It is a little while since I have read one of Tom Sharpe’s books, several years in fact, Porterhouse Blue had been serialised in the television some years ago, after watching it, I had always intended to read the book.
Porterhouse is a fictional college within Cambridge University. The city of Cambridge is largely unchanged from the late 1960s when the book was written and set within. Many of the streets that Sharpe’s characters inhabited are much as they are described in the book; I suppose this gives Porterhouse Blue a degree of familiarity to those of us who visit the city on a regular basis.
Porterhouse is a poor relation compared to its wealthier fellow colleges; Skullion its head porter manages various dubious schemes to help the finances and maintain the college in the traditional way its fellows and he regard as essential. However, it is the arrival of a new master, Sir Godber Evans, an ex government cabinet minister and former Porterhouse student, which starts a battle of wills. His intention of reforming the college and bringing it into the twentieth century, provokes a battle between the two opposing camps. The fellows and Skullion are strongly united against Godber’s planned reforms which included: female students, more concentration on academic achievement and less attention to sporting prowess. However, it is the master’s proposed installation of a contraceptive machine in the student toilets that proves the catalyst for even greater conflict.
I really enjoyed Porterhouse Blue and was laughing out loud at times, a really good read.
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