Riotous Assembly

I originally bought Tom Sharpe paperbacks (1970s era) and loved them. Now the small print is unreadable for my old eyes, so I ordered hardbacks. This one came just as expected and was a joy to read again.I also ordered another title offered in hardback at the same time and after a long wait, the same unreadable paperback that I already have came. When I complained, they gave me a refund and said don't bother to return. There should be some way to say send only as ordered.Very happy with Riotous Assembly. Like meeting old friends!

At first glance, a white South African author writing satirically about apartheid may seem inappropriate — until you read it. It's an hilarious take-down of a failed system that is laugh out loud funny. Sharpe lampoons the shenanigans of the South African Police, in the person of one Kommandent Els in particular, in the imaginary town of Piemburg — which is based on the real city of Pietermartitzburg which I once lived in.Sex across the colour line was considered immoral under apartheid, so when Kommandent Els learns that White Ms Hazelstone killed her Black cook in a crime of passion — having humped the man since she was widowed — the cop believes the explicit revelations, which are hilariously funny, would collapse their pure-blooded social structure and disgrace his city, so he decides to cover up the crime.Take a wild ride on the funny side of a dark time in South Africa’s history that everyone can learn-and-laugh from! I read this as a young South African living under apartheid in the 70s. The absurdity of it gave me hope that the system would not last -- although it did, for another two decades.

Apartheid is still the rule of the day in the Republic of South Africa, and there is still a tension between the descendants of the Boer settlers and the English. The small town of Piemburg is a perfect example of this multi-leveled class structure. Police Kommandant van Heerden is an Afrikaner, but has long envied the English way of life, so when he is called to the estate of Miss Hazelstone after she calls in the report of a murder, he is beside himself with the thrill of finally getting to see inside Jacaranda House and be of service to the fine lady. When that fine lady confesses to being the murderer, van Heerden finds himself in the worst nightmare of his career.This book was originally released in 1971 and shows its age. At the time apartheid was still in force in South Africa and there was certainly a class system that carried over to the Afrikaners and English.Putting that history aside, the book still suffers from the basic fact that the author tried much too hard to be shocking rather than humorous. The humor rises only to the level of the mentality of twelve year old boys in that it is titillating and outrageously silly with many sexual references. Just as modern day comedians are finally wearing out the shock value of f-bombs and other similar language as substitutes for true humor, this book depends not so much on funny situations, humorous characters, and witty turns of phrase as it does on pulling one more shocker out of the bag of tricks. It may have shocked the readers in the 1970s and specifically the government of South Africa of the time, but now it just comes across as un-funny and rather sad since there was a potential for humor in the story of the incompetent police department personnel rather than with the repeated insertion of the salacious, sexual non-humor into the story which became tedious and embarrassing.Not recommended.

Tom Sharpe's satirical skill manifests masterfully in this book. He sketches Pietermaritzburg briefly yet comprehensively at the introduction thereby painting the stage on which the characters are to be developed. The he introduces the very South African psychosocial and sociopolitical context as created and maintained by the self serving and calamitous Van Heerden, the sociopathic and idiotic Els, utterly incompetent Verkramp, the entitled Hazelstones and the many victims that resulted from there self serving and egocentric interactions. A fantastical if exaggerated glimpse of life, both sides of the racial divide in the South Africa as created and maintained by the National Party and the organs of state. Sharpe shows the idiocy and cruelty of a system that deprived most South Africans of their human rights and human dignity. He shows how only those endowed with stupendous mediocrity and a complete lack of empathy could be served by such attitudes and systems. Sharpe uses humor as means to make the horror of the system and its main players palatable to the reader.

This is not a book for the racially sensitive, or for your teenage daughter, but for anyone that has a mature sense of humour and is in touch with history, especially that of apartheid South Africa, and the British Empire's denial of the negative side of its colonial conquests. It is not often that I read a book that brings a tear to my eye- this one brought tears of laughter. Tom Sharpe is a pro at satire, and this is a classic. I have only given it four stars because perfection, even with Tom, is hard to find. The latter part of the book stretches out a bit, and the impetus of the first half based on the old colonial property tends to get fazed later on.

