Customer Reviews

Selfish Whining Monkeys: How we Ended Up Greedy, Narcissistic and Unhappy

I bought this book after watching its author, Rod Liddle, being set upon by the professional grievance-monger Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on Channel 4 News the other night. "I loathe you. I have no words to express how much I loathe you" said Alibhai-Brown to Liddle. "The bigotry bursts out of you" she added as they discussed "the repulsive things he said" in this, his latest book. I was sold. Instinctively knowing that anything that got Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's knickers in a twist must be worth reading, I bought a copy, there and then, 'with one-click'.

First, a word of warning. This is a very un-PC book and the language is choice. If you're a member of Britain's liberal-Left, metropolitan elite then, like a maiden Aunt catching sight of an uncovered table leg in a Victorian parlour room, you're likely to be "shocked", I tell you, "shocked", by some of the words you read here. Better keep the smelling salts handy. Indeed, if you're one of those prissy Lefties who's stuffed so full of your own self-righteousness that you can't even acknowledge that other people might hold views which may be very different to your own, then you might even - wait for it - "feel offended" by what Liddle has had the temerity to write here.

However, if you're not a member of what Liddle calls Britain's ever-expanding "faux-Left" and you're over forty years old then, like me, you'll love this book. It's a crude, vulgar and laugh-out-loud funny look at the appalling state of modern British society and Liddle leaves us in no doubt about who is to blame for this terrible state of affairs. It's us. Our generation. Those born "between about 1950 and 1970" who've so royally screwed up just about everything we've touched through our selfish immorality and in doing so have completely undermined the life chances of the next generation. It's powerful stuff and the humour makes it all the more cutting as does Liddle's background on the far-Left.

By holding up a mirror to our "self-indulgent", "narcissistic" society with its "obsessive acquisitiveness" and need for "instant gratification", Liddle has exposed us as a generation of degenerates who, by any yardstick, are far worse people than our parents. In fact, all Liddle can find to say in our defence is that we're less racist and homophobic than the previous generation and even that's debateable depending on the kind of circles you frequent. A fairly short book, well-written and entertaining with a hefty dose of 1960s and 1970s nostalgia, I loved it. Well done Rod. Another book like this and the "faux-Left" will have you behind bars.

This book may come over in parts as Rod Liddle being frightfully amusing at the expense of people who are, shall we say, a trifle intense. It seems to me to be rather more than just that. Firstly, it is a work of filial piety as he remembers fondly and with a variety of regrets his parents and their world. He does not hero-worship them, but it is quite clear their conduct and their qualities echo down the years for him. I was reminded of Jonathan Meades' An Encylcopaedia of Myself". Meades and Liddle neatly sandwich me in age and I recognise their potraits of their parents. Secondly, although Liddle picks some prime targets (eggshells armed with hammers) and subjects them to his Rabelaisian language and cruel tongue he often holds back at the last moment when humour might dictate a substantial rucking was in order. After dumping on sufferers of fashionable non-diseases, for example, in an unrelenting but amusing fashion he notes that these are the symptoms of modern life; a result of the movement away from his parents' values to the freer and more modern world. There is a price for everything, the Sage Of Nunthorpe tells us, and we pay in many ways. We might not be able to do much about it, but we can at least recognise it.

I would not recommend the book to the easily offended.

As a child of the fifties, I agree with just about every sentiment in this book, about how we've lost something significant in our lives since then. Mr Liddle is a terrific writer, and makes his points with his usual wit. His stories about his childhood and the loss of his parents are often poignant but are described without any sense of self-pity or wimsy. A funny but also a rather sad book, highly recommended.

As with Rod Liddle's provocative articles, I would like to be able to disagree with his acerbic commentary, but I can't. Liddle provides a valuable antidote to politically correct and inane comment and none moreso than in this personal book, which provokes and entertains almost in equal measure. Reading the book is like sitting with a friend over a pint and discussing the state of the world we live in, and finding the companion well informed and willing to speak his mind. Amidst the commentary are useful insights into disturbing aspects of the way we live and I find it helpful to have a guide who has political views but prefaced with common sense and grounded philosophy, rather than regurgitated and fixed contemporary views. The book is refreshing in its candour but depressing in the points it makes. As a nineteen sixties child, with many similarities in background to Liddle, I found that I read the book avidly, with my head nodding, when I wasn't chortling at some of the more choice and stinging comments. I would like to imagine the 'bien pensant' reaction to the book, as they choke over their semi skimmed lattes.

Rod Middle is concerned about what we have lost as a nation in the last 50+ years, while some things have improved, we have also lost our social cohesion. Rod Middle charts this decline by reviewing the life of his own parents compared to his own. The book is angry and sweary and a bit of a rant at times, but it is never incoherent. Well worth reading if you are interested in contemporary UK social history.

Brilliant because it's very funny. Brilliant because it's all absolutely true. I love Liddle's anger, his passion, his sense of despair (although as a Welshman I did not really agree with his suggestion to amend a law whereby it it is legal to kill people like me if we are spotted near Hereford. He suggests dropping the clause 'if they are spotted near Hereford' - OK, it's funny). Britain would be a far better place if everyone read this book.

Very funny and entertaining whilst making some real, thought provoking points. Being similar generation, similar background and life experience, I found it very easy to relate to Rod's point of view, and I found it very reassuring that there are people out there who see things as they really are. I would not recommend reading this at bed time, it is far too stimulating and thought provoking. A great read and I would certainly recommend.

Rod Liddle is often described as a right-wing commentator. Reading “Selfish Whining Monkeys”, you can see why. During the course of the book, Liddle criticises unrestrained capitalism, challenges privilege, describes the Daily Mail as ‘deranged’, reveals he is a member of the Labour Party, and... and...

Hang on a minute.

In fact, as this book soon makes clear, Liddle is not right wing at all, but it suits some of his critics to say so because the alternative – that the mainstream centre-left may finally be rebelling against the right-on puritanical zeal imposed on it for so long – is too awful for them to contemplate. Liddle is sometimes critical of The Guardian, but there was a time when his weekly column was one of its high points: a writer not just perceptive enough to know when John Pilger was talking rubbish but courageous enough to say so in that paper. Over the years a similar dissenting role has also been played by the likes of David Aaronovitch and Andrew Anthony, but The Guardian lacks that kind of voice today.

In “Selfish, Whining Monkeys” (an uncompromising title if ever there was one), Liddle looks at how life in Britain has changed since his parents’ day and wonders if all change can be called progress. He does this with mordant humour and a joyous disregard for political correctness which makes reading him feel like coming up for air. Of course his suggestions, often tentative, that positive developments can have unintended consequences will be seen as heretical by some, but the inconvenient facts are what they are. His comments about mass immigration will inevitably see him branded as ‘racist’ but he has legitimate concerns and voices them entirely reasonably.

The book is loosely structured, alternating between Liddle’s reflections (not necessarily nostalgic) on the olden days, and his dry, disparaging comments on various aspects of modern life. The tone is more akin to a spirited pub debate than a social commentary. Its critique of the liberal-left covers some of the same ground as Andrew Anthony’s The Fallout, though in nothing like the same incisive depth. But Liddle’s book is also well worth reading. It’s a passionate work, but not a rant – it’s too self-aware for that. And much too funny.

Being an avid reader of Rod's work ( i buy the Spectator each week and the Sun on a thursday just to read his views) I purchased this as soon as it was released. I found it a witty thought provoking candid and in parts a moving experience, the part about his mother dying especially a poignant reminder for me and my own experience.

This won't be popular with the pc brigade but that i would advocate is a good enough reason to recommend this book AND I'M SURE EVERY WOMAN WOULD AGREE WITH ME ON THAT (read the book for explanation of the capital letters)

This book is an accurate analysis of today’s popular worldview that embraces relativistic values resulting in unhappy consequences. The author mainly uses personal reflections of his family life to contrast the old behaviour and value perceptions against contemporary cultural symptoms.
The analysis includes views around his minimal religious experiences as a Christian. Although there is no clear ‘coming out’ either as a Christian or a total non-believer, the explanation of how we have substituted God or a creator for narcissism is excellent.
The book is rife with unnecessary bad language which, although amusing in some contexts, devalued what might have been regarded as a serious observation of humanity. Added to this disappointment, while discussing technology and the internet in particular, the writer offers speculation about his late father ‘wanking away to the inexpert film of some hard faced…by an Alsatian’ was for me, a sickening passage to read.
It is also the poorer for not offering any alternative possibilities for the apparent drift of society into an ever increasing focus on self. It would have been interesting to read what mankind might do in order to have some hope, purpose and a future.
The book was somewhat redeemed in the later chapters that provide a challenging summary of the de facto world view of those influenced indirectly in the main, by the relativistic academics and thinkers who encouraged us to challenge authority, deconstruct religious and historic texts and be free. Free; to what end?