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What a Carve Up!
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What a Carve up! - Jonathan Coe
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The different members of the Winshaw family are ruthless, rich, and/or insane. Michael Owen, hired to write their biography, lets it slide for a long time and then is suddenly drawn in to a climactic, murderous finale which explains a lot about his own life as well as theirs.This is a satire focusing on the greed of the 1980s Thatcher era in Britain and at the same time a pastiche of the "country house murder" trope. There is a spoiler for one of Agatha Christie's books, which I thought was a mean thing to do to another author, although probably most readers either would know it already or wouldn't remember or wouldn't read Christie's book.. Otherwise I enjoyed it. The ending left me with some questions, and I'm not sure if that was intended or if it's me missing clues. (view spoiler)
I adored this book. First of all, it is just plain funny. Like giggle-out-loud funny. There is more than a little P.G. Wodehouse here. Just one example, the name of the insane asylum where one of the family members is housed: The Hatchjaw-Bassett Institute for the Actively Insane. It is also very cleverly written, taking a variety of forms from diary entries and TV transcripts to more traditional prose. And there are layers upon layers of connections and meanings. Under the guise of a murder mystery, it exposes a lot about political and economic maneuverings in Great Britian the 1970s and 1980s. This part may disgust and anger you, and it certainly made me cry at one point. A book that can do all that – chef’s kiss. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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“…there comes a point, where greed and madness become practically indistinguishable. One and the same thing you might say. And there comes another point, where the willingness to tolerate greed, and to live alongside it, and even to assist it, becomes a sort of madness too.”
Rosemary wrote: "The different members of the Winshaw family are ruthless, rich, and/or insane. Michael Owen, hired to write their biography, lets it slide for a long time and then is suddenly drawn in to a climact..."I just finished this Rosemary, and here's what I believe: (view spoiler)
Jane wrote: "Rosemary wrote: "The different members of the Winshaw family are ruthless, rich, and/or insane. Michael Owen, hired to write their biography, lets it slide for a long time and then is suddenly draw..."Thank you! Good to have another take on it.
It follows a writer- Michael Owen- who is tasked by elderly mental hospital inpatient, Tabitha Winshaw, to write an account of her influential and aristocratic family. This is not supposed to be an ordinary account as she is convinced her RAF pilot brother was not killed in the line of duty, but somehow by her other brother Lawrence. As Michael gleans more info about the family, we learn they are the WORST people ever (and eventually why there was a deadly burglary of their estate in the 60s).
They are almost all influential people in the Thatcher/post Thatcher era of Britain. One is essentially Katie Hopkins (or Anne Coulter for Americans), one is a turncoat corrupt politician involved in trying to privatize the NHS, another a arms dealer for people like Saddam Hussein, a mass-produced-food industrialist who runs a cruel and highly artificial meat corporation, and a couple of philandering art agents/film producers. They are the greediest, most entitled, most vapid people in a way that faithfully reflects the hyper rich capitalist elite.
As Michael collects info on these scumbags and their hidden family history, the backdrop of the beginning of the gulf-war and needless deaths due to deregulation of the Tories play out in the background.
The Wildness reaches a fever pitch as they all amass in the family estate (this time in the 90s and with Michael present), to hear the will of a family member when a classic almost too stereotypical murder mystery situation begins (I ended up liking this because it uses the conventions of this genre to an intentionally tropey level to parallel that what they've done to Britain and the international community is tantamount to a horrid mass murder).
Family members get furious about being left nothing before picked off in poetic justice-y ways. And also according to the plot of a movie -the real and titular What a Carve Up! that Michael has been obsessed with since childhood. Michael finds out all kinds of twists that solve the 'did Lawrence kill his brother' conspiracy, and why he was picked for the job in the first place (among other weird twisty things).
It actually works extremely well as a genre-as-metaphor for the greediness of the aristocratic elite and the horror they bring in this process. As well as the layers of deception that overlays the truth of their dealings. The ending is also wild and comes right out of nowhere yet fits perfectly somehow.
Yeah, it was great.