First of all I just wanna say I don't mean to be criticising Adele's present buying skills or anything- I wasn't expecting anything, and Penguin Classics are ALWAYS a good idea. But, sadly...
I did a quick search of the internet to find out what people actually liked about this book, and it seems that, unable to provide a flattering examination of its over-the-top characters, its unnatural, exaggerated prose or its faint, unconvincing message, people take refuge in the "comedy" of it. If people really did find it laugh out loud funny, well good for them, but... The lead up to any comic moment was painfully clear, the writing too clunky to surprise, or to render any potentially funny scene quickly enough. Anyone who liked this book would probably find Two And a Half Men, My Wife and Kids, or Everybody Loves Raymond just as rewarding.
The characters are basically just riding on old sixties stereotypes: the smoking, trash talking uneducated black guy, the naggy drunken maternal woman, the rich stressed exec, the clumsy police officer. You know from the start what O'Toole is going to do with every single one, and then you waste hours watching him do it badly.
The author does all this with a touch of arrogance that makes the whole thing just a wee bit offensive. While clearly farce, O'Toole sometimes seems to beg you to take the characters seriously, as if he really believes in them. He oversimplifies the ideas of '60s social activists just so he can make fun of them, but offers no alternative. At the end of the book he either doesn't bother resolving a character, or lets a few deux ex machinae handle it for him.
The novel is unrewarding, predictable from the the start. The only surprise is that it only took O'Toole's mother eleven years of nagging to get it published after the author killed himself.
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