What a carve up

It's not always funny, so it's easy to forget it's intended to be a satire. In those times, I found myself wondering why everyone was an evil cartoon and why the political analysis of the Thatcher government was so shallow. But as long as you remember what it's supposed to be and suspend any

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seriousness, it's hard to dislike. The writing is excellent, and the final part is especially satisfying.

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I enjoyed this book a great deal. It is very funny, and in tracing the life of the hapless anti-hero Michael it evokes the atmosphere of British life in the early sixties (low grade motor cars, would-be saucy movies), and in the much grimmer 1980s. (I suspect theauthor is just a little younger than

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me.) Oddly he seems to leap over the 1970s altogether - not such a bad decade despite our collectively terrible dress sense.

When it tries to be a bit more than a comedy - a state of the nation novel perhaps - it is less sure-footed. Coe posits a single horrible rich family who are resposible for everything that has gone wrong in recent decades from batteyr farming through poor quality television to attacks on the health service and our inept interference with dogy Middle East politics. As a comic idea it passes muster, but as an serious political allegory -hardly.

I'm a paid-up lefty, and I do seriously think that our ruling classes are very good at manipulating us and in co-opting the abler of its opponents. But when I read a political book I always ask myself "Would this convert anyone who does not think this way already?" The answer in this case was that it would not.

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I think that this may well prove to be Jonathan Coe's masterpiece. Through the device of describing the ignominious behaviour in different fields of various members of the ghastly Winshaw family, Coe paints a frighteningly acute picture of the downside of the latter third of the post-war years in

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general, and the 1980s in particular. The spectre of the 'First' Gulf War hangs over the whole book.

The Winshaws certainly extended their fingers into a number of diverse pies, with family members prominent in the fields of politics, merchant banking, journalism and broadcasting. There are, however, some vitriolic internal rifts, too.

Tabitha Winshaw has been immured in a succession of mental hospitals after she became convinced that her eldest brother Laurence had been responsible for the death of their brother Godfrey. Such was the depth of her conviction of Laurence's guilt that she had tried to kill him in turn. Godfrey Winshaw, had, in fact, been shot down while serving as a pilot in the RAF, so most of the family had dismissed Tabitha's claims without further consideration. As the rest of the family thrive during the 1960s. 1970s and 1980s, Tabitha spends long periods in seclusion in a series of institutions before being allowed to return to the family home following Laurence's eventual death (from natural causes).
Tabitha retains access to her sizeable portion of the seemingly inexhaustible family fortune, and commissions a vanity publishing house to hire an author to write a history of the Winshaw family. The publisher selects Michael Owen. Early in his career he had published a couple of well received novels but had sunk into prolong accidie. Now in his thirties the commission for the history of the Winshaws is almost his sole source of income apart from the occasional vindictive review.

The novel takes the form of accounts of he careers of various Winshaws (presumably drawn from Michael's book), interspersed with first person narrative from Michael recounting different periods of his own unorthodox past. One of these memoirs tells of his ninth birthday which involved a family trip to Weston Super Mare where, seeking refuge from dreadful weather, they all went to see the film 'What a Carve Up' starring Kenneth Connor and Shirley Eaton. One scene in particular is etched in the young Michael's mind, not least because, deeming the film unsuitable for a nine year old boy, his mother insists that the family leave immediately. This scene become a major obsession with Michael, and contributes in part to his aimless and listless approach to life as an adult.

The separate accounts of the careers of the individual Winshaws offer Coe an acute prism through which to dissect the paradoxes and shortcomings of modern life. Hilary Winshaw becomes a leading tabloid columnist, distilling hatred and spewing venom like Sybil Fawlty's 'Benzedrine puff adder', never happier than when seemingly contradicting an earlier column with a shameless, opportunistic volte-face. Henry Winshaw is a politician who, having started out as a Labour MP, becomes, upon his departure from The House, an ardent Thatcherite, overseeing the development of her programme of privatisation and with plans to dismantle, or at least privatise, the National Health Service. Thomas Winshaw becomes the director of Stewards merchant bank, benefiting from inside information passed on from Henry. Mark Winshaw, Godfrey's son, becomes an accomplished arms dealer, adept at sidestepping the regulatory obstacles to dealing with the likes of Saddam Hussein and other, similar despots. The Winshaws' world is a ghastly place, and Michael becomes increasingly appalled as he learns more about their respective enormities.

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I don't think it would be unfair to describe "The Winshaw Legacy" as a tighter, funnier, better written, less convoluted "Infinite Jest." This book is absorbing, contains its promised cadre of positively despicable characters, and more than its share (for the average novel) of likable characters

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that we want to believe are believable: a refreshingly sexless novelist/biographer who possesses a true writer's ability to be shocked by almost nothing; an unorthodox, homosexual, nonagenarian private detective with an incorrigible optimism that a hand job is always just around the corner; and a simple-hearted (and simple-minded) farmer accused of a lover's murder-suicide pact with a calf. As in most books, the women (at least the non-evil women) are either consumed with saving others or saving themselves, and their main qualities are either soft friendliness or jilted bitterness (or a combination thereof), but aside from one rather young female's misguided indignant ideas about Art with a capital PFG (Pretentious Foolish Girl), the ladies are well done. As for the evil, scum of the earth, conniving, possibly sociopathic Winshaws, they are deliciously jackassy, and the whole book makes for a truly interesting read, a true mystery, and very good entertainment of the Good Fiction variety.

