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Fiction. Literature. Humor (Fiction.) HTML: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." Amis's scabrous debut leads the reader through a gallery of emphatically English bores, cranks, frauds, and neurotics, with each of 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 post-war 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.".… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member akfarrar
I first read the thing back in the summer 1975 (I can be sure of the date because it was part of my University set reading – I was going ‘up’ to Leicester to study for a B.Sc. and some ‘wit’ had included this on the list of ‘books to study before coming’ as it was supposed to have
I didn’t find it very funny then, and I find it even less so now.
It is in the genre of ‘campus novels’ – a particularly tacky genre – and is claimed to have been ‘seminal’ – for which I shall never forgive it.
For those who don’t know, campus novels are about College and University campuses; are written by people whose whole lives have been blighted by the college experience and consequently feel it incumbent upon themselves to inflict a similar blight on the rest of their and future generations; they usually attempt to be ‘hilarious’ – and fail.
Campus Novels are loved by academics (a sort of S & M experience, I would suggest) and book critics (who tend to be failed academics - and consequently promote them as some sort of revenge taking experience). They pop up far too often on suggested reading lists and the like.
‘Lucky Jim’ supposedly changed the whole post-war generation … with little evidence to support this, I am firmly ‘in denial’.
Jim Dixon is the sort of lout who, because he had nothing better to do and is too lazy to do anything anyway, enters the University lecturing profession dishonestly – claiming interest and expertise where he has none. The book follows this thug’s adventures through a ‘red-brick’ university where he causes drunken destruction and chaos wherever he goes. He exhibits the sort of socialist rhetoric you’d expect and lands a job at the end with a millionaire.
What is clear to me (although not so clear to many at the time of publication, or since) is that Mr Amis does not like Jim – he is an ‘oink’ of the wrong class and only becomes respectable at the end as he moves into the pale blue conservative world. His luck is in escaping the not-really-university ‘red-brick’ institution, whose academic standards and personnel are only a joke.
The so called humour is in fact barely disguised contempt for the genuine changes brought on by a World War that shattered the privilege of education and class (although not so effectively). Educating this sort of person is obviously a dumbing-down in the eyes of Mr Amis.
The excellent introduction to the Penguin Edition, by David Lodge, also points out the attack being made on Graham Greene – especially on ‘The Heart of the Matter’.
There are obvious connections and references – from suicide to doing ‘the right thing’.
All I can say is I re-read, ‘The Heart of the Matter’ recently and was impressed: I re-read this slight book and found it severely wanting.
Fortunately Mr Amis went on to write better things – unfortunately, his politics went even further in the wrong direction.
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sketches of people still teaching at the university in it – if it did, I never met them).I didn’t find it very funny then, and I find it even less so now.
It is in the genre of ‘campus novels’ – a particularly tacky genre – and is claimed to have been ‘seminal’ – for which I shall never forgive it.
For those who don’t know, campus novels are about College and University campuses; are written by people whose whole lives have been blighted by the college experience and consequently feel it incumbent upon themselves to inflict a similar blight on the rest of their and future generations; they usually attempt to be ‘hilarious’ – and fail.
Campus Novels are loved by academics (a sort of S & M experience, I would suggest) and book critics (who tend to be failed academics - and consequently promote them as some sort of revenge taking experience). They pop up far too often on suggested reading lists and the like.
‘Lucky Jim’ supposedly changed the whole post-war generation … with little evidence to support this, I am firmly ‘in denial’.
Jim Dixon is the sort of lout who, because he had nothing better to do and is too lazy to do anything anyway, enters the University lecturing profession dishonestly – claiming interest and expertise where he has none. The book follows this thug’s adventures through a ‘red-brick’ university where he causes drunken destruction and chaos wherever he goes. He exhibits the sort of socialist rhetoric you’d expect and lands a job at the end with a millionaire.
What is clear to me (although not so clear to many at the time of publication, or since) is that Mr Amis does not like Jim – he is an ‘oink’ of the wrong class and only becomes respectable at the end as he moves into the pale blue conservative world. His luck is in escaping the not-really-university ‘red-brick’ institution, whose academic standards and personnel are only a joke.
The so called humour is in fact barely disguised contempt for the genuine changes brought on by a World War that shattered the privilege of education and class (although not so effectively). Educating this sort of person is obviously a dumbing-down in the eyes of Mr Amis.
The excellent introduction to the Penguin Edition, by David Lodge, also points out the attack being made on Graham Greene – especially on ‘The Heart of the Matter’.
There are obvious connections and references – from suicide to doing ‘the right thing’.
All I can say is I re-read, ‘The Heart of the Matter’ recently and was impressed: I re-read this slight book and found it severely wanting.
Fortunately Mr Amis went on to write better things – unfortunately, his politics went even further in the wrong direction.
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LibraryThing member SamuelW
Perhaps I'm a stuffed-shirted bore, but I didn't find Lucky Jim anywhere near as funny as it was made out to be. Granted, it did make me smile sometimes, and laugh out loud occasionally. But it doesn't seem to have much else going for it. There's wit enough, but much of the comedy is physical
Kingsley's character portraits are perceptive, but somehow failed to grab me. At the heart of it all is Jim Dixon, a supposedly loveable slacker who expects luck to carry him through life. And – moral of the story – it does. Jim comes to the realisation that 'It was luck you needed all along; with just a little more luck he'd have been able to switch his life onto a momentarily adjoining track'. With more than a little luck, Jim gets the girl of his dreams, whose pleasant personality is a direct result of her fortunate good looks, and escapes from Margaret, whose histrionic personality is a direct result of her less-than-fortunate looks. Dumping Margaret is a perfectly acceptable course of action – it's nothing personal; she's just unlucky.
