Date Finished: 29/02/2012
My Rating: 4/5
I am not sure that I will be able to write this review without giving some kind of social commentary of the current political state in the UK, and I rather think that I will have to write a review of two parts. One on the literary merits of the book, and one on the emotional merits of the book.
The story of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists centres around a group of working class men in the early 1900s. It describes their pitiful working conditions, lack of education, inability to understand how any change to the system could be brought about (in fact, for some, they didn't even want change), poor health and it also provides a strong argument for proper health and safety laws. It is, of course, politically driven, showing the disadvantages of capitalism compared to the advantages of socialism. Tressell also includes the wives and children of these workers, to illustrate how the poor conditions affected so many people.
I have read better written books. It is almost as if Tressell has over written the book in places, giving too much detail and repetition in order to get his political point across, perhaps making the book slightly too long. But boy does he get his point across, so maybe that can be excused. After all, Tressell was a skilled decorator by trade and not a writer. In his preface to the book, Tressell states that everything he wrote about was true: all the scenes and conversations included are based on situations that he had been involved in himself or had good evidence of.
I have found this review one of the most difficult to write. Perhaps because reading the book made me so angry in places, but not in a Ulysses way! I would read parts and think 'wow, we have come so far since those days - we have sick leave and paid holidays and we can't just get sacked because our employer has found somebody cheaper', and then I would start wondering to myself as to whether or not we really have come all that far after all. With the fear of unemployment during a recession biting at all our heels, do our government and employers have us by the short and curlies? Well, yes. Of course they do. It suits them well for those of us who are in jobs to be scared of what might be waiting for us if we leave... that way they can get us to agree to changes in terms without too much argument, just like in the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. The main differences are that now, instead of debt to our local greengrocers for the essentials, we have debt to banks and credit cards, and instead of physically walking round to all the employers in town to ask if they have work starting, we do it by looking on the internet. Oh yeah, and instead of having work available in manufacturing and industry, the Tories did away with all that in the 80s. Shall I go on?
So, who should read this book? Basically anyone who thinks that there might be a better way of sorting out the problems of today. You never know, maybe we could start a revolution.
Next Book: Perfume, Peter Süskind
