Indecent Exposure - Tom Sharpe

1973; 248 pages.  Genre : Political Satire; Humor.  New Author? : No.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

    In the fictional South African city of Piemburg, the chief of police, Kommandant van Heerden, decides it's time to go on vacation.  As soon as he leaves, his back-stabbing, omni-bigoted second-in-command, Luitenant Verkramp, resolves to show people what he's capable of.  He succeeds, but that's not a good thing.

What's To Like...
    This is the sequel to Riotous Assembly, reviewed here.  Once again, there is a clever mixing of slapstick comedy with the horrors and brutality of South African apartheid.  Once again, there are a half-dozen storylines, all of them zanily running amok.

    Van Heerden, a Boer, uses his vacation to try and become Britishized.  Verkramp is an out-of-control  bundle of misguided energy.  Alarmed that some of the white police force might be having relations with black women, he initiates a comprehensive shock-aversion therapy program.  It works, but not in the way he intended.  Verkramp is also looking for Communist subversives, and if he can't find any, he'll make his own.  All the while trying to avoid the amorous clutches of a lady psychiatrist, one Dr. von Blimenstein.

    And do I spy the scurrilous Konstabel Els underneath yonder table?  I thought he was dead.

Kewlest New Word...
Divagation : a digression in a speech.

Excerpts...
    "Do you like it?" the doctor enquired stretching voluptuously.  Verkramp swallowed and said that he did, very much.  "It's the new wet look in stretch nylon."  Verkramp found himself staring at her breasts hypnotically and with the terrible realization that he was committed to an evening spent in public with a woman who was wearing what amounted to a semi-transparent scarlet bodystocking.  Luitenant Verkramp's reputation for sober and God-fearing living was something he had always been proud of and as a devout member of the Verwoerd Street Dutch Reformed Church he was shocked by the doctor's outfit.  As he drove up to the Piltdown Hotel the only consolation he could find was that the beastly garment was so tight she wouldn't be able to dance in it,.  Luitenant Verkramp didn't dance.  He thought it was sinful.  (pg. 39)

    "You must think I'm absolutely frightful," she murmured one afternoon as they sat on the verandah.
    The Kommandant said he didn't think anything of the sort.
    "I suppose it's because I've had so little experience of the real world," she continued, "that I find it so fascinating to meet a man with so much je ne sais quoi."
    "Oh, I don't know about that," said the Kommandant modestly.  (pg. 57)

All cats are grey when the candles are out.  (pg. 227)
    All the gallivating story threads get tied up neatly at the end.  The humor made me LOL, and that's a rare treat.  Indecent Exposure may be the only novel that has exploding ostriches in it.

    If there's a downside, it's that thre are no redeeming characters.  The British are dumb and stuffy.  The Boers are dumb and brutal.  The Blacks are dumb and cowardly.  The gays are dumb and stereotyped.

   Still, it is a worthy read, both for its lively wit and its ugly, gritty depicting of South African apartheid.  It is a subject Tom Sharpe knows only too well.  He lived in South Africa for a while, and in the early 60's was jailed, then deported, on the charge of sedition.

    There are enough references to events from Riotous Assembly, that you really should read that one first.  I found Indecent Exposure almost - but not quite - as entertaining as that one.  8½ Stars.

Riotous Assembly - Tom Sharpe

1971; 249 pages. Genre : Fiction; Satire. New Author? : Yes. Overall Rating : 9*/10.

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"I have just murdered my Zulu cook." With that simple, unambiguous statement, Miss Hazelstone of Jacaranda Park initiates an incredible and zany chain of events that will see 21¼ human fatalities (not to mention a couple animals), a bush that thinks it's Rambo, an obsessed Doberman named Toby, a full-scale police assault, a death sentence with a hanging, and a rubber fetish seduction session. Let mayhem run rampant!

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What's To Like...

Riotous Assembly is a clever and unlikely pairing of slapstick comedy with the horrors and brutality of South African apartheid. The Piemburg police come off as Keystone Kops, but you also get a chilling glimpse into how the minds of the white ruling class worked, with their de-humanizing attitudes towards the blacks. Sharpe also enlightens you about some of the hate-inspired laws used in that era - the Immorality Act, the Terrorism Act, and last but not least, the Riotous Assembly Act.

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The humor is laugh-out-loud funny. The action is non-stop. The characters, if not terribly deep, are fun to follow, even the bad guys. There is some cussing, some killing and violence, and some "adult situations". But thankfully, no romance.

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Kewl New Words...

Faience : a moderate to strong greenish blue color. Durbah : a court of a native ruler. Indaba : a council of indigenous people of Southern Africa called to discuss some important matter. Antimacassar : a protective cloth covering for the backs of chairs and sofas. Perspicacity : shrewd discernment, perception, or understanding. Impetigo : a highly contagious bacterial skin infection. Catarrh : inflammation of the mucous membranes in the nose and throat. Abattoir : a slaughterhouse.

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Excerpts...

...Luitenant Verkramp's efforts to find any saboteurs or Communists in Piemburg to try the (Electrical Therapy Machine) gadget out on had failed so hopelessly that Els had finally had to arrest a native boy he had caught early one morning with a bottle of milk in his hand. The fact that Els knew him to be the milk delivery boy hadn't prevented the Konstabel proving the efficacy of electric shock therapy and after five minutes treatment the boy readily confessed that he had stolen the milk, while after ten minutes he admitted administering poisoned milk to fifty European households that very morning. When Els proposed transferring the terminal from the boy's toe to his penis, the suspect admitted to being a member of the Communist Party and agreed that he had been trained in milk sabotage in Peking. (pg. 9-10)

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"You say here," continued the Kommandant, tapping the report, "that the Hazelstones are noted for their left-wing and communistic leanings. I would like to know what made you say that."

"Everybody knows they are Marxists," said Verkramp.

"I don't," said the Kommandant, "and I would like to know why you do."

"Well, for one thing Miss Hazlestone's nephew is at the university."

"Doesn't make him a Commie."

"He believes in evolution." (pg. 154-155)

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"I believe it had a pedigree," the Bishop told them.

"What's a pedigree?" Els asked.

"A family tree," said the Bishop, wondering if killing the dog was going to be added to the list of crimes he was supposed to have committed.

"Fussy sort of dog, having a family tree," Els said to the warder, "you'd think it would pee against lamp-posts like any other dogs." (pg. 164)

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Entropy made man (pg. 176)

Tom Sharpe is an English author, born in 1928. He emigrated to South Africa in 1951 to teach and do social work; and managed to get himself deported for sedition in 1961. Riotous Assembly was his first novel, and gives you a good idea why the white South African government kicked him out.

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Combining witty satire with ugly racism seems to be an ill-advised strategy, but it works beautifully here. If you want to be amused and educated at the same time, this is the book for you. 9 Stars.