To the average mid-twenties male who wishes that the women in his life would stop being so damned complicated and just sleep with him already, it may be a soothing balm. But for someone who stopped laughing along with Jim a hundred pages ago, it's plainly ridiculous and irritatingly shallow. The last thing Jim needs is more luck – what he really needs is to pull his bloody socks up, control his pathological face-pulling and stop looking for the quick-fix solution to every problem that comes his way. Oddly enough, the character with whom I most sympathise is just another obstacle in Dixon's path: Michie, the student who actually wants to get something out of his university education. Fortunately, my lecturers are much more capable than Dixon and Welch, who, to me, seem just as bad as each other.
Perhaps I'm being a little harsh, and taking an overly serious approach to what should be a lighthearted campus romp. But when the laughs don't come thick and fast enough, the superficiality of this novel really stands out, and I can't help but feel as if I'm reading the 1950s equivalent of a National Lampoon film.
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rather than verbal, with strong elements of farce, and would probably work better on stage or screen than in print. The language is gratingly formal and often feels mechanical, even when viewed as a parody of academic writing.Kingsley's character portraits are perceptive, but somehow failed to grab me. At the heart of it all is Jim Dixon, a supposedly loveable slacker who expects luck to carry him through life. And – moral of the story – it does. Jim comes to the realisation that 'It was luck you needed all along; with just a little more luck he'd have been able to switch his life onto a momentarily adjoining track'. With more than a little luck, Jim gets the girl of his dreams, whose pleasant personality is a direct result of her fortunate good looks, and escapes from Margaret, whose histrionic personality is a direct result of her less-than-fortunate looks. Dumping Margaret is a perfectly acceptable course of action – it's nothing personal; she's just unlucky.
To the average mid-twenties male who wishes that the women in his life would stop being so damned complicated and just sleep with him already, it may be a soothing balm. But for someone who stopped laughing along with Jim a hundred pages ago, it's plainly ridiculous and irritatingly shallow. The last thing Jim needs is more luck – what he really needs is to pull his bloody socks up, control his pathological face-pulling and stop looking for the quick-fix solution to every problem that comes his way. Oddly enough, the character with whom I most sympathise is just another obstacle in Dixon's path: Michie, the student who actually wants to get something out of his university education. Fortunately, my lecturers are much more capable than Dixon and Welch, who, to me, seem just as bad as each other.
Perhaps I'm being a little harsh, and taking an overly serious approach to what should be a lighthearted campus romp. But when the laughs don't come thick and fast enough, the superficiality of this novel really stands out, and I can't help but feel as if I'm reading the 1950s equivalent of a National Lampoon film.
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LibraryThing member wandering_star
Jim Dixon is a junior history lecturer at an indifferent university. He's always taken the easy way out - he took medieval history because those papers were supposed to be easiest, and talked about them at the interview because he thought that it would be best to sound as if he had a specialism,
If this was all there was to the book, it would be a rather pitiful tale. But Jim starts to get lucky when he stops wanting everyone to like him and starts, however stutteringly, to be honest about what he thinks and feels.
But this story is really just the backdrop. The main point of it is the humour, which comes in the form of high farce, in particular Jim's violent mental rages against what's going on around him, plus the portrait of his professor, who has mastered the art of saying nothing and getting other people to do all the hard work for him. One of the funniest scenes was one where Jim tries to get a straight answer to the question of whether his probation will be extended at the end of the academic year. Another comes towards the end, when Jim has been asked to give a public lecture on the Middle Ages, which he has avoided writing for as long as possible, and before which he has gotten quite drunk to try and mask his despair at the situation he has ended up in.
A growing mutter, half-amused, half-indignant, arose about him, but he closed his ears to it and read on. Almost unconsciously he began to adopt an unnameable foreign accent and to read faster and faster, his head spinning. As if in a dream he heard Welch stirring, then whispering, then talking at his side. He began punctuating his discourse with smothered snorts of derision. He read on, spitting out the syllables like curses, leaving mispronunciations, omissions, spoonerisms uncorrected, turning over the pages of his script like a score-reader following a presto movement, raising his voice higher and higher. At last he found his final paragraph confronting him, stopped, and looked at his audience.
I wouldn't recommend the book to everyone, though. The implausible and high-pitched farce worked for me, I think largely because of Amis' clever use of language. But for anyone who didn't find the style funny, the book would be very tedious.
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and now he has wound up as the university's specialist in medieval history even though he hates the Middle Ages. Actually, he hates almost everything about his life - he has a wide range of faces that he pulls in different stressful situations, his "lascar's face", "Martian-invader face", "crazy peasant face", "Edith Sitwell face". But often, he has to pull these faces in his mind, or promise himself that he'll pull the face as soon as he is alone, because as well as being full of hatred and despite for everyone else, Jim still wants them to like him.If this was all there was to the book, it would be a rather pitiful tale. But Jim starts to get lucky when he stops wanting everyone to like him and starts, however stutteringly, to be honest about what he thinks and feels.
But this story is really just the backdrop. The main point of it is the humour, which comes in the form of high farce, in particular Jim's violent mental rages against what's going on around him, plus the portrait of his professor, who has mastered the art of saying nothing and getting other people to do all the hard work for him. One of the funniest scenes was one where Jim tries to get a straight answer to the question of whether his probation will be extended at the end of the academic year. Another comes towards the end, when Jim has been asked to give a public lecture on the Middle Ages, which he has avoided writing for as long as possible, and before which he has gotten quite drunk to try and mask his despair at the situation he has ended up in.
