Caught by the genials

Press, 22 October 1983, Page 18

Caught by the genials

Vintage Stuff. By Tom Sharpe. Pan, 1983. 223 pp. $6.95 (paperback).

(Reviewed by Ken Strongman) Usually, reading is an individual activity. At most, it conveys to the onlooker the message “do not disturb.” It can carry the feeling of a tranquil island in a sea of household noise. Sometimes, reading can be a touch irritating to the onlooker. But most irritating of all, although most satisfying to the reader, is a book which causes overt laughter. There is something extremely fulfilling about snorting and guffawing over a book until one is eventually rocking back and forth with tears streaming from one’s eyes. Since one is so obviously caught up in enjoyment, the remainder of the family cannot become too angry. Unfortunately, this experience is rare; it- is not easy to write humorously. But with “Vintage Stuff” Tom Sharpe had done it yet again. It is a delightful, abundant, frisky romp of a book. The events are farcical, but just possible. What am I saying? Who would

drive a vintage Bentley off to France to save a countess one has never met from a fate worse than death? Well. . .

The characters are quite impossible, or are they? Does anyone exist who is so bound up in the fantastic escapades of the heroes of John Buchan, Sapper and lan Fleming that they shade into his own life? Well . . .

“Vintage Stuff” is captivating, catching one by the genials and plummeting one down a helter-skelter spread with banana skins that make one skid from irony to satire, and end up at the bottom exhausted and hefoless with limbs akimbo. One quotation is irresistible. “But the strain of being held at gunpoint by a maniac who thought that Antibes was a person while a couple who claimed they weren’t bull terriers were being drowned upstairs was proving too much for Sir Arnold.” If that doesn’t intrigue you, and make you want to read this latest Sharpe, either this review has failed or you have no sense of humour. Anyway, do not read it on buses; it might disturb the driver.