Rating: 
Summary: slightly rotten at the core
Review: All in all, a skillfully drawn narrative with appealing and interesting characters. Beware, though: this novel ends with a sentence lasting 32 pages. A 32-page breathless, gushing interior monologue punctuated only by commas and unmeasured sentiment. It nearly spoiled the experience of the novel for me, but forewarned is forearmed. Incidentally, if you can get your hands on a copy of Coe's "House of Sleep," it's an astonishingly inventive and rewarding novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Laughing and crying - this is how writing should be
Review: 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." 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."
Rating:
Summary: Time To Join The Club
Review: Englishman Jonathan Coe's The Rotters' Club is quite simply the most hilarious, laugh-out-loud novel I've read in years.
Not only is this politically-charged coming of age novel a gut-busting, funny-when-you-least-expect-it literary tour-de-force, it's an assured (although ultimately flawed) work displaying a rare élan and maturity seldom found in the works of young contemporary American writers.
Both an elegy to and an excoriation of the sordid "brown" Britain of the 1970s, which starts around the failure of the Edward Heath's Tory government and the attendant nationwide strikes, power blackouts, and general misery experienced by the population, the book moves through the resurgence of the Labour Party and the death of Socialism as marked by Margaret Thatcher's election victory in 1979.
Yes, this is a social history, and despite some critics who've said the book is too politically aware for its own good, it is first and foremost a tale of longing, be it the yearnings of a married, middle-aged man for his young lover, or protagonist Ben Trotter's (called Bent Rotter by his peers) unrequited desire for girlschool drama diva Cicely.
But the political cornerstone of the book definitely contributes to what many readers see as its major failing. Designed as the first volume of a dyad, this volume explores what Coe has called the last decade of real [British] politics, and a planned sequel will follow the principal characters as adults in the late 1990s through the current maze of Blairite socialism. As such, the novel's various threads don't all come together in a unified dénouement, and this open-ended, albeit life-like, conclusion will frustrate some readers.
And yes, the rumors are true: Coe, who's not afraid of experimentation, has indeed written a 15,000 word *sentence* which runs an exhausting 37 pages, and was inspired by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, who once wrote a novel which barely contained a full stop.
This is an uneven novel which, due to the specificity of its locale, time period, and cultural references, may confound many American readers (I am an expatriate Englishman of Coe's generation, but being a Londoner, his depiction of 1973 Brum is as familiar yet as foreign as Tony Soprano's New Jersey). But what a novel it is! And what a terrific read (I devoured it in two mammoth sittings in a day).
One way or another, discerning readers will discover a trip to The Rotters' Club rewarding.
Rating:
Summary: Time To Join The Club
Review: Englishman Jonathan Coe's The Rotters' Club is quite simply the most hilarious, laugh-out-loud novel I've read in years.
Not only is this politically-charged coming of age novel a gut-busting, funny-when-you-least-expect-it literary tour-de-force, it's an assured (although ultimately flawed) work displaying a rare élan and maturity seldom found in the works of young contemporary American writers.
Both an elegy to and an excoriation of the sordid "brown" Britain of the 1970s, which starts around the failure of the Edward Heath's Tory government and the attendant nationwide strikes, power blackouts, and general misery experienced by the population, the book moves through the resurgence of the Labour Party and the death of Socialism as marked by Margaret Thatcher's election victory in 1979.
Yes, this is a social history, and despite some critics who've said the book is too politically aware for its own good, it is first and foremost a tale of longing, be it the yearnings of a married, middle-aged man for his young lover, or protagonist Ben Trotter's (called Bent Rotter by his peers) unrequited desire for girlschool drama diva Cicely.
But the political cornerstone of the book definitely contributes to what many readers see as its major failing. Designed as the first volume of a dyad, this volume explores what Coe has called the last decade of real [British] politics, and a planned sequel will follow the principal characters as adults in the late 1990s through the current maze of Blairite socialism. As such, the novel's various threads don't all come together in a unified dénouement, and this open-ended, albeit life-like, conclusion will frustrate some readers.
And yes, the rumors are true: Coe, who's not afraid of experimentation, has indeed written a 15,000 word *sentence* which runs an exhausting 37 pages, and was inspired by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, who once wrote a novel which barely contained a full stop.
This is an uneven novel which, due to the specificity of its locale, time period, and cultural references, may confound many American readers (I am an expatriate Englishman of Coe's generation, but being a Londoner, his depiction of 1973 Brum is as familiar yet as foreign as Tony Soprano's New Jersey). But what a novel it is! And what a terrific read (I devoured it in two mammoth sittings in a day).
One way or another, discerning readers will discover a trip to The Rotters' Club rewarding.
