What a Carve Up

What can I say about this book.  Firstly, it's meant to be a satire on the excesses of 1980s Britain.  OK, but satires are meant to be funny and this was not funny at all...it was depressing really and took itself far too seriously.  I wanted to like it but I didn't.  I think Coe was trying to be far too clever and there was just too much in this book and I got overloaded. It was just too pompous for it's own good and every character was either depressed, mad, physically sick or an arsehole.

Parts of it were interesting though especially the chapters on the hideous Winshaw family:

The meanest, greediest, cruellest bunch of back-stabbing, penny-pinching bastards who ever crawled across the face of the Earth.   Between them they represent all of the ills of British society and to be honest Jonathan Coe surpassed himself here!

• One brother was busy carving up the NHS and turning it  into a profit-making business.(Most of this section has come true now.)
• One sister was a hack who would write drivel and lies about anybody in her paper ( amazing foresight considering the fall out of the British Press.)
• One brother was a banker (Again it was uncanny reading about the initial seeds behind the economic crash, which were planted in the 80s;  .)
• Another sister was an intensive animal farmer. (The secrets of her farming success would turn the stomach of even hardened carnivores! Again, still  poignant today what with all these horses around!) 
• One brother was an arms dealer and a total crook. The section on selling arms to Saddam was pretty good actually.
• Another brother was a film producer who was a total pervert. (Shades of Savile here.)
• Another was an art dealer who knew sod all about art and didn't really care as long as he made a huge profit.

Yes, a lovely genetic pool here.
I think if you are the kind of person who likes being depressed and feeling totally helpless in this shitty world than this is the book for you. In fact even Coe must have got bored of writing  this depressing book because the end is just a cop out.  He'd had enough and just gave up!! Wish I had.