The Wilt Inheritance (Published in 2010) - More problems for Wilt - Authored by Tom Sharpe

Written when he was 82 years old, The Wilt Inheritance is author Tom Sharpe’s last book in the Wilt Series. Like its predecessors, this book too has Wilt entangling himself in mind blowing crazy scenarios from which it looks impossible to get out. Not his best work, but the book is quite a laugh, especially for Sharpe loyalists, who will feel a tad nostalgic towards the central character and his antics.
Tom Sharpe died 3 years after the publication of this book, due to complications resulting out of diabetes. He was 85 at the time, and said to be working on an autobiography. A witty and engaging writer, Sharpe did not necessarily move with the times in his books (they seems to be locked in an era of dial telephones and quiet Sundays), but he did attempt it never the less. This book has Wilt showcased in the 21st century.
In the Wilt Inheritance, Wilt is stuck as the nominal Head of the Communication Department at the Finland University. He is teaching students whom he does not want to teach. But, he can’t afford to lose this job. It’s the money from this uninteresting lack luster job, which is after all paying for the quadruplets private school fees and the maintenance of his wife Eva’s every demand. If all this had not already caused him a headache, his wife decides to sign him up for a summer job.




This summer job entails tutoring the step-son of a wealthy but lusty local aristocrat. His step father has hopes of sending him to Cambridge. However, once Wilt does start tutoring him, he realizes that the boy is not only a complete idiot who probably would not be able to find the bus to go to Cambridge, but also dangerously violent. Wilt learns that the boy owns a gun, which he shoots at any object which is moving, or sometimes not necessarily moving.          
Gradually the situation starts to unravel, and Wilt decides that it is time to use this now deteriorating state of affairs to his advantage. He finds a way in which the current scenario could not only put him at a financial advantage, but also give his snooty wife Eva, some tensions and headaches of her own.
While the book is not his best work, it is still worth a read and quite entertaining. It is amazing how effortlessly Tom Sharpe can develop a believable situation, and then push its boundaries to crazy extremes where it no longer seems believable. The entire scenario, with his amoral horrible little monsters for girls, a wife who seems to have perfected the snooty attitudes of high society, and wilt himself- a constant magnet for all things bad, is unimaginable, yet totally comical.
While the book may not be “hurt your stomach laughing” good, it is fast paced and sharp, with the typical Sharpe dark humor and story line which takes the viewers to place they did not known they wanted to or could visit. Even though the ideologies and prose is somewhat stuck in 1976, it does have a sense of authenticity to it, making its readers sentimental for the books they probably grew up on.

Wilt in Nowhere (Published in 2004) - Wilt traveling - Authored by Tom Sharpe

After a break of more than 2 decades, Tom Sharpe returned with the fourth novel in the Wilt Series. Tom Sharpe acknowledged that the reason for such a prolonged absence in his publication was the lack of poison in his system as it was the period he was forced to give up smoking. Other reasons mentioned by him for the prolonged absence was that the ballpoint pen he used had gone out of production! And that he had even written to his readers to send him their pens!
Whatever the reason be, the introduction to Wilt in Nowhere feels timid and as a reader one worries that Sharpe might have finally gone soft. However, upon further reading it is clear that Sharpe has upped the antics and adventures of the anti-hero of his series, Henry Wilt.
In “Wilt in Nowhere”, there are 2 plots that start of simultaneously after Wilt’s wife receives plane tickets from her Aunt and Uncle who live in Tennessee, for the entire family, to go visit them. Eva, Wilt’s wife, see this as her opportunity to try and worm her way into the will of her Aunt and Uncle, who incidentally have more money than they can spend. However, Wilt tries and eventually succeeds in getting himself out of this trip.
From there on there are two plots. One involving Eva and their quadruplet teenage daughters, who have grown up to be sex starved, foul mouthed kids; and Henry Wilt, who as always takes the poor decision to try and take a walking holiday through London to once again find the romantic and nostalgic side to it. Wilt plans to do that with nothing but his walking shoes and ill advisedly, a bottle of whiskey!    




