Be Specific About Books Supposing The Rotters' Club (Rotters' Club #1)
| Original Title: | The Rotters' Club |
| ISBN: | 0375713123 (ISBN13: 9780375713125) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Rotters' Club #1 |
| Setting: | Midlands, England Birmingham, England |
| Literary Awards: | Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction (2001) |
Jonathan Coe
Paperback | Pages: 415 pages Rating: 3.96 | 10386 Users | 601 Reviews
Ilustration Concering Books The Rotters' Club (Rotters' Club #1)
Birmingham, England, c. 1973: industrial strikes, bad pop music, corrosive class warfare, adolescent angst, IRA bombings. Four friends: a class clown who stoops very low for a laugh; a confused artist enthralled by guitar rock; an earnest radical with socialist leanings; and a quiet dreamer obsessed with poetry, God, and the prettiest girl in school. As the world appears to self-destruct around them, they hold together to navigate the choppy waters of a decidedly ambiguous decade.
Define About Books The Rotters' Club (Rotters' Club #1)
| Title | : | The Rotters' Club (Rotters' Club #1) |
| Author | : | Jonathan Coe |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 415 pages |
| Published | : | February 4th 2003 by Vintage (first published February 22nd 2001) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Contemporary. European Literature. British Literature |
Rating About Books The Rotters' Club (Rotters' Club #1)
Ratings: 3.96 From 10386 Users | 601 ReviewsWrite Up About Books The Rotters' Club (Rotters' Club #1)
other people rave about it. I struggled to get through this & didn't really feel rewarded for my efforts. yes it does feel very 1970s & gives a feel for the era but I just didn't bond with any of the characters, I just didn't feel the lovefor anyone. I think that is probably why I struggled throughout.Its something of a mystery to me how I missed this book for so many years. It was published in 2001 but I didnt get around to reading it until 2013.I had been aware of it, vaguely. Had I know what it was about, Im sure I would have read it much sooner.Why? Well, aside from the fact I couldnt have written it not having the necessary literary skills it might have been about my life.The story concerns a group of four boys who attend a public (private) school in Birmingham (UK) in the 1970s, and
Great guy wishes groovy chick to write, into Tull, Pink Floyd, 17-28.Wanted girl friend, any age, but 4 ft. 10 in. or under, all letters answered.Guy, 18, cat lover, seeks London chick, into Sabbath. Only Freaks please.Freaky Guy (20) wants crazy chick (16+) for love. Into Quo and ZepLeeds boy with scooter, looks OK, seeks girlfriend 17-21 for discos, concerts. Photo appreciated[Note: the above are quotations from genuine lonely hearts advertisements in Sounds (1973)]Why the hell had I not read
For a spectacular reading experience, have all three books in the series - The Rotters' Club, The Closed Circle and Middle England - in hand before you read this one. Coe is a magician at structuring complicated but yet decipherable stories, compared to many other writers I've read. Because of the structure, however, and the number of characters and the time covered in these three books, to really follow the trajectory of the characters and for an exceptional experience, I recommend you read
This gave me almost everything I want. What do I want from a novel? I want it funny but sincere; hard-nosed but sentimental; readable but formally interesting; restrained but also balls to the wall. Ideally it'll be concerned with social events while grounding them in personal lives. RC isn't laugh out loud funny, but it's pretty funny. I felt a bit bad laughing at people who get excited at the culinary possibilities of sour cream and sometimes Coe takes too many cheap shots of the 'boy the
"Get rid of nationalism and you've solved ninety percent of the problems of the world. Anyone who tries to play the nationalist card and make political capital out of it is just beneath contempt. They're just the scum of the earth[...]""The walls were a lighter brown, the colour of Dairy Milk. The carpet was brown with little hexagons of slightly different brown, if you looked closely. The ceiling was meant to be off-white, but was in fact brown, browned by the nicotine smoke of a million
I'm not sure why I gave this only three stars when I first read it five years ago. It was probably that final chapter, the 13000 word sentence, which felt too far removed stylistically from the rest of the novel to really work. This same final section remained jarring second time around, but with a near-perfect first 350 pages, I can't possibly give the whole book less than four stars.
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