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Original and weird. Satire on the greedy powerful in contemporary Britain. Both grotesque and moving. The narrative leaps back and forwards in time - what a carve up - and includes, if not the kitchen sink, Sid James, a murder mystery, chocolate bars, and the hilarious difficulty of writing a sex

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scene.

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I can't think of too many novels and authors offering a fine but poignant critique of contemporary life. I'd have to go back to Martin Amis London Fields or Money: a suicide note.

Fortunately, there's What a carve up! by Jonathan Coe, a 500-page novel on epic scale, an engaging read that spells it

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all out with a great deal of humour and suspense. By describing the exploits of the children of a British "dynasty", each moral sinners in different branches of economic activity, such as an arms dealer, an art dealer, a tabloid journalist, a politician, and a factory farmer. In each case, greed is all that matters, as trade and professional ethics are trampled in the lust for power and money.

A very entertaining read, with a lot to think about. Highly recommended!

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Well, what can I say? He sounds *exactly* like Brian Eno when he speaks.

Pure class..

80's anti Thatcherite classic political comedy that explores the impact of greed on various aspects of cultural and economic life(NHS, Media etc). Follows the fortunes of various family members after the "death" of a brother in the war through the eyes of a biographer hired by the" mad" aunt with

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hilarious consequences. You didn't have to there to enjoy the hatchet job on the 80's so read and think never again in our lifetime...sigh

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Jonathan Coe is always a pretty easy reading sort of author - the kind of thing for reading on the beach, and What a Carve Up! is no exception. Trouble is it has a really bad ending. Probably the worst in any book I've ever read. I really want to give it away so you don't have to read it but I

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guess that breaks some kind of etiquette.

The first three quarters of the book tells the story of the Winshaw family, basically rich, obnoxious, capitalist scum - a corrupt politician, a Daily Mail style columnists, an arms dealer, an evil intensive farmer etc. No real attempt at lifting the characters beyond simplistic stereotypes, but that's never going to be Coe's strong point. It's entertaining enough if you aren't particularly political - otherwise its just old news grossly simplified.

But the end? I just don't get it? Did I miss something? It's basically stupid - completely implausible, poorly written, almost like a pastiche. Oh well.

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Even someone as blind to allegory as me can spot that this is an attack on the self-obsessed Eighties in Britain under Margaret Thatcher. It's highly original if nothing else, and changes gear and focus so fast it can leave you highly disorientated. Oh, and it's all wrapped around a real film (the

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What A Carve Up of the title), which I have seen bits of since reading the book. Clever it certainly is.

Looking back at the book (it's a while since I read it), it's the small details that stay with me: the description of the burnt pasta served up to the book's sometime narrator (having the consistency of elastic bands, burnt to a crisp and scraped off the bottom of a pan), the incident with Mark and the waitresses which packed a proper punch. And the rather grim abattoir chapter (strangely likely to make veggies like me feel a bit smug).

There is a story running through the book, though you have to work to follow it. It reaches a melodramatic crescendo with the 'come-uppance' of the central family, all of whom it is possible, not to say easy, to dislike.

There is something for everyone in this book, although its overall style may not be to everyone's taste.

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This book (American title The Winshaw Legacy) is thoroughly entertaining. Full of humor, satire, and twists and turns. A whole lot of social commentary as we learn the stories of the Winshaws, with fascinating interludes covering the life of their would-be biographer, topped off with a stormy night

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at an isolated mansion with a killer on the loose. Seriously, there is so much going on here, and I loved it all.

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An interesting send up of the Thatcher government and their elite cronies this tragic-comic detective farce pits a failure of a novelist with writers block against an all powerful family who in one way or another have achieved wealth and power in the worlds of banking, agriculture, media, politics,

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industry, arms sales, film etc. The legacy of this family is to murder its own when its own gets in the way or when that doesn't work to have them committed. That's where all the trouble starts when the one that's been committed hires the failed novelist to tell her story. This is a fluid and a very funny book. Apart from that it also includes a lot of social commentary on how a government colluding with other powerful interests can change the day to day lives of its subjects very quietly for the profit of a few. In that sense it's a very disturbing book.

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Probably Coe's most savagely entertaining satire, this is a dissection of the morals and attitudes of Thatcher's Britain, in which the villains are all part of the same family (Kind Hearts and Coronets style).

This is the second book of Coe's I've read (the first was The Rotters' Club), and I continue to be impressed with his writing. The Winshaw Legacy is part comedy, part social and political commentary, and part B-movie thriller; not things you think an author would be able to combine effectively, but

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Coe does, and makes it a thoroughly entertaining read. It's almost 500 pages of trade paperback, and I whipped through it in a couple of days because I was so caught up in the story.

