Blott on the Landscape

By: Tom Sharpe

Narrated by: David Suchet

Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

When philandering Sir Giles Lynchwood decides it's time to wriggle free of his monumentally unattractive wife, Lady Maud, he knows divorce is out of the question. He can't leave her and keep her cash; a reversionary clause on her ancestral home, Handyman Hall, has taken care of that. Lady Maud, for her own special reasons, is also dying to see the back of Sir Giles. Sir Giles dreams of motorways ploughing through the front door of Handyman Hall, of compulsory purchase orders, of loot and no wife. Lady Maud bellows. Blott the gardener watches from his inner sanctum, the greenhouse, and listens...and waits.

©1985 Tom Sharpe (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Silly Story Read Perfectly

Tom Sharpe’s tale is silly and absurd, like PG Wodehouse updated to fold in hefty heapings of smarmy R-rated bits. But BLOTT ON THE LANDSCAPE lacks any lovable characters. I would have loved just one of Wodehouse’s standbys: the charmingly oblivious Bertie, the quietly omniscient Jeeves, the hearty, invigorating Aunt Dahlia.

But David Suchet’s reading saves this 20th century relic of black comedy from being the misanthropic waste of time it actually is! I have heard him read Poirot in Agatha Christie audiobooks to perfection. After this listen, I will probably follow him anywhere.

By the way, I haven’t heard such ample use of the word “bitch” since I listened to my son’s hip hop feed on Spotify. After this book, consider it banished from my own vocabulary forever. So there is that to recommend it — I have emerged a bit more enlightened as to what is no longer acceptable to myself!

Love the story

Great performance by mr suchet
Funny!! love lady maud and blot
The characters were classic reminds me of living in shropshire

Brilliant!

A great book, great author, superb performance, enjoyable and funny.
A must read for lovers of dry British humor.

So unrelentingly funny and creative

Tom Sharpe's masterpiece and one of the top ten all time funny novels. The narrator is great too.

Blitz on the landscape

A wonderful romp through the British countryside, bureaucracy and the landed gentry - David Suchett’s reading is fabulous as always!

Blott is the best

Hilarious, great voices! David duchess executes this English humor with brilliance. Now must find more by Tom sharpe.

Fabulous narration makes characters more sympathetic!

Let’s start with the narrator: David Suchet. What a great choice! One of the greatest character actors ever! Not only is he a master of different accents and voice timbres, He he also puts the appropriate feeling into every word he reads.

The book was very amusing, although I don’t think I would’ve liked it nearly as much if it were not for the brilliant narration, which brought the characters to life. It was quite silly, which is definitely a plus for me, but the characters were rather unlikable in nearly every case. Suchet’s reading of them renders them a lot less one-dimensional, and by the end I was rooting for Blott and Mrs Handyman.

Sharpe at his best...

I can't stress enough, just how good Mr. Sharpe's writing is. It's classic Sharpe, can't hold back the laughter. He's wonderful, what a great read.

Stupendous Performance

The story is hilariously farcical. David Suchet is simply perfect for this book. HIs narration added so much to my enjoyment.

Imagine a Cynical P. G. Wodehouse

Imagine a writer who uses large, real-world issues, with all their attendant social and political fallout, to raise as many laughs as Wodehouse could with a mere pig or small brown notebook. But a writer who can also sound almost Wodehousian when describing the small stuff: a judge’s lunch or a civil servant’s personal index system. Got him? That’s Tom Sharpe.

Many have observed that the world of The Drones and Blandings Castle never really existed. And Sharpe’s characters clearly inhabit a planet far more familiar to us. Their motives are deeply sordid, their command of invective far wider, their sexual tastes cringingly lurid, far outstripping the Master’s decorous reticence. Mercifully, Sharpe pulls up before things get too seamy, enhancing the comedy by leaving some room for our imagination.

It’s all great fun and very, very funny. And yet I do agree with the reviewer who pined for a character one could like. That’s just one facet of an underlying darkness that can, at times, render the laughs less than wholehearted. Still, I had a very good time due, in no small measure, to David Suchet’s vigorous, masterfully comic performance. Beyond the entertainment value, there’s no doubt he helped the modern cynicism go down easier.