The Throwback: Amazon.ca: Tom Sharpe: Books

Frequently Bought Together

+

+

Total List Price: CDN$ 65.85
Price For All Three: CDN$ 48.06

Show availability and shipping details

This item: The Throwback by Tom Sharpe
Usually ships within 3 to 5 weeks.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
Ancestral Vices by Tom Sharpe
Usually ships within 3 to 5 weeks.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
Vintage Stuff by Tom Sharpe
Usually ships within 3 to 5 weeks.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Wilt in Nowhere

by Tom Sharpe

CDN$ 42.50

Ancestral Vices

by Tom Sharpe

5.0 out of 5 stars (3) CDN$ 16.02

Grantchester Grind

by Tom Sharpe

3.3 out of 5 stars (3) CDN$ 16.02

Vintage Stuff

by Tom Sharpe

3.0 out of 5 stars (2) CDN$ 16.02

Blott on the Landscape

by Tom Sharpe

4.9 out of 5 stars (9) CDN$ 17.48

› Explore similar items

Product Description

From AudioFile

Tom Sharpe usually skewers civilization's weak spots in hilarious dark comedy. Here, he crudely and indiscriminately slashes everything.The package actually bears a warning for offensive language, and even Matthews's engaging voice can't ease the chafed sensation that awaits the listener. D.J. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Review

'His tale of an illegitimate member of the squirearchy earning his inheritance by increasingly nasty methods is both inventive and pacy' New Statesman 'Romp about one of nature's gentlemen making his innocent and ruthless way through the jungle of contemporary sex, VAT, law and order, etc... savage, knock-about farce' Observer 'Black humour, comic anarchy at its best' Sunday Times 'Crazy, but is all done with a savage delight which will have you laughing out loud' Daily Mirror 'He is funny, bitter, a danger to his public and should be applauded wildly by all' The Listener

See all Product Description

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

Customer Reviews

12 Reviews

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.7 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps the funniest book I have ever read., Jan 28 2004

By	Sailoil (Dublin Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Throwback (Paperback)

The base premise is really simple. Guy inherits a street of houses, but they are on long leases at low rent. The only way he can earn a living is to get the residents to leave.

So he engages on a meticulously planned campaign of side-splitting terror. The methods employed to rid himself of his reluctant residents are gruesome, medieval but oh so funny.

This is Tom Sharpe at his riproaring best.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

4.0 out of 5 stars The Throwback by Tom Sharpe, Jan 17 2004

By	Anna Harding (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Throwback (Paperback)

This is the hilariously funny saga of a young man who has no official existence, and who is totally naive concerning the facts of life. About other things he has a good grasp of the way they work, and when he settles down with his new bride, and his new bride's mother settles down with her new husband, things start to pop. It is difficult to say more without spoiling the plot, but suffice it to say that the plot, like the contents of the Dutch Cap, will keep, and you will be in stitches, unlike the Colonel's
Scarlet Lady.

This is not a book to take to read on an airplane. It is so uproarously funny that you might well find the flight diverted and escorted to the ground by fighters, and you packed off for observation. You have been warned.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

4.0 out of 5 stars slapstick yet morbid comedy; not for the squeamish, Sep 14 2001

By	lazza (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Throwback (Paperback)

The Throwback is my second Tom Sharpe novel (..the first being Wilt). So I was expected a non-stop barrage of comic (and absurd) scenes. Or rather, pure comedy thinly wrapped into what can loosely be called a novel. I was not disappointed.

The story, such as it is, concerns the travails of backwater yokels living in an obscure corner of northern England. The patriarch of a large estate is nearing death, and must decide on what to do about his will. His only surviving relative is a bastard grandson with unknown parentage. So he his will mandates his grandson needs to discover who his father is before inheriting money.

Ah, but there are complications. His grandson is a backward, bizarre young man who marries an extremely naive young woman from Surrey. Her mother has eyes on marrying the old patriach to get her hands on the loot. And so on. The story then spins into endless comic, sometimes very darkly comic, scenes.

My only complaint with The Throwback is, I suppose, its overall theme. In Wilt the leading character was a hapless middle-aged man who somehow gets into a world of (humorous) trouble. Much of the humour was also satiric. But in The Throwback it is the innocent people associated with the patriarch's grandson (and wife) who are cruelly victimised. Yes, it is very funny. But I couldn't help but feeling guilty about it all.

Bottom line: black, slapstick comedy in superior form. Not quite as enjoyable as Wilt, but Tom Sharpe certainly knows how to entertain his readers.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 12 customer reviews...

Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Sharpe Pointed Needle
There's funny. There's hysterical, like Blott and his capers & then there's "The Throwback". Read more

Published on Jun 2 2001 by Robert Pascoe

4.0 out of 5 stars encore, encore
one of the first tom sharpe books i read, i was hooked emediately. i found the begining a little slow, but when it finally took of i never stopped laghing. Read more

Published on Aug 19 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars This book should be sold with a disclaimer
The Throwback is the funniest book I have ever read (and I was nearly tossed out of a bar in New Hampshire for laughing at Foucault's Pendulum). Read more

Published on Jun 19 2000 by JCPancakes

5.0 out of 5 stars Funniest book since "A Confederacy of Dunces"
You have not experienced true laughter until you read this one! I could not believe the things Sharpe put into this book! Read more