- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; Television tie-in edition edition (7 Mar 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0141006102
- ISBN-13: 978-0141006109
- Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 10.6 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 533,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Jim has fallen into a job at one of the new red brick universities. A moderately successful future beckons as long as Jim can survive a madrigal-singing weekend, deliver a lecture on "merrie England" and resist Christine, the girlfriend of Professor Welch's son, Bertrand.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Classic of English humour now showing its age,
By
This review is from: Lucky Jim (Paperback)
"Lucky Jim" was Kingsley Amis' first novel, effectively written in collaboration with his friend, the poet, Philip Larkin. The idea came during a visit to Larkin at Leicester University in 1948 - Amis sent drafts to Larkin, Larkin returned them, heavily edited. First published in 1954, Amis introduces Jim Dixon, a junior lecturer at an English provincial university. Dixon is approaching the end of his first, probationary year and his senior, Professor Welch, is far from impressed. Jim stands little chance of being reappointed. He does his best to ingratiate himself with the professor, but he's socially inept, apparently accident prone, especially when indulging in his predilection for beer, lacks interest in his appointed subject - medieval history - and is consumed by sexual frustrations and fantasies. Dixon comes from the north of England, from the lower middle classes, from a world which is alien to the Oxbridge elite who dominate academic life ... even in a provincial university. Amis constructs humorous situation after humorous situation. Dixon's ineptitude is excruciating. His luck is a major theme - he doesn't seem to have any. Meanwhile, all around him are those who have been lucky enough to be born into the upper classes and who are unselfconsciously reaping the benefits of it. In its time, "Lucky Jim" broke new ground in satirising the academic world. The characters in the novel portray the pretensions, sterility, and advantages of the class system. Although greeted as a radical piece of writing and seen as transforming humour, even satire, "Lucky Jim" now appears dated. It has lost much of its edge and seems unