Lucky Jim

By Kingsley Amis

Book Overview

A hilarious satire about college life and high class manners, this is a classic of postwar English literature. Regarded by many as the finest, and funniest, comic novel of the twentieth century, Lucky Jim remains as trenchant, withering, and eloquently misanthropic as when it first scandalized readers in 1954. This is the story of Jim Dixon, a hapless lecturer in medieval history at a provincial university who knows better than most that "there was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones." Kingsley Amis's scabrous debut leads the reader through a gallery of emphatically English bores, cranks, frauds, and neurotics with whom Dixon must contend in one way or another in order to hold on to his cushy academic perch and win the girl of his fancy. More than just a merciless satire of cloistered college life and stuffy postwar manners, Lucky Jim is an attack on the forces of boredom, whatever form they may take, and a work of art that at once distills and extends an entire tradition of English comic writing, from Fielding and Dickens through Wodehouse and Waugh. As Christopher Hitchens has written, "If you can picture Bertie or Jeeves being capable of actual malice, and simultaneously imagine Evelyn Waugh forgetting about original sin, you have the combination of innocence and experience that makes this short romp so imperishable."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590175751
• ISBN13: 9781590175750
• Release Date: October 2012
• Publisher: New York Review of Books
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Don't read this on a plane

You will be hooting with laughter, disturbing your seatmates, and causing consternation among the flight attendants. This book is amazingly funny. But you will need some working knowledge of British academia to 'get it'. Which means, if you know the difference between a 'grammar school' and a 'comprehensive', you can feel sort of snobby while you chortle hysterically. Plus, if you like the work of Martin Amis (Kingsley's son, for those of you who don't know your 'grammars' from 'comps'), you can now have one of those real 'aha' moments: as in 'I see! THIS is where he gets it!'.

Still Reeling

This early masterpiece of Kingsley Amis inspires such peals of laughter and raves of admiration that it will put you in a good mood for a week after finishing it.Jim Dixon is a World War II vet who has somehow become a medieval history lecturer at a provincial English university. He worries about keeping his job and meanwhile loathes the self-absorbed pedant who will decide whether to keep him or not: "No other professor in Great Britain, [Dixon] thought, set such store in being called Professor." With the axe hanging over his head Dixon falls for the girlfriend of his boss's son, Bertrand. A ruthless social-climbing artist, Bertrand is one of the most intolerable snobs I have come across in literature. You will be impressed by Dixon's campaign for the lady Christine-- sometimes carried on as much to prick Bertrand as to win her affection. Dixon is a remarkably funny character, and part of Amis's genius is that we like him far more than we should. He starts off rather childish, spitefully penciling moustache and glasses on a face in someone else's new magazine. As the plot moves along at an increasingly rapid pace, we see the necessary defense mechanisms in his many contorted facial expressions and pseudo-polite manner. So often does fear or calculation lead him to think one thing and say the opposite that the moment when he first does say exactly what he is thinking will move you to stand up and cheer.LUCKY JIM had me putting it down often--not in boredom or disapproval, oh my, no!--I just had to pause time and time again to laugh and recover, to let Amis's brilliance sink in--his deceptively calm tone, his nimble use of the language. Occasionally Amis will turn a giggle-inducing phrase in the style of P.G. Wodehouse, but most of his humor is the unavoidable belly-aching kind. Funnier than and just as sharp as Evelyn Waugh, Amis's influence can be seen--albeit in much wackier fashion--in the 1990s novels of Stephen Fry.Not just a comic novel, this, but a work of true and timeless literary merit. We shouldn't forget that Amis has Dixon wrestle with a few demons that are not put down easily by anyone. But I guarantee it won't be chance that will have you rolling on the floor if you pick up LUCKY JIM.

A hilarious look at academia

Lucky Jim takes an amazingly cynical, yet hilarious view at academic culture! This book shows how funny it can be when people take themselves too seriously. You can't help but laugh out loud while reading it.