The Wilt Alternative

The Wilt Alternative by Tom Sharpe

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***

This was published in 1979 so I found it amazing how those things being satirized were still relevant today. It is very dark humor and certainly not to everyone's tastes but even though I'd read it before I still found myself laughing at some of the scenes.

Wilt is a middle aged man who aspires to a life of peace and tranquility and yet constantly finds himself amidst chaos - admittedly some of his own making. For example he is a prude who is not prepared to tell the receptionist in a crowded waiting room at a hospital emergency intake that he needs assistance for a badly lacerated penis. As a result he is subjected to various painful and unrelated procedures by insensitive health providers. As a result the reader gets a glimpse into a National Health Service that values bureaucracy over the well-being of its patients and believes that dignity is an archaic concept best forgotten in the name of efficiency.

Tom Sharpe has a number of targets for his wit among then being progressive education, new-age fads from the 1970s, terrorists and government bureaucracies.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and I highly recommend it but for those who aspire to 'social consciousness' it should probably be skipped.



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