarn, amusing but not so daft it becomes implausible. This is the 3rd in a series of stories about the life of Henry Pratt,now 22, still living at cousin Hilda's, but he goes on to get work for the cucumber marketing board, see family problems,get married have a family.In other words life happens but to Henry, there is often more to it.
April 13, 2010
I mostly liked his sympathetic portrayal of the folks a generation ahead of him.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews