oooh you rotter! (The Rotters' Club - Jonathan Coe)

Member Name: strange_child

Product:	The Rotters' Club - Jonathan Coe
Date:	25/04/02 (88 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: read

Disadvantages: read

My brother got this book as an 'alternative Easter present', that is, a more interesting present than piles of chocolate eggs (they don?t last long, and he eats too much chocolate anyway!). Anyway, my dad thought this looked like an interesting book, and after Jow had finished it, I picked it up to read. My parents grew up in the mid 70s, and it?s an era that interests me, especially around the punk time.

The story starts off with a 'prelude' of two characters meeting by chance in 2003 after their parents suddenly notice each other, and over a dinner they then tell each other the stories of what happened when their parents were growing up. There is not one main story with a start and an end, but it?s more a collection of stories and anecdotes centering on, but not exclusively, the Trotter family, especially a boy named Ben. So here we find the story of Lois meeting her hairy guy, which is met with tragedy early on in the book, Ben who is obsessed with pulling together a progressive rock band and writes symphonies for a girl he has never even spoken to. We hear the story of Miriam who has an affair with a much older colleague and then goes missing, and of how the first punk rock band of their school was formed. These stories are interweaved with true events of the times - the Birmingham pub bombings, the elections and the strikes.

There are so many characters, that I began to forget them! The main character, Benjamin Trotter, was intelligent and conservative, and reminded me of an annoying friend I have! I found him quite a boring and low risk character, compared to another who just decided to go off to London even though he has nowhere to stay and goes to see The Clash. That's the type of character that I would be like! The characters aren't all teenagers though, there is Bill Anderton, a sleazy older bloke who cheats on his wife with a secretary that he doesn't seem to like, and there is an affair between a particular
ly eccentric art teacher and one of the character's mothers, who is impressed by his large vocabulary.

There are good bits (although sappy) where Ben gets the girl he has been in love with for years and years. And there are sad bits, like the fate of Lois and her boyfriend, and how she still morns three years later. There are gruesome bits, for example.. ''she was holding his head in her hands'... I thought, that was a romantic image..She's cradling him as he dies..'Not him', he said to me...'She wasn't holding him. Not Malcolm. Not the whole of him. She was holding his head. Just his head.'' Euw, that really shocked me that bit!

The story is written not only through traditional narration, but there are extracts from The Billboard, the school's newspaper which most of the characters write for, a transcript of an interview, a speech supposedly written to celebrate the millennium. I found this an interesting combination, and it prevented me from getting bored by having these things which related to the story but weren't necessarily part of it.

I feel that this is not simply a story concerning the fictional characters that it seems on the surface, but it must be at least in some part autobiographical. There are so many little details, and it sounds so convincing, I know that Coe has used a lot of information but I find it impossible to imagination that he wasn't there, I think that the most used character, Benjamin, must be based on his growing up. I did however find it unrealistic that the characters were quite thoughtful and intelligent - I still go to school, and it just doesn't happen there, even in 6th form!

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