Henry Wilt

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Henry Wilt is the main character in the five Wilt novels by Tom Sharpe , which were published from 1976 to 2010.

The stories are about Wilt, his wife Eva and - from the second volume onwards - about their daughters, the quadrupeds Samantha, Penelope, Emmeline and Josephine. The family lives in Ipford, Fenland .

Recurring characters are Inspector Flint and the vocational school teachers Peter Braintree, Dr. Board and Dr. Mayfield. Recurring motifs are drugs and Wilt's attempts to escape the sexual advances of his wife and other women who belong to his wife's circle of friends.

Sharpe is very free about the passage of time. The quadruplets were of kindergarten age in 1979, but only teenagers in 2010.

Doll murder

In 1976, Doll Murder or Until Her Death Do Us Part (English title: Wilt) appeared. Wilt is urged by his wife to attend a party of friends of his wife. At the party, he is humiliated with an inflatable doll. In a drunken state, he got rid of the doll - with the ulterior motive of trying out the murder of his wife - in a foundation shaft. The shaft is filled with concrete, but one of the workers sees the supposed woman's body. Since both his wife and the host of the party cannot be found, Wilt is interrogated by the police for several days. In order to temporarily escape the ongoing interrogation, he invents a story of how he disposed of the three corpses in the local meat factory. Eventually, however, the three missing people reappear and Wilt returns to his everyday life. The novel was filmed in 1989 under the title Wilt (title of the German synchronization: Puppenmord ) with Griff Rhys Jones in the title role. There was a two-part French-language comic book adaptation called Wilt . The comic was written by André-Paul Duchâteau , and the albums, which were published in 1990 and 1991 by the French publisher Lefrancq, were drawn by Yves Urbain .

Trot for Henry

In 1979 Trabbel appeared for Henry (English title: The Wilt Alternative). The Wilth household takes on a subtenant. When the police find out that the woman is an internationally wanted terrorist, the house is cordoned off. The terrorist and her accomplices take the Wilt children hostage. Eva and Wilt gain access to their house and eventually deal with the terrorists.

Henry turns up

In 1984, Henry turned on (English title: Wilt on High) appeared. The 10-year-old quadruplets have home computers . At Wilt's school, a student dies of a drug overdose. Wilt, who teaches at McCullam's local prison, is blackmailed by him. He then anonymously warns the prison of an outbreak, which leads to the fatal poisoning of McCullam. The police want to establish a connection between the two deaths, the drugs and the wilt and equip his car with two transmitters. When Wilt was teaching at an American military base, the transmitters were discovered and Wilt was arrested. He is interrogated and suspected of being a Russian spy. Finally, Eva and the quadruplets free him from the base. As a hush money he negotiates a book donation for the school worth a quarter of a million pounds sterling.

The simpleton

In 2004 the simpleton appeared (English title: Wilt in Nowhere). The 14-year-old quadruplets mention the war in Afghanistan . Eva and the children travel to the USA to live with rich, childless relatives, the Immelmanns. The quadruplets play such rough pranks on Immelmann that he suffers two heart attacks , his company is ruined and he has to change his name. Meanwhile, Wilt sets out on a hike of several weeks to discover old England. During a thunderstorm, he trips and loses consciousness. He only wakes up in the hospital in his hometown. Wilt is briefly suspected of drug smuggling, the murder of a shadow minister and arson, but these allegations are unsubstantiated.

Henry runs away

In 2010, Henry fell off (English title: The Wilt Inheritance) appeared. The story takes place in the present, for example Facebook is mentioned. Eva gets Wilt a lucrative summer job as a tutor in a supposedly noble household. At the same time, she can go on vacation there with the quadruplets. The tutor, a stepson of the landlord, turns out to be mentally poor and trigger-happy. The landlady wants to bury her uncle in the property's private cemetery, but her husband is strictly against it. The quadruplets who overheard this dispute then steal the body from the coffin, in the hope that the householder and his wife would accuse each other. While trying to get rid of the corpse, the stepson gets in the way of the quadruplets. They throw stones at him as a distraction, causing him to trip and accidentally shoot himself. The sisters prepare the two bodies in such a way that it appears that the stepson stole the body and then accidentally shot himself. Since everyone involved is telling the same story, the police must also believe this version. The quadruplets receive prepaid cell phones and iPods on the condition that they behave in the future.

expenditure

  • Tom Sharpe: Wilt . Secker and Warburg, London 1976, ISBN 0-436-45804-7 .
  • Tom Sharpe: The Wilt Alternative . Secker and Warburg, London 1979, ISBN 0-436-45808-X .
    • German: Tom Sharpe: Trabbel for Henry . Translator: Benjamin Schwarz. Rogner and Bernhard, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-8077-0167-2 .
  • Tom Sharpe: Wilt On High . Secker and Warburg, London 1984, ISBN 0-436-45811-X .
    • German: Tom Sharpe: Henry turns up . Translator: Irene Rumler. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-550-06483-7 .
  • Tom Sharpe: Wilt in Nowhere . Hutchinson, London 2004, ISBN 0-09-179945-7 .
    • German: Tom Sharpe: The simpleton . Translator: Hans M. Herzog. Goldmann, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-442-30683-3 .
  • Tom Sharpe: The Wilt Inheritance . Hutchinson, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-09-179696-9 .
    • German: Tom Sharpe: Henry runs away . Translator: Sigrun Zühlke. Goldmann, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-442-31263-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Puppenmord in the Internet Movie Database (English) , accessed on September 2, 2013
  2. ↑ Wilt bei Lefrancq on bedetheque.com (French) , accessed on September 2, 2013