You'll leave the book knowing exactly how Coe feels about the greed, selfishness, and power-mongering that seem to be the defining characteristics of the people who have financial and political control of most of the Western world. And probably nodding your head in agreement with him.

I really loved this book, and would recommend it highly with the caveat that there are some horrifying descriptions of what's done to animals in the name of increasing farm production. Carnivore that I am, they managed to turn my stomach and make me think I'd stick with buying only organic, free-range whatever, regardless of how much more expensive it is.

If you haven't read Coe before, go now and get one of his books. This one is a good place to start.

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This one proved to be a treat. I laughed aloud and found myself exposed, so much of my insecurity was stitched into our broader tale of oligarchy and eroding standards imposed upon those who can't afford anything else.

This is a horror novel and not in the sense that a gruesome revenge is exacted.

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What remains terrifying is how conservative forces render and corrupt matters in the name of freedom and choice: underfunded schools populated with ill fed children only serves one agenda. What does Voldemort think about taxation?

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Spanning 50 years of history from the Second World War to the first Gulf War, What a Carve Up! is novel writing on an epic scale. It’s often described as a satire on the Thatcherite era, but although published in 1994, this book could have been written yesterday. Corrupt, greedy and mendacious

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politicians, the undermining of public service broadcasting, the deregulation of television resulting in wall to wall mind rot, right wing hacks churning out populist rubbish, an overstretched, underfunded and collapsing National Health Service. Sound familiar?

The monstrous Winshaw family represent the British ruling class, and the various strands of British society (banking, the arms trade, food production, journalism and the arts) and their hapless biographer Michael Owen, is the long suffering everyman.

The narrative is something of a carve up itself proceeding through diaries, newspaper articles, letters, first person and third person narrative. It takes its title, and part of its plot, from an early 60s lowbrow British comedy horror film and also draws on classic detective fiction (Christie, Conan Doyle) and the myth of Orpheus.

This playing around with form and foregrounding of the fictive might suggest the influence of an experimental novelist such as BS Johnson, about whom Coe wrote the spellbinding biography Like a Fiery Elephant, but there is a crucial difference. Johnson, believing that telling stories was telling lies, wrote autobiographical novels. Coe, in stark contrast, seamlessly weaves together the factual and the fictional, creating a rich, intricately plotted landscape, and triumphantly demonstrating that fiction can be a vessel for telling the truth.

Unlike the giggling celebrity comedians, mindlessly churning out toothless topical jokes to order on allegedly satirical TV and radio panel shows, Coe is a true satirist because he attacks society from a definite moral and philosophical viewpoint. At his best, and What a Carve Up! is certainly Coe at his best, he is as funny as any writer I have ever read, but his humour never betrays the seriousness of his subject matter. He never suggests that the inequities of society are just a laughing matter. The humour, some of it so hilariously broad it could have come from one of the 1970s sitcoms so loved by Coe (The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin or The Likely Lads) is equally weighted with pain and tragedy. You’re crying with laughter one minute, and the next, just crying.

Coe is an admirer of Lindsay Anderson (If…. and O Lucky Man! remain two of the best films ever made about British society) and this novel has something of the anarchic energy, surreal comedy, righteous anger and necessary brio of that outstanding filmmaker.

In a well ordered society Jonathan Coe would have won the Booker Prize at least twice by now (for this novel and The Rotters Club). Astonishingly, he’s never even been nominated for it. Too political? Or perhaps he’s just too entertaining.

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Coe’s breakthrough novel, from 1994. A satire of the capitalist feeding-frenzy of the Thatcher era, built around plot devices that do affectionate homage to the conventions of mid-20th-century British cinema. The hapless writer Michael Owen, author of two forgotten novels, has been commissioned

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— chosen at random, as far as he knows — to write a book about the appalling Winshaw family, who have been making a fortune out of unethical business practices from the good old days of the North Atlantic slave trade right through to arms-to-Iraq.

There are a lot of good jokes in the book, but it felt over-long, and the satire is stretched rather too thin by Coe’s need to cover everything from privatisation and NHS asset-stripping to cynical tabloid journalism, merchant-banking (in both senses), the Brit-art industry, unscrupulous arms-dealing and the barbarity of the agri-food industry. Also, the nature of the book requires the Winshaws to be one-dimensional pantomime villains, and that rather undermines the message about how nasty the consequences of their activities are. The deliberately hackneyed and implausible débâcle in the final chapters is handled very nicely, however, but it is foreshadowed so far ahead that it feels as though we have to wait much too long to get to it.

It’s still worth reading this thirty years on, but Coe has grown up a lot as a writer since then, so it will be at least a slight disappointment if you know his more recent work.

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Really rather good, although what was satire 30 years ago is now sometimes obscure and most of the time just depressing, as we reflect on the decades of increasingly deliberate destruction of what was once society.

I prefer to read authors from their earliest novels onward, but I think with Coe I

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will now jump to his more recent material, as I think his satire might entertain me more when more relevant to my own era.

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