I first read this book many years ago and laughed SO much that I have 'loaned' my copies of it many times- unfortunately without ensuring their return!!I bought THIS copy to lend to a good friend here in Texas and to have available for me to read for the second time.

Political satire should be both funny and savage. Tom Sharpe's first novel excels at both; it is absolutely biting socio-political criticism of the old apartheid South Africa, and it's magnificently funny. As another reviewer said, I've read this a number of times over the last 40 years and I still laugh out loud every time. These days, it also might be recommended as an interesting caricature of what the apartheid era in South Africa was like. Sharpe was a gifted writer, and this is the best of his novels IMO. Well worth your time!

Found myself laughing hard, lots. Very clever

I thought I had already read all of TS's books but missed this one; I am glad that I found it, because it is TS at his brilliantly daft best - loads of mad, bad, hypocritical and incompetent people, with silly ideas, lousy beliefs and nasty attitudes, doing stupid and OTT things.It comes across as being horribly racist but one must remember that this was the nature of the society TS is lampooning and parodying; sadly, it is all firmly rooted in reality.Back in the day, the situation of black people in the RSA made anything that the USA's Black Lives Matter campaign is complaining about look like very minor inconveniences and it didn't change very quickly after the end of apartheid.I saw many illustrations of this on business trips to the RSA (all of them post 1994) but three instances really stick in my memory, all of which are echoed in this book.First, I was having dinner with an Afrikaner, when he got a call from his wife. He explained to me that they had their own farm and, when a squatter (immigrants from Mozambique or somewhere) camp had set up next to the farm, they started mass breeding chickens to sell to the squatters. His wife had phoned to say that a squatter had got into the farm to steal chickens and she had shot him dead. When I expressed my shock and said that we could wind things up, so he could go to take care of his wife, he told me that it was okay, because this was the seventh one this year (we were not that far into the year).Second, I was driving along a highway near Alexandria township with a business acquaintance of high caste Indian descent (he was driving, not me, I never would in the RSA); I asked him what all those guys were doing at the side of the road; he asked me what I meant and I told him there had been a crowd of about 200 young black guys standing right at the roadside. He told me that he hadn't noticed them.Third, I was chatting with an Afrikaner lady at a reception and asked her what she thought about the end of apartheid, democratic elections, etc., etc.; she told me that it didn't bother her, because the minority would never be able to take over. I asked her what she meant and she told me that there are only three million of "them" but there are thirty million of "us" - roughly the right numbers, just the wrong way round.You can either read this simply for a cracking, hilarious, satirical read, or read it and think a bit deeper about the reality of apartheid era South Africa but, either way, it really is worth a read.

I worked in SA during apartheid. Seeing 'Whites Only' signs everywhere, sperate entrances to the Post Office etc was quite a cultural shock. The attitude of the white population was surreal, as if living on another planet. While working in the interior I did hear of a police officer writing the details of a coloured murder on the back of a cigarette packet. True or not it didn't surprise me, it all fitted. Read this book not long after my return to the UK. It's as far fetched as it is funny...except for a ribbon of truth running through it.

Who is this book for ? Well, anyone who doesn't mind 'laugh out loud' slapstick. Sharpe has a knack of making me do just that with his unparalleled wit and ability to bring a story around in from start to finish with just the craziest situations and hilarious antics along the way. This book addresses the absurdity of apartheid from the point of view of a group of single minded, white supremacist Afrikaans police officers, it's just hilarious for their one track minds and complete ineptitude. When I first started reading his books many years ago I read one each day for nearly two weeks .... that's how good I rate him. I've now started them all again. His writings will be sadly missed in our house

Read this when it was first published back in the 70s and several times since. Without doubt the best of the Tom Sharpe books, probably got him kicked out of South Africa, totally mad irreverent and silly, politically incorrect just what is needed in these 'watch what you say' times. If you think that coloured is a derogatory term then do not read this book if you are less easily offended then read it and laugh out loud.

This is one of the very few books that had me aching with laughter! The way it is written and the utterly preposterous scenarios created by this master of comedy cannot fail to have readers rolling on the floor. It also lampoons with unerring accuracy the appalling conditions that used to exist in South Africa when the white minority ran the country. Worth every penny!