The Wilt Alternative A bit of fun! .mp3 (3.1 MB)
Tom Sharpe
Secker & Warburg, 1979
Die Laughing Hard
After satirist Tom Sharpe was deported from South Africa, he taught from 1963 to 1972 at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology- a place the sharpe wit has since spent skewering.
In The Wilt Alternative his series character, Henry Wilt, works- and that's used loosely- at a university devoted to delivering Lord of the Flies to Gasfitters. Baffled by the attempt, these working class messers make films about kinky nookie with a plastic crocodile. Endless committees of ivory tower administrators weigh the film's artistic merits against the likely scandal. Wilt rolls his beady eyes and hits the pub.
Straight outta a paper for one of the Tech's literature courses, here's a summation of what happens next:
Wilt's big fat nutty wife, Eva, rents the attic of their sprawling new house out- to a hot young fraulein! Wilt sprouts some major wood, but this Irmgard Mueller is interested only in the company of two sportscar-driving foreigners. Wilt goes out on the tear with a drinking buddy, so winds up with his ass in jail and his langer in bandages.
Later, the same coppers descend when Wilt goes to lodge the lodger's rent. The marked bank notes show that Irmgard is in with bomb-making political loonies. Special Branch and nine other shades of anti-terrorist forces appear. There's also orders- Wilt has to go home, confirm Irmgard is unsuspectingly there, then calmly, inconspicuously lead his family to safety.
Wilt, of course, is incapable of accomplishing anything quietly and normally. Soon the heavily-armed terrorists are screaming downstairs, holding Wilt's foul-mouthed quadruplets hostage. He's up in the attic with a machine gun, plus the German- now naked! Think Die Hard. Only harder.
Every page contains excellent dialogue and description, brilliant comic situations. Some of Sharpe's references were lost on me. I wasn't on London's late 1970's trendy eco-bourgeoisie scene. Alternative Gardening? Alternative this, alternative that? Alternative Medicine is vaguely familiar- there's a Health Squad program on RTE- but The Wilt Alternative doesn't have any redheaded hotties shaking crystals over nutters who are pretending to be sick.
That would fit right in, though. This book contains gratuitous pee-pee drinking.
Weaknesses.... Though two notable plot events occur due to Mrs. Wilt's aforementioned involvement in the Alternative movement, it's hardly worth naming the book after. And though the first hundred and twenty pages of daily scandal at the university do set the scene and introduce the characters, I am guessing that they largely serve as continuity for Wilt's earlier instalment. Kind of delayed things.
Critical Mick says: The mayhem Sharpe stirs in The Wilt Alternative makes most comedy writing read as poorly as a Critical Mick unruly review. The dude rocks. Thus is a book to read slowly and admire. This is a book to re-read.
Tom Sharpe is now 79. The 4th Wilt book, published in 2004 was his most recent novel. Go Tom!
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