Meanwhile, Eva is caught in the middle of a drug trafficking racket, with her as the main suspect. This in no way helps her to worm her way into her Aunt and Uncle’s fortunes, on the contrary finds herself further away from it. Her foul mouthed daughters only add to the confusion by leaving behind them a trail of destruction, insanity and angry drug enforcement agents.
Incase everything seems to spiral out of control on Eva’s front, things are no better in England, when Wilt, who was supposedly backpacking is seen drunk and unconscious in the back of an arsonists’ pickup truck. If that isn’t complicated enough, Wilt wakes up in the hospital not sure how he got there, or why he is being accused of arson, robbery and murder! And for all the mess he has gotten himself into, his worst problem then appears in the form of his old friend, Inspector Flint who would only be thrilled to investigate Wilt for all the above mentioned crimes.
A brilliantly funny read, with all the crazy plot elements in place, the book reminds Sharpe’s loyal readers of past misadventures. But, the jokes do feel ever so slightly forced. Known as the king of slapstick, in this novel Sharpe has shown himself as not just that but also someone who is vengeful and wildly amusing in his writings.

Wilt (Published in 1976) - Comedy of errors - Authored by Tom Sharpe

Born in 1928, Thomas Ridley Sharpe was a British novelist, who favoured satire in all his writings. Best known for the Wilt series, and Porterhouse Blue, Thomas Sharpe, better known as Tom Sharpe was an alumnus of Pembroke College, Cambridge. His novels have been well acclaimed globally and the Wilt Series along with a few other books have also been adapted for television.    
Wilt is one of the first critically acclaimed novels of Tom Sharpe. Based on the life and misadventures of a professionally underrated assistant lecturer, Henry Wilt, the book is a comedic novel which was first published in 1976. The story starts off with Henry Wilt, who has a daft job and an extremely domineering wife. Wilt has just been passed up for promotion yet again and is shown to be a guy who always takes the easy way out in life. As a result he never gets what he wants. He teaches literature to uninterested construction workers and thugs at a Community College in the South of England.
Frustrated with his job, Wilt finds no respite even at home. With a wife who is physically larger than him, but emotionally and mentally behaves extremely immature, Wilt is desperate to find a way out of his troubles. Even though he cannot do anything about his job, he loves to walk his dog and fantasize about doing something to his wife, Eva. Eva is shown to be massive, with unpredictable fits of over enthusiasm. Wilt is tired of being hen-pecked and harassed all the time by Eva, and starts day dreaming about killing her in gruesome ways.




But, then a string of unfortunate events put Wilt in an unenviable position. These events start at a party hosted by some “horrible Americans”. When his wife runs off with a college professor, Wilt seizes the opportunity of carrying out some of his more vindictive fantasies. He inflates a life size plastic doll and dresses it up in his wife’s clothes. He then proceeds to dump the doll down a 30 foot hole. And by doing something so stupid he has now started a chain of events in which suspicion and blame soon find their way back to him, when his wife goes missing.
What follows is a hilarious tale of confusion and mayhem. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. And Wilt only makes matters worse when he attempts to make things better. Along the way he is subjected to humiliation and turmoil as his life is turned upside down. But going through the ordeal, somewhere along the way, Wilt finds his strengths and some amount of dignity.
He seems to be assisting the police in finding his wife, but is almost all the time under a cloud of suspicion from the obstinate police inspector Flint. Gradually with all the pressure of the investigation burdening him down, he starts to find his strong suits and begins to flourish. While the police focus solely on the circumstantial evidence they have, Wilt puts in all he has into showing the world how the Law actually works, and how they can’t seem to differentiate a missing person from a hole in the ground.
A satirical and entertaining read overall, in which Tom Sharpe has created a character, which we can all identify with. Maybe we do not recognize Henry Wilt as ourselves, but, we do recognize him as someone we are afraid to turn into. Throughout the story, the reader experiences a sort of empathy for the protagonist.