Tom Sharpe
When looking through what book-clubs have to offer, Sharpe's name used to be there always. I guess you know the descriptions they give, they usually say nothing at all. And Sharpe's books always "make you laugh out loud", all of them. I sort of had my suspicions about them.
Still, one day I was in a bookstore, and didn't really know what to look for, and there was "Sneu voor het Milieu" (Blott on the Landscape). Well, OK then. And I cannot say I have regretted it at all. I love a good humoristic story (Wodehouse and Dahl I knew and loved before), and Sharpe certainly fits that category. Where Wodehouse is the master of enlarging the silly sides of the British Upper class, and Roald Dahl will play with the sneaky sides of us, Sharpe will slightly exaggerate a situation, and then let it roll itself all by itself and watch what happens. People enter the scene with the best intentions and a fresh pile of clumsiness, and happily complicate an already complicated situation. People aren't happy with what they are, and would do anything to be seen as something else. And we can only watch what happens, and laugh out loud.
© Jim Bella 2002-2006