A growing mutter, half-amused, half-indignant, arose about him, but he closed his ears to it and read on. Almost unconsciously he began to adopt an unnameable foreign accent and to read faster and faster, his head spinning. As if in a dream he heard Welch stirring, then whispering, then talking at his side. He began punctuating his discourse with smothered snorts of derision. He read on, spitting out the syllables like curses, leaving mispronunciations, omissions, spoonerisms uncorrected, turning over the pages of his script like a score-reader following a presto movement, raising his voice higher and higher. At last he found his final paragraph confronting him, stopped, and looked at his audience.
I wouldn't recommend the book to everyone, though. The implausible and high-pitched farce worked for me, I think largely because of Amis' clever use of language. But for anyone who didn't find the style funny, the book would be very tedious.
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
Certainly it is chockfull of sociological information, and there are some LOLs. But your Angry Young Men have always been a bit MIA in terms of my (extreme) appreciation of the mid-20th century English novel, and so Lucky Jim privided me with an opportunity to think about why. Thing is, we should
And we've all been there, even if only for a few glorious moments at 21 - young blades. And we want Jim Dixon just to be a slightly more repressed, better dressed version. But that's putting stresses and strains on the psycholiterary consciousness Amis is coming out of in postwar Britain that it just can't handle.
Or, in simpler language: We want to identify with Dixon, so why can't we? Because - let's face it - he's kind of a cunt. Not a cad - a role which has aged better even as the term has fallen into disuse - but a (useless, doss) cunt. We thrill a bit when he and Christine kiss, or when he punches Bertrand the hell out, but it's mixed with squishy embarrassment - is he going to bottle it? We (I) get my workin'-class comb up, but then you're always afraid he's going to start tugging his forelock - and while his rage of faces is comical and all, there's something so depressingly bourgeois in it - is it a specific character in British TV comedy with the rage faces? Mr. Bean or some shit? See Al Bundy, anyway.
So he's well flawed as a blank slate reader-champion. But identifying with your protagonists is fascistic anyway. Can we lose the self-glorification project and just read and enjoy? To a point. But the flip side of this is that it's a mid-20th century British novel, and so everybody is - let's just say it - shudderingly unpleasant. The moment at the end where Jim is like "Oh, the old prof isn't so bad after all" and then still harshes on him and his family with Christine when they're making their big exit stays with you because it's so vindictive - like, really, all any of them did is cross Dixon's overdeveloped sense of annoyance. And all he did is fuck up and fall down a bit, and there he is all pariah, and oh everybody is just so sweaty-palmed and arrogant, at your feet or at your throat. And the women, oh, the women. Christine is presented in what seems intended to be an appealing way, but she's so limp and '50s and, you know, the kind of female character that seems intended to retroactively justify men treating women (even smart ones) as sort of half-retarded by nature.
I used to feel it poignant, a bit, that Amis was so gutted by his son being a better writer. Now I think of him cramming his kids' pockets with condoms and menacing them through the doors of the whorehouse and just being a blustering bully of the sort that was so common in our grandparents' generation, and probably is tied up in interesting ways with having been through, and won, the war. This book could have been a less touchy, bristly experience if Amis had had the psychological touch of a Greene, and it comes over in scattered moments - your Carol Goldsmith, your Gore-Urquhart, even Jim, who isn't as objectionable all things considered as I may have made him out to be. But the humanity sits uneasily with the cheap laffs - and you sit uneasily waiting for Amis to either be real with you or go whole-hog slapstick.
Or both, man. Irvine Welsh did it. Compare the "bedclothes" scene in Trainspotting with the one in this book. Which is funnier? Which is more awful? Which makes you remember the character in question in a more complex, nuanced way? It's not really Amis's fault that he didn't have scatological humour available - it's the fault of his nasty, repressed, desperately self-satisfied era. But that marks the book too. Give me that story about the boys who tear that dude's house down.
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be hopping the fuck on board, right? That title, the subject matter, the promise of sexy times and fighty times and hilarious embarrassments that you'll laugh about when you're old and events don't happen in your life anymore. I'm 28 - there's still some sap in me. I still remember gettin' all Sick Boy in high school, thrusting thrusting thrusting, and oh, that whole phase of life, right through to "Martin should sit on my lap" and demurring and realizing I was getting a bit wiser and then, in the bathroom, "You're definitely getting a Friendster testimonial for this." Ha ha.And we've all been there, even if only for a few glorious moments at 21 - young blades. And we want Jim Dixon just to be a slightly more repressed, better dressed version. But that's putting stresses and strains on the psycholiterary consciousness Amis is coming out of in postwar Britain that it just can't handle.
Or, in simpler language: We want to identify with Dixon, so why can't we? Because - let's face it - he's kind of a cunt. Not a cad - a role which has aged better even as the term has fallen into disuse - but a (useless, doss) cunt. We thrill a bit when he and Christine kiss, or when he punches Bertrand the hell out, but it's mixed with squishy embarrassment - is he going to bottle it? We (I) get my workin'-class comb up, but then you're always afraid he's going to start tugging his forelock - and while his rage of faces is comical and all, there's something so depressingly bourgeois in it - is it a specific character in British TV comedy with the rage faces? Mr. Bean or some shit? See Al Bundy, anyway.
So he's well flawed as a blank slate reader-champion. But identifying with your protagonists is fascistic anyway. Can we lose the self-glorification project and just read and enjoy? To a point. But the flip side of this is that it's a mid-20th century British novel, and so everybody is - let's just say it - shudderingly unpleasant. The moment at the end where Jim is like "Oh, the old prof isn't so bad after all" and then still harshes on him and his family with Christine when they're making their big exit stays with you because it's so vindictive - like, really, all any of them did is cross Dixon's overdeveloped sense of annoyance. And all he did is fuck up and fall down a bit, and there he is all pariah, and oh everybody is just so sweaty-palmed and arrogant, at your feet or at your throat. And the women, oh, the women. Christine is presented in what seems intended to be an appealing way, but she's so limp and '50s and, you know, the kind of female character that seems intended to retroactively justify men treating women (even smart ones) as sort of half-retarded by nature.
