Word: midden
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...Midden is a story about corruption and hypocrisy in various public and private institutions of British society. Throughout the book, Sharpe uses a collection of outrageous and at times excessively absurd characters to criticize various societal groups. From fanatical child abuse therapists to corrupt police, from old and decadent wealthy families to spoiled and exploitative former British colonials, the crackpots are out in force. The description of these characters, including their myriad eccentricities and largely disreputable motives, provides the book with its substance...
...focus of the story does not even remain with the Constable. Instead, the plot takes another sharp turn, finally describing the events that occur at the bizarre home of Miss Midden and her eccentric relatives, the place where the Constable finally leaves Timothy to be found. Timothy, upon finally emerging from his drug-induced stupor, is rather implausibly and with little comment sent to live with a neighbor, with "piggychops" and his family left hanging. Even the Constable is left with inadequate closure after being largely ignored for the last portion of the novel...
Direct and active character description, where it is present, is one of the strongest aspects of The Midden. The thoughts of the characters, both human and animal, during their interactions with one another bring out Sharpe's humor at its best...
...reader leaves The Midden with images of a large, wheezing Rottweiler, subdued after an unfortunate encounter with a falling human body, of a startled sheep sent flying by a hallucinating young man on a motorcycle and of a normally staid judge shocked into submission by a strong-willed woman in "what looked like an old tweed skirt with a stain on it. And a scruffy anorak." These images, often skillfully presented and very funny, make the novel worth reading...
...result of this presence of well-crafted scenes in combination with a lack of effective cohesion between different elements of the story is that The Midden is a novel of moments, a collection of dryly humorous off-the-wall encounters between outrageous characters, embedded within a somewhat unsatisfying plot...