OK, here's the chance for you the readers
to have your say and recommend your own books for the readers of Bartcop
Books. Remember, if you disagree with any of these recommendations, or
want to submit a review or recommendation of your own then please email
me.
I just finished a book I had picked up as light
reading on a 'plane trip a couple of days ago. It
turned out to be one of the funniest, saddest and most
politically accurate books I have ever read. It might
be a good pace change for folk after a season of
Palast, Brock and Carville.
"The Rotter's Club" by Jonathan Coe
Coe has constructed a novel which produced some of the
most visceral responses to writing that I have ever
experienced. I use the term constructed with intent
because his narrative is a series of elements held
together by traditional prose sections; diary
abstracts, a stream of consciousness sentence close to
15,000 words, school play reviews, a "What I did on my
summer vacation" essay and so on. I would liken the
effect to rummaging through a box of old news papers
found in an attic. It paints a full and satisfying
portrait of Britain in the period leading up to the so
called "Thatcher revolution."
His lead players are Ben Trotter (Bent rotter -
nicknames are so cruel) and his assorted school chums,
siblings of said chums and their female counter parts
at the separate school for girls. While the kids deal
with such things as sports day, exams, school plays
and trying to form a band, those around them deal with
strikes at the British Leyland car factory, IRA pub
bombings, illicit affairs with a secretary and police
brutality. He shows the presence of naive racism at
school and contrasts it with the wild eyed hatred of
all people foreign shown by the National Front (sort
of Freepers -UK circa 1975)
Coe has done his research and weaves in facts that
popped out from the pages - the press campaign to
discredit "Red Robbo" as the union leader at the car
plant and the SPG assault on a crowd that killed Blair
Peach being just two examples. He includes some jokes
that will only be caught by old boys of his school or
Brummies of that time period (Brummies = inhabitants
of Birmingham) but these are not essential to the
plot.
I hear mumblings from the Julifest gallery that it is
about school kids growing up in Birmingham, England in
the seventies - what has that got to do with matters
Bartcopian? It surprised me - it is a wonderfully
accurate picture of union relations, the Irish
troubles and the economic malaise partially brought on
by Ted Heath's Conservative government. Like the movie
"Billy Elliott" these form part of the scenery but are
an essential element of the entire tale. While I have
added part of this review to the Amazon site, I will
note amongst my close friends here that Coe was
present and knows that of which he speaks. Having
myself been in the heart of Birmingham on the night
two bombs went off, I can vouch for the emotional
scars that we, as school kids, received as a result.
He is painfully accurate in these and so many other
details that I will be giving copies to anyone puzzled
about why I am the way I am.
I took the book with me on a flight but had trouble
reading some of the passages in public since they were
so laugh out loud funny. Coe is an author in complete
control of his medium and thus also managed, in turn,
to bring tears of feeling for his protagonists to my
eyes. This book is a keeper - a snap shot of a city in
a time that has passed but that is full of shared
memories of youth. Bring on part two right away, Coe,
or I'll give you a 2 side imposition on "Why the
locker room is no place fop or idler."