Rating:
Summary: A haunting look
Review: Enough with the silly overdone 70s nostalgia movies -- "The Rotters' Club" is an intriguing, insightful look into an era when things were shifting (I wasn't there, but I've read about it). In some ways similar to the movie "Ice Storm," this book takes place in the same year, on the other side of the Atlantic. Poignant, touching, sad, funny, and often quite weird. In 1973, dreamy Benjamin Trotter is in school with a bunch of his pals, experiencing their first serious interests in girls and ; his sister Lois dreams of exotic lands, and starts dating a "Hairy Guy," Malcolm. As the next few years go by, Lois's life is shattered by a horrifying act, and Benjamin struggles up into adolescence, falling in love with the school flirt and writes as an aspiring journalist. He and the other boys struggle to create and play as rock bands (among the names are "Gandalf's Pikestaff"), write fake letters to the school paper, have their "firsts" with girls, encounter racism and terrorism and begin to grow up. "Rotters' Club" is hard to summarize, partly because of the wide cast of characters, the complex stories and the somewhat unfinished nature of it. (Coe reassures the reader at the end that there's going to be a sequel) It's a brave author who tackles racism, politics, history, changing senses of what is acceptable, and many other issues; Coe does this, and more. While condemning the IRA bombings in England, he reminds the reader that the British are far from innocent historically; he shows us racism, labor strikes, and the gradual disintegration of the class structure. Against this, he also provides a good look into the minds of adolescents that are struggling up into their adult lives and relationships. "Rotters' Club" is also incredibly funny. From the rock band names (Tolkien-inspired) to the swimming trunks incident, this book is full of the sort of hilarious things that happen in real life. When swim trunks are forgotten, the boy has to swim naked; when that boy roughhouses in the pool, he is forced to stand on the diving board... from which he is quite visible from the roads nearby. And the bigoted satire letters from the fictional "old soldier" Arthur Pusey-Hamilton are insanely funny. Benjamin is a perpetual innocent, no matter what he sees, hears or does; his romantic turn of mind is almost childlike in its lack of guile or bluster. Even a terrorist bomb can't make him hate others, only not understand. (Although he needs to stop writing thirty-page-long sentences about sleeping with Cicely) Lois is haunting as a dreamer in her own right, whose life is upturned by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. All the characters, no matter how dislikable they may seem, are deeper than one would expect. Cicely Boyd, for example, seems like a shallow flirt at first, but gradually we see her respond to Ben. Coe's writing is slow and careful, giving us plenty of detail into the lives of 1970s British teenagers. His dialogue is well-written, as are the tasteful descriptions of the less-than-pleasant parts (such as the bomb explosion). And his attitude is a mixture of amusement and reminiscence. All the silly clothes and shifting rock bands aside, "Rotters' Club" is a perfect balance of nostalgia fiction and realism, comedy and drama. It's a masterful book, and not one to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful, British & Progressive
Review: I came to this book because of its ties to Progressive Rock (see Steven Sullivan's review below), but I stayed with it because it is an engaging, witty, humane and laugh-out-loud funny tale of four B'ham boys growing up. I am approximately the same age as these protagonists so I share much of the their historical milieu, even if none of the geographic. It's an accurate portrayal, and a corker of a tale to boot. Now, if I could just find a copy of the progressive rock masterpiece "Apotheosis of the Necromancer" by Gandalf's Pikestaff...
Rating:
Summary: First review
Review: I don't get much time to read books and when I do, If they don't grab me in the first few pages I put them down.
With the Rotters club I was hooked from the go.
This was a time and a place I recognised.
Growing up in london within walking distance of Grunwicks brought back memorys of events.
Some good laughs as well as some shocking moments.
Can't wait for the next book.
Rating:
Summary: Can't wait for the sequel
Review: I realize that this novel is not without its flaws, it manipulates the reader with very visible strings (the opening of the book has all the subtlety of people enticing you to a peep show in a red light district) and the author pulls so much on the sentimental chord (the young girl who disappears one day, the young lad taken away on what should have been his most beautiful day...) that I found mine to have almost doubled in length by the time I finished the book. That said, the Rotter's Club worked like a time machine ride taking me to places I never thought I wanted to visit. Jonathan Coe obviously put a lot of his own experience into it, and the description of that dramatic moment when a shy introverted boy falls in love for the first time felt like it could have been written by a much younger writer. I guess part of the art of the author is staying atuned to his younger self. It is probably the absolute sincerity of Ben Trotter's character that for all the melodrama and the author's manipulative narration makes this book so endearing.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I have read in a long time
Review: I was bummed out that this book was only 400 pages and as I got to the end I was sad.
A brilliant, funny fun book that breezed by.
I picked up the book in Amsterdam (it's hugely popular in Europe) and finished in five days which is a torrid pace for me.
Whenever I finish a book I often get rid of it but this book is staying with me.
The book is set in the seventies in England but it might as well been Maryland in the Eighties.
Rating:
Summary: Pleasing, Rich, Engaging, Hilarious
Review: I've read two other pieces by Jonathan Coe, What a Carve Up and the House of Sleep, but this novel is the most entertaining and engaging of all. Coe has captured an era of development, not just culturally in the 1970s, but psychologically in his rich characters. There are teenagers painfully growing up, and there are their parents, painfully growing up as well. Invoking the explosive backdrop of seventies IRA violence, labor unrest, and right-wing political and racial nastiness, Coe fashions the lives of his complex characters as they navigate through a troubled timeframe in Birmingham, England. I cared about these people because they were real, they were funny, and they were invested with vulnerable, human, and universal emotions. I can't ask for much more from the author, who is, in my estimation, one of the finest and most inventive out there. Congratulations! I very much look forward to the promised sequel.
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