The Rotters Club

The Rotters’ Club and Bildungsroman

While the novel is usually viewed as political satire, it is also a coming-of-age novel. The larger issues are often left relatively unaddressed when compared to the richness of the personal level plot. The Rotter’s Club belongs to a subgenre called Bildungsroman³, but omits the final element of resolution or the maturity phase, which is only really handled in the sequel, The Closed Circle (2004).

Coming-of-age novels detail the experiences of protagonists who are teenagers approaching adulthood. Some famous examples include J.D Salingers' Catcher in The Rye (1951) and Sylia Plath's The Bell Jar (1964).

The Rotters’ Club book: synopsis and 'that' sentence

The Rotters’ Club’s protagonist Ben Trotter navigates being a teenager in 1970s Birmingham. He and his friends Doug Anderton and Philip Chase all attend the same grammar school, King Edward's, and face similar concerns around life as English teenagers. The fourth focal character, Claire Newman, is Ben’s only female friend.

The novel follows the lives of the four main characters as they navigate music, young love, school, parents, and prefects within the broader landscape of Birmingham’s political, socio-economic, and racial realities.

The Rotters' Club: characters

Narrator

The narration is third person and starts in 2003, with a meeting of two friends, Sophie and Patrick in Berlin. Sophie begins by telling the story to Patrick. Throughout the novel's narrative, insets are used and the narration shifts perspectives and jumps around in a nonlinear way.

Ben Trotter

Ben is the star pupil of his year, a musician who plans to become a novelist. Early on in the novel, he experiences an existential crisis when an IRA bombing affects his own family. He begins to doubt humanity. The second half of the novel deals with his turbulent journey towards a deeper understanding of different perspectives through encounters on his Danish holiday, and with Ceciley’s Welsh uncle. Throughout the novel, he remains in love with Ceciley Boyd, who is the most beautiful girl at a neighbouring school. His nickname is Bent Rotter.

Doug Anderton

Doug is navigating his parent’s divorce after his mother leaves his father for having an affair with a younger woman. Although morally ambiguous, Doug is portrayed as quite binary in his opinions, which are often strident. He plans on becoming a writer and attempts to introduce Socialist ideas to his mostly middle class friends and classmates at King Edward's.

Philip Chase

Philip is Ben’s best friend. He is also a musician but is more into Progressive Rock. He tries to create a band with the niche and slightly ridiculous name 'Gandalf’s Pikestaff'. It isn’t very successful.

Claire Newman

Claire is the only main character who does not attend Kind Edward's. She is characterised by her vehement dislike for religion, particularly Christianity. This is partly a reaction against having religion forced on her and her sibling by her father, whom she dislikes.

The Rotters' Club: themes

Let's consider some of the themes Coe looked at in this book.

Adolescence

A key theme is the trials and tribulations of adolescence and how community and larger societal issues play out with the interpersonal experiences of the teenage characters. Their parents’ actions and beliefs influence their decisions and views, as does the community and country that they live in. The struggle to balance things like understanding the broader themes with what band to like, and life as a teenager, is a key element of the novel. Simpler things like music are depicted as a refuge from the complexity of the wider world and a metaphor for social change.

Social critique

Class, politics, and racism are all broader issues that affect the day-to-day lives of the characters.

Class

They attend a grammar school, which sits in the middle ground between elitism (entrance exams) and egalitarianism (funded). Most of the students are middle class, but this is not the reality of many other residents of Birmingham.

Politics

The wider issue of terrorism, and the after effects of bombings personally affect Ben. This tension creates a pivotal area of personal conflict for him that is only partially resolved in this novel. In addition, the role of socialism in 1970s England is a key wider issue addressed throughout the novel.

Racism

Race relations was an aspect of 1970s Birmingham life that is dealt with in a few ways in this novel. An example is a conversation between the three teenage boys about racism in Lord Of The Rings. There is also the story of Andrew, a classmate who experiences racism-related bullying, yet doesn’t get much support.

1. Peter Bradshaw, 'Boys Will be Boys,' The Guardian (2001).

2. Adam Mars-Jones, 'School's Out,' The Guardian (2001).

3. Francesco Di Bernardo, Politics, History and Personal Tragedies: The novels of Jonathan Coe in the British historical, political and literary context from the seventies to recent years (University of Sussex, 2014).