Tom Sharpe's 'Wilt' Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lord of the Flies

Wilt takes classes of apprentices, such as butchers, secretaries and printers, at the fictional Fenland Technical College (a.k.a. 'the Tech') and often teaches them about books, an endeavour which he considers to be a waste of time. In some classes, he doesn't even talk about the book and just lets the apprentices talk amongst themselves (such as the incredibly gruesome conversation the secretaries have about capital punishment).

He actually threatens to make the printers read 'Lord of the Flies' if they don't behave.

In one class, he gets into an argument with a printer, who punches him in the face.

Answer: At Mavis Mottram's flower arranging class

Eva is always taking up new hobbies, such as judo or transcendental meditation, and Mavis Mottram, her neighbour, runs a flower arranging class. Eva meets Sally, an American feminist and sex therapist, who is married to Gaskell, a biochemist. They live in Rossiter Grove, a posh part of town. Sally takes Eva shopping and Eva buys a pair of bright yellow pyjamas, which Sally says make her look like the Great Gatsby. Sally gets her drunk and they set Eva's bra on fire (because of the urban legend about feminists burning their bras). Sally later tells Gaskell that she wants to hire Eva as a dishwasher.

Answer: She is upset and runs away with the Pringsheims.

Sally gets Wilt alone in the room where Gaskell keeps his toys and comes onto him, but Wilt is repulsed and tells her to go away. Sally lunges at him, and he sidesteps, slips on a train set and knocks himself out. He wakes up to find himself tangled up with an inflatable doll, and in his attempts to free himself, he gets injured in the bathroom. Sally tells Eva that Wilt was having sex with the doll, which makes Eva cry. Eva sends the doll (called Judy) to Wilt, along with a note saying she's run away with the Pringsheims and will never forgive him.

They take her on holiday on a barge belonging to a friend.

Answer: By spiking her Ovaltine with sleeping pills

Wilt fantasises about murdering Eva, and after a few drinks, he comes up with a plan to kill her by slipping sleeping pills into her Ovaltine. He is unsure as to how to dispose of the body, so he dresses 'Judy' in Eva's clothes and a wig, and takes her to the Tech, where building work is being carried out.

He plans to dump Judy in a hole, but slips and drops her, and is unable to get her out as she is too far down.

Answer: Plastic

Hence the inflatable doll. Sally calls Gaskell a 'plastic freak' several times during the story, and while Eva is on the barge with them, she makes Eva wear a plastic bikini. Sally also claims Gaskell is more interested in plastic than her, and that they have a two-way marriage and she only married him for his money.

The barge gets stuck on a mudbank, and while Gaskell tries to figure out how to fix the motor, Sally continues to manipulate and grope Eva under the guise of 'Touch Therapy'.

Answer: His lecture notes

Mr Morris, the Head of Liberal Studies, assigns Wilt and his colleagues different topics for lectures, under the general heading of 'Problems of Contemporary Society'. Wilt's topic is 'Violence and the Break-Up of Family Life'. While making notes for his lecture, he writes down a sub-heading of 'Murder of Spouse, decline in since divorce laws'. Unfortunately for Wilt, he unknowingly scatters his lecture notes near the hole, and Inspector Flint - the policeman who becomes Wilt's arch-nemesis throughout the series - collects them as evidence against him.

When they examine the Pringsheims' house, they also find Wilt's blood in the bathroom, and he is taken down to the police station for interrogation.

Answer: Dr Board

Dr Board is the Head of Modern Languages, who has previously taught Eva in night classes, and he is the only lecturer who isn't disgusted or horrified by the unearthing of 'Judy' (of course, no-one except Wilt knows that the body in the hole is actually an inflatable doll). Dr Cox (the Head of Science) faints and Dr Mayfield (the Head of Sociology) gets increasingly drunk and calls Dr Board 'swine'. Eventually, the pressure of the concrete is too much for 'Judy' and she bursts. Dr Board remarks, "I never knew the old bag had so much wind in her."

Answer: Drowning/suffocation

Gaskell makes fun of Eva's naivety about sexual terms, and she slaps him. He reveals to her that Sally is a lesbian and is grooming Eva, and that Sally is the one who put Henry in the doll. Eva goes berserk and attacks Sally, and later swims away with the life raft and lifejackets. Sally and Gaskell have been growing increasingly antagonistic towards each other and by the end of it, Sally has had enough and decides to murder Gaskell for the insurance.

She fills a jug with dirty water from the canal, ties Gaskell up and seduces him.

She then tells Gaskell she's going to kill him, and forces the water into his mouth and covers his face with a swimming cap. She plans to throw him overboard and make it look like he drowned, but her plan fails when the two are discovered.

Answer: He broke into a meat factory and put the body in a mincing machine.

One of Wilt's classes is a group of apprentice butchers known as 'Meat Two', and through them, he's learned a lot about the production of meat products such as pies and dog food, and how animal carcasses are processed. To get back at the police for wasting his time and refusing to believe him, he makes up a lurid story about sneaking into the Sweetbreads factory and grinding up the bodies of both Eva and the Pringsheims (as Inspector Flint also accuses him of murdering them).

Inspector Flint panics and orders the factory to be searched and meat products to be recalled.

However, no evidence is found to suggest that Wilt actually did dispose of the bodies in the factory, and Wilt happily admits he lied.

Answer: A church

The Reverend St John Froude, an alcoholic vicar, notices the condoms floating in the water with various letters painted on them, and is curious and goes off to investigate in his rowing boat. He finds Sally and Gaskell, and Gaskell takes advantage of Sally being distracted to attack her and lock her out of the cabin. Meanwhile, Eva spots the church, and goes to the vicarage and uses their phone, only to discover that everyone thinks she's dead.

She freaks out and confesses her sins to the vicar, and they get drunk together.

When the police come to pick her up, she immediately attacks Inspector Flint. She and Wilt go home together.