{"product_id":"1568890","title":"Ancestral Vices by Tom Sharpe","description":"I remember reading Ancestral Vices for the first time, on a train. And did I laugh? I howled, I wept, I was a helpless, quivering jelly for minutes at a time. The other passengers probably assumed I was having a fit or seizure. In terms of plotline and characterisation, it is typical of Sharpe: the English class system is torn apart like tissue paper in a vicious social satire; the male characters are unsympathetic pedantics and deviants; women are often hideous gorgons. Yet there are two qualities that also come out in a Sharpe novel - a quaint love of the fault-ridden society with its appalling mores, iniquities and moral dilemmas, and a darker subtext presenting the evils of meddling with that society. Like few other writers I know, Tom Sharpe has an unerring eye for the ridiculous, and a rapier wit to exploit a farce to its most extreme potential. Some people might call it juvenile, schoolboy humour (including Sharpe himself), but that undersells his skill as a writer. This 1983 Macmillan Paperback is in \u003cb\u003e fair condition\u003c\/b\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eISBN: 0330266357 SKU: 1568890 \u003ci\u003eThis image is of the actual book.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Macmillan","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48528125296917,"sku":"1568890","price":8.5,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0023\/2695\/4036\/files\/1568890.jpg?v=1725874156","url":"https:\/\/bookhaven.live\/products\/1568890","provider":"Book Haven","version":"1.0","type":"link"}