I used to feel it poignant, a bit, that Amis was so gutted by his son being a better writer. Now I think of him cramming his kids' pockets with condoms and menacing them through the doors of the whorehouse and just being a blustering bully of the sort that was so common in our grandparents' generation, and probably is tied up in interesting ways with having been through, and won, the war. This book could have been a less touchy, bristly experience if Amis had had the psychological touch of a Greene, and it comes over in scattered moments - your Carol Goldsmith, your Gore-Urquhart, even Jim, who isn't as objectionable all things considered as I may have made him out to be. But the humanity sits uneasily with the cheap laffs - and you sit uneasily waiting for Amis to either be real with you or go whole-hog slapstick.
Or both, man. Irvine Welsh did it. Compare the "bedclothes" scene in Trainspotting with the one in this book. Which is funnier? Which is more awful? Which makes you remember the character in question in a more complex, nuanced way? It's not really Amis's fault that he didn't have scatological humour available - it's the fault of his nasty, repressed, desperately self-satisfied era. But that marks the book too. Give me that story about the boys who tear that dude's house down.
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LibraryThing member the.ken.petersen
Time is kind to some books, to others there is nothing more cruel. At the time that it was written, 1954, it probably said a lot about the English class system in a frightfully witty way: by the early 1970's, when I first read it, it was an amusing bit of fluff, now, to anyone not around at the
The strange thing is, that it is not the upper middle class twits that seem to have died out. The dinosaurs have remained it is homo sapiens, in the form of the aspiring working class which have retreated from the arena.
Dixon remains a complex character; at first, annoying but ultimately the hero and through a rather contrived set of circumstances, ends up with the girl, the job and the moral high ground. I think, today, that there is no point in putting any slant upon the book: just enjoy a diverting - if somewhat inconsequential read. (Good for the beach!)
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time, it is sadly something of an irrelevance. The strange thing is, that it is not the upper middle class twits that seem to have died out. The dinosaurs have remained it is homo sapiens, in the form of the aspiring working class which have retreated from the arena.
Dixon remains a complex character; at first, annoying but ultimately the hero and through a rather contrived set of circumstances, ends up with the girl, the job and the moral high ground. I think, today, that there is no point in putting any slant upon the book: just enjoy a diverting - if somewhat inconsequential read. (Good for the beach!)
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LibraryThing member poplin
Lucky Jim is perhaps the best comic novel I've ever read, and yet it also manages to have both a heart and a point.
Amis tells the story of Jim Nixon, a junior lecturer at a provincial English college. In his eight months as lecturer, Jim has failed to make a good impression on his boss, Professor
As the novel’s title implies, luck plays an enormous role in Jim’s life: both the bad that befalls him, and the good that eventually comes to him, appear (at least to Jim) to be a matter of luck. When Jim is facing a spot of “bad luck,” his reaction to it can seem less than noble; certainly, Jim experiences his share of plain bad luck, but some things—such as when he burns his boss’ guest sheets in a drunken stupor—do seem to be within his realm of control. Jim’s saving grace is that his reaction to good luck is much the same; he does not falsely pretend that anything good that comes to him does so because he’s exceptionally bright or worthy, or because he’s entitled to it. In contrast to Bertrand’s overwhelming sense of entitlement, Jim’s attitude is quite refreshing.
Though Jim is an imperfect character, he is redeemed by the fact that he does not pretend to be otherwise. Unlike many of the characters who surround him—the Welches, Margaret, Johns—Jim is startlingly free of pretension and hypocrisy. The Welches, and most obviously Bertrand, are all social-climbers; they are middle class (and the provincial at that), yet through ostentatious displays of art appreciation and disparaging views of the lower class, they attempt to distinguish themselves as cosmopolitan, sophisticated, and elite. Interestingly, the only character who actually is upper class, Mr. Gore-Urquhart, displays the same lack of pretension and hypocrisy as Jim does.
Jim is not a hero, but nor is an anti-hero; he is a member of the middling sort who happens to have a good conscience and spirit. In reading up about the background of novel, I found that Somerset Maugham disparaged the book for celebrating the “white-collar proletariat,” someone who was actually “scum.” The book was subsequently awarded the Somerset Maugham Prize. I think this amusing anecdote nicely sums up the spirit of ,i>Lucky Jim.
Amis tells the story of Jim Nixon, a junior lecturer at a provincial English college. In his eight months as lecturer, Jim has failed to make a good impression on his boss, Professor
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Welch; his personal life is equally in shambles after his presumptive girlfriend Margaret attempts suicide. Jim is compelled to attend an arty weekend at the Welches’, where he meets Bertrand Welch, Professor Welch’s arrogant son, and his girlfriend Catherine. Jim desires both Catherine and a new life in London, but feels beset by bad luck which prevents him from obtaining these desires.As the novel’s title implies, luck plays an enormous role in Jim’s life: both the bad that befalls him, and the good that eventually comes to him, appear (at least to Jim) to be a matter of luck. When Jim is facing a spot of “bad luck,” his reaction to it can seem less than noble; certainly, Jim experiences his share of plain bad luck, but some things—such as when he burns his boss’ guest sheets in a drunken stupor—do seem to be within his realm of control. Jim’s saving grace is that his reaction to good luck is much the same; he does not falsely pretend that anything good that comes to him does so because he’s exceptionally bright or worthy, or because he’s entitled to it. In contrast to Bertrand’s overwhelming sense of entitlement, Jim’s attitude is quite refreshing.
Though Jim is an imperfect character, he is redeemed by the fact that he does not pretend to be otherwise. Unlike many of the characters who surround him—the Welches, Margaret, Johns—Jim is startlingly free of pretension and hypocrisy. The Welches, and most obviously Bertrand, are all social-climbers; they are middle class (and the provincial at that), yet through ostentatious displays of art appreciation and disparaging views of the lower class, they attempt to distinguish themselves as cosmopolitan, sophisticated, and elite. Interestingly, the only character who actually is upper class, Mr. Gore-Urquhart, displays the same lack of pretension and hypocrisy as Jim does.
Jim is not a hero, but nor is an anti-hero; he is a member of the middling sort who happens to have a good conscience and spirit. In reading up about the background of novel, I found that Somerset Maugham disparaged the book for celebrating the “white-collar proletariat,” someone who was actually “scum.” The book was subsequently awarded the Somerset Maugham Prize. I think this amusing anecdote nicely sums up the spirit of ,i>Lucky Jim.
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LibraryThing member mikedraper
Jim Dixon is a lecturer in Medieval Studies in a small English University. He has one girlfriend but also likes one of the other lecturers.
Jim's job is in jepordy and it doesn't seem that he knows what to do.
The head of the history department, Professor Welch is Jim's boss. Welch is a know it all
The professor invites Jim to his home for an evening of sincing, music playing and acting and Jim tries all but fails miserably. He ends up the night at a neighborhood pub, getting drunk.
Margaret is a fellow lecturer. She is at Professor Welch's home while recovering from a half hearted attempt at suicide. Margaret had been dumped by her former boyfriend and latches onto Jim.
The book is written with English dry humor but I felt that the humor was outdated and I didn't care for it. I also felt that Jim was an unsympathetic character and I didn't care what happened to him or the story.
Jim's job is in jepordy and it doesn't seem that he knows what to do.
The head of the history department, Professor Welch is Jim's boss. Welch is a know it all
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and a conceited individual but Jim thinks that he has to butter him up to get a good job rating.The professor invites Jim to his home for an evening of sincing, music playing and acting and Jim tries all but fails miserably. He ends up the night at a neighborhood pub, getting drunk.
Margaret is a fellow lecturer. She is at Professor Welch's home while recovering from a half hearted attempt at suicide. Margaret had been dumped by her former boyfriend and latches onto Jim.
The book is written with English dry humor but I felt that the humor was outdated and I didn't care for it. I also felt that Jim was an unsympathetic character and I didn't care what happened to him or the story.
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LibraryThing member ctpress
A biting british satire and a most enjoyable reading.
About a young academic Jim Dixon who struggles to secure a teaching position in the History Department of an university. He tries to ingratiate himself with the head of the department professor Welsh and his family - but again and again he gets
He detest his life as a medieval history lecturer, swallow in self-pity, has money-problems, has trouble with women - trying to help one girl Margaret and falling in love with another - which is a girlfriend of the professors bullying son Bertrand - a pompous artist. Everything seems to go wrong for Dixon in this comedy of manners, but somehow he manages to avoid total catastrophe.
I like Amis's perfect dialogue - but for a quote I've chosen his description of Dixon's hangover after a disastrous weekend-party at Welsh's house:
Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.
About a young academic Jim Dixon who struggles to secure a teaching position in the History Department of an university. He tries to ingratiate himself with the head of the department professor Welsh and his family - but again and again he gets
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himself into embarrassing and awkward situations - and trying to cover things up by lying it only gets worse. He detest his life as a medieval history lecturer, swallow in self-pity, has money-problems, has trouble with women - trying to help one girl Margaret and falling in love with another - which is a girlfriend of the professors bullying son Bertrand - a pompous artist. Everything seems to go wrong for Dixon in this comedy of manners, but somehow he manages to avoid total catastrophe.
I like Amis's perfect dialogue - but for a quote I've chosen his description of Dixon's hangover after a disastrous weekend-party at Welsh's house:
Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.
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LibraryThing member aaronbaron
Good in parts, but unworthy of it's reputation as a brilliant satire. I think it is one of those books that “spoke for a generation”, and such books tend to age badly. The plot is the archetypical 80’s movie: guy gets girl and thwarts snobby rival. Essentially a Jane Austen tale without the
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polish, wherin rebellion and a keen eye stand in for brilliance. Show Less
LibraryThing member andy475uk
A humorous rather than laugh out loud read with some good sections but some that drag and irritate. It waxes and wanes as an engaging read on academia and was not as good as I was hoping based on previous reviews and essays so I was slightly disappointed by it overall. However some observations
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still seem to ring true today ! Show Less
LibraryThing member bexaplex
Jim Dixon drinks his way through encounters with his pseudo-girlfriend, his department head and various social encounters, in constant fear of getting fired from his probational appointment as a professor.
I didn't find Dixon very likable, and Welch doesn't get much room to display any personality
I didn't find Dixon very likable, and Welch doesn't get much room to display any personality
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quirks, other than evasiveness. Dixon doesn't grow disenchanted with his post as the book progresses; he seems to have hated his job from the first. So the book sort of reads like a 50s The Devil Wears Prada — a cheap dig at a former employer. The lecture at the end is fun to read, however. I always like a good firing. Show Less
LibraryThing member mausergem
This is a very funny novel in the same vain as PG Wodehouse. It is set in a university town were our hero Jim Dixon is a lecturer in the department of history. As so often happen Jim is harassed by his head of the department about a article he is supposed to publish, a neurotic collegue who is
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recovering from lost love and an attempted suicide. While on a stay over at his head of the deparment's house Jim is attracted towards his bosses' son's girlfriend. All he'll breaks lose but being lucky Jim comes out with flying colours and the girl on his arm. Show Less
LibraryThing member groendog
Another book to read in exile or any time you are feeling sorry for yourself. Shrinks should make it required reading for mildly depressed patients.
LibraryThing member 3.14
I reread this after 20 years and it still cracked me up. To this day I still make Mandarin faces in the hall.
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
A history postgraduate student comes to a decision about his further academic career. It is a portrait of the sad underside of English Academic life. A half century later, "Lucky Jim" remains a comic romp. A wonderful experience, driven by keen perceptions.
LibraryThing member gbill
Jim Dixon hates his tedious job as a junior professor of medieval studies, mocks his bumbling superior (professor Welch) while having to attend his banal social functions, and is engaged in back and forth sabotage with one of his housemates. He’s also interested in a little bit of the old “slap
The opening chapter is hilarious and the book has many memorable scenes, all greatly enhanced by Amis’s precision with words. Some examples: in slowly getting a point across to the dimwitted Welch, he is “at first pleased to see this evidence that Welch’s mind could still be reached from the outside”. In considering the title for an article he’s published, he observes “It was a perfect title, in that it crystallized the article’s niggling mindlessness, its funereal parade of yawn-enforcing facts, the pseudo-light it through on non-problems”. In getting locked out of the bathroom, he “stood well back, straddling, and raised his hands like a conductor on the brink of some thunderous overture or tone-poem; then, half-conductor, half-boxer, went into a brief manic flurry of obscene gestures”. And on and on. I wasn’t wild about one of the female characters going into “hysterics” and needing to be slapped out of it, but the rest of the novel is pitch perfect.
This is a post-war book with sardonic and playful humor in the vein of Joseph Heller, and Keith Gessen does a great job in the introduction to provide context for it. Amis was expressing anger at an England in which “the wrong people were in charge, had the money, had to be listened to and treated with respect”, and dedicated the novel to his close friend and young writer Philip Larkin, who was a kindred spirit. The novel captures their hatred of authority and irritability with nearly everything around them, but it’s the hatred of smart young men, and I found myself smiling and empathizing even as Dixon commits acts of minor vandalism and shirks his duties. Instantly popular when published, it would change Amis’s life – he would now become a part of the literary establishment – and his time of being the cynical outsider would soon close. Humor in books or film sometimes doesn’t hold up over the years, but it does in this one, and it’s recommended.
Quotes:
On love:
“Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her but can’t, and you don’t know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You fit the formula all right, and what’s more you want to go on fitting it. The old hopeless passion, isn’t it?”
On progress:
“Those who professed themselves unable to believe in the reality of human progress ought to cheer themselves up, as the students under examination had conceivably been cheered up, by a short study of the Middle Ages. The hydrogen bomb, the South African governments, Chiang Kai-shek, Senator McCarthy himself, would then seem a light price to pay for no longer being in the Middle Ages. Had people ever been as nasty, as self-indulgent, as dull, as miserable, as cocksure, as bad at art, as dismally ludicrous, or as wrong as they’d been in the Middle Age[s]?”
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and tickle” with the girlfriend of his Welch’s obnoxious son. He does the minimum possible as a teacher, expressing cynicism all the way, makes a variety of silly faces in response to his frustrations, and loves to sneak off for a pint or six down at the pub (or an “octuple whiskey” for that matter).The opening chapter is hilarious and the book has many memorable scenes, all greatly enhanced by Amis’s precision with words. Some examples: in slowly getting a point across to the dimwitted Welch, he is “at first pleased to see this evidence that Welch’s mind could still be reached from the outside”. In considering the title for an article he’s published, he observes “It was a perfect title, in that it crystallized the article’s niggling mindlessness, its funereal parade of yawn-enforcing facts, the pseudo-light it through on non-problems”. In getting locked out of the bathroom, he “stood well back, straddling, and raised his hands like a conductor on the brink of some thunderous overture or tone-poem; then, half-conductor, half-boxer, went into a brief manic flurry of obscene gestures”. And on and on. I wasn’t wild about one of the female characters going into “hysterics” and needing to be slapped out of it, but the rest of the novel is pitch perfect.
This is a post-war book with sardonic and playful humor in the vein of Joseph Heller, and Keith Gessen does a great job in the introduction to provide context for it. Amis was expressing anger at an England in which “the wrong people were in charge, had the money, had to be listened to and treated with respect”, and dedicated the novel to his close friend and young writer Philip Larkin, who was a kindred spirit. The novel captures their hatred of authority and irritability with nearly everything around them, but it’s the hatred of smart young men, and I found myself smiling and empathizing even as Dixon commits acts of minor vandalism and shirks his duties. Instantly popular when published, it would change Amis’s life – he would now become a part of the literary establishment – and his time of being the cynical outsider would soon close. Humor in books or film sometimes doesn’t hold up over the years, but it does in this one, and it’s recommended.
Quotes:
On love:
“Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her but can’t, and you don’t know her very well. Ignorance of the other person topped up with deprivation, Jim. You fit the formula all right, and what’s more you want to go on fitting it. The old hopeless passion, isn’t it?”
On progress:
“Those who professed themselves unable to believe in the reality of human progress ought to cheer themselves up, as the students under examination had conceivably been cheered up, by a short study of the Middle Ages. The hydrogen bomb, the South African governments, Chiang Kai-shek, Senator McCarthy himself, would then seem a light price to pay for no longer being in the Middle Ages. Had people ever been as nasty, as self-indulgent, as dull, as miserable, as cocksure, as bad at art, as dismally ludicrous, or as wrong as they’d been in the Middle Age[s]?”
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LibraryThing member edwinbcn
Kingsley Amis' seminal novel Lucky Jim is often described as a landmark novel revolutionizing the British novel. While the style and approach of the novel may have been groundbreaking in the early 1950s, to modern-day readers none of this appeal shows, and the novel reads rather more like a weak
In my reading, I could not detects any of the humour that Lucky Jim is praised for. It is obvious, and can be imagined as influential, that the main character leads a rather banal life. The story is not interesting in any particular way (which is supposedly its strength, in historical perspective).
Lucky Jim was reissued in the Penguin Decades series as a novel representative for the 1950s in 2010, while in the US an edition appeared in the NYBR series, in 2012.
Canonized or not, Lucky Jim seems destined to lose its appeal to modern readers, probably quite soon.
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story compared with more contemporary prose.In my reading, I could not detects any of the humour that Lucky Jim is praised for. It is obvious, and can be imagined as influential, that the main character leads a rather banal life. The story is not interesting in any particular way (which is supposedly its strength, in historical perspective).
Lucky Jim was reissued in the Penguin Decades series as a novel representative for the 1950s in 2010, while in the US an edition appeared in the NYBR series, in 2012.
Canonized or not, Lucky Jim seems destined to lose its appeal to modern readers, probably quite soon.
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LibraryThing member TheBentley
I understand the seminal nature of Lucky Jim where academic comedies are concerned. I really do. So I'm inclined to be charitable to the book. However, as the narrator himself points out repeatedly, "there is no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones." And the truth is
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Evelyn Waugh is simply better at pulling off the British farce novel and much better at making the butts of his jokes at least likeable types. Jim Dixon is nearly impossible to relate to in any way EXCEPT his misfortune. If you want good, classic British comedy, go for Waugh or Wodehouse. If you want good academic farce, try Jane Smiley or even Terry Pratchett. Not so bad as to be regrettable, but not good enough to recommend. Show Less
LibraryThing member edgeworth
Kingsley Amis and Martin Amis (father and son) are two major writers of the 20th century, yet more names on the list that I need to tick off, and Lucky Jim is Kingsley’s most famous novel. It’s a comedy of manners revolving around a young university lecturer who is shambling his way through
It’s a 60-year-old novel, but I still found it quite amusing, full of clever turns of phrase and witty dialogue. My favourite moment comes when Jim is speaking to Bertrand, an artist he hates, and entertains the notion of “devoting the next ten years to working his way to a position as art critic on purpose to review Bertrand’s work unfavourably.” The book suffers when it moves out of comedic territory and wander towards serious romance, which it does quite a bit of in the second half. I didn’t find it a struggle to read, but it was certainly slow to grab my attention, and I suspect it’s the kind of mid-century novel that will fade from my memory.
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life in a manner reminiscent of George Costanza – silently loathing those around him, perpetually analysing the motives and opinions of everyone he interacts with, and getting involved in ridiculous social traps.It’s a 60-year-old novel, but I still found it quite amusing, full of clever turns of phrase and witty dialogue. My favourite moment comes when Jim is speaking to Bertrand, an artist he hates, and entertains the notion of “devoting the next ten years to working his way to a position as art critic on purpose to review Bertrand’s work unfavourably.” The book suffers when it moves out of comedic territory and wander towards serious romance, which it does quite a bit of in the second half. I didn’t find it a struggle to read, but it was certainly slow to grab my attention, and I suspect it’s the kind of mid-century novel that will fade from my memory.
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LibraryThing member DavidMilnes
Any book that can make you laugh aloud and want to get back to it even after some dull pages must be worth 4 stars. I wouldn't go to 5 because the characterization of some key people - the loathsome Bertrand most significantly - is too punch-bag, and when Jim is about to throw up his hopes of
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Christine out of some dutiful fidelity to the ghastly Margaret, whom he has seen through so thoroughly, Amis seems to be sticking his oar in a bit clumsily on behalf of the plot. But the important thing is that it's a really enjoyable book, and that rare thing - a funny book. Most minor characters are superbly drawn. Masses of anger and misery under the comedy. Show Less
LibraryThing member thisisstephenbetts
Interesting, this. I wasn't really interested in the setting, nor did I find the characters particularly engaging. Pllot-wise it felt a bit perfunctory, like a string of set-pieces. And while it is funny, it's not _that_ funny. On top of that the resolution is a bit too neat - the title almost
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feels like an excuse for Kingsley not having come up with a more convincing denouement. And yet, and yet, the writing is - the actual sentences are - just great. And almost surprisingly that's enough. Show Less
LibraryThing member heidilach
One of my favorite books of all time. Being a graduate student in history myself, I can relate to Jim Dixon on a number of levels. Especially the feeling that the worth of my work too can "...be expressed in one short hyphenated indecency (15)." There are many passages of this book that are laugh
I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys reading about the foibles of academia and the pretentiousness of some of those who inhabit it.
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out-loud funny, especially the parts where Jim visits his adviser, Prof. Welch, for a weekend of madrigal singing.I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys reading about the foibles of academia and the pretentiousness of some of those who inhabit it.
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LibraryThing member kraaivrouw
Lucky Jim is an acerbic, witty, biting satire of British red brick college life in the nineteen-fifties. The war is over & all the survivors are back to figure out what to do next. Our hero is teaching history (sort of) in a British college that is decidedly not Oxbridge & trying to stay
This comic novel is filled with wonderful & odd characters who are of their type, but somehow aren't stereotypes - the absent-minded professor, the vain artist, the jealous co-worker - we ...more Lucky Jim is an acerbic, witty, biting satire of British red brick college life in the nineteen-fifties. The war is over & all the survivors are back to figure out what to do next. Our hero is teaching history (sort of) in a British college that is decidedly not Oxbridge & trying to stay employed.
This comic novel is filled with wonderful & odd characters who are of their type, but somehow aren't stereotypes - the absent-minded professor, the vain artist, the jealous co-worker - we all know these people, but Amis' twist on them is hilarious & original.
I think perhaps best of all is the way that Amis is able to laugh at the foibles of all of his characters, including the aforesaid Lucky Jim. There is an everyman quality to Jim Dixon that draws the reader in - you like him even when he's behaving like an ass.
My favorite bit was the weekend arty house party & all of the occurrences around that including the best ever description of being drunk & then of being hungover.
Despite its relatively sedate age big chunks of this are laugh out loud funny & much of it still resonates today. This was another great read.
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employed.This comic novel is filled with wonderful & odd characters who are of their type, but somehow aren't stereotypes - the absent-minded professor, the vain artist, the jealous co-worker - we ...more Lucky Jim is an acerbic, witty, biting satire of British red brick college life in the nineteen-fifties. The war is over & all the survivors are back to figure out what to do next. Our hero is teaching history (sort of) in a British college that is decidedly not Oxbridge & trying to stay employed.
This comic novel is filled with wonderful & odd characters who are of their type, but somehow aren't stereotypes - the absent-minded professor, the vain artist, the jealous co-worker - we all know these people, but Amis' twist on them is hilarious & original.
I think perhaps best of all is the way that Amis is able to laugh at the foibles of all of his characters, including the aforesaid Lucky Jim. There is an everyman quality to Jim Dixon that draws the reader in - you like him even when he's behaving like an ass.
My favorite bit was the weekend arty house party & all of the occurrences around that including the best ever description of being drunk & then of being hungover.
Despite its relatively sedate age big chunks of this are laugh out loud funny & much of it still resonates today. This was another great read.
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LibraryThing member elliepotten
Hmmm, quite a difficult one to review, this one. It's a bumbling, amusing sort of story about a bumbling, amusing sort of fellow - the very 'old-style-British' lecturer Jim Dixon. Basic plot: Jim is trying to up his standing at the university and impress his eccentric superior, Professor Welch,
It's not as funny as I thought it would be - perhaps some of it went over my head given its age - though there were a fair few 'slight smile' moments and even one or two 'choking on my coffee' lines. It struck me more than once that some of the humour and the mannerisms of the characters might be more smoothly captured on screen than they were on the page. That said, Jim comes across as likeable, confused, rather innocent and childlike at times, and seems to reflect a kind of caricature of every moment that we as men and women in society feel put upon, disappointed, cheered, or just plain bewildered. A nice little novel with a touch of Wodehouse about it - not sure whether it's a keeper or not yet but I'm glad I finally got to reading it!
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despite being hopelessly inept and pretty much detesting even his own work. Neurotic Margaret is claiming too much of his attention, which is unfortunate as his attention has been captured very much by the rather prim young girlfriend of Welch's odious son Bertrand. Mishaps and misunderstandings ensue as the web of academics and wives and sons and lovers becomes ever more tangled, with Jim trying to keep up at every turn.It's not as funny as I thought it would be - perhaps some of it went over my head given its age - though there were a fair few 'slight smile' moments and even one or two 'choking on my coffee' lines. It struck me more than once that some of the humour and the mannerisms of the characters might be more smoothly captured on screen than they were on the page. That said, Jim comes across as likeable, confused, rather innocent and childlike at times, and seems to reflect a kind of caricature of every moment that we as men and women in society feel put upon, disappointed, cheered, or just plain bewildered. A nice little novel with a touch of Wodehouse about it - not sure whether it's a keeper or not yet but I'm glad I finally got to reading it!
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LibraryThing member Zohrab
Comedy novel, set in England. Writen with english humor Lucky Jim" is one of those books that has gotten less politically correct in the fifty or so years since it was written. Somehow it has avoided becoming too dated. However, reading Kingsley Amis's debut novel, there is the feeling that Amis
The novel is about a man, James "Jim" Dixon, the story's central character, is a quirky sort of anti-hero: well-meaning but selfish, he is conniving, spineless, and works just enough to keep his job. Despite it all, Dixon is quite is likeable. A junior lecturer at one of the new universities being built all over Britain in the 1950 and 60's, Dixon has an over-bearing boss, one Professor Welch, and a pathetic but psychotically manipulative girlfriend, Margot. To make matters worse, Margot lives with the Welches as part of her emotional blackmail of Dixon.
The book is a good read. It's not just the laugh-out-loud parts, but that the whole story is funny. It's so well told that you can't wait to see how all this foolishness gets tied up.
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himself would be delighted to hear that his book is considered sexist.The novel is about a man, James "Jim" Dixon, the story's central character, is a quirky sort of anti-hero: well-meaning but selfish, he is conniving, spineless, and works just enough to keep his job. Despite it all, Dixon is quite is likeable. A junior lecturer at one of the new universities being built all over Britain in the 1950 and 60's, Dixon has an over-bearing boss, one Professor Welch, and a pathetic but psychotically manipulative girlfriend, Margot. To make matters worse, Margot lives with the Welches as part of her emotional blackmail of Dixon.
The book is a good read. It's not just the laugh-out-loud parts, but that the whole story is funny. It's so well told that you can't wait to see how all this foolishness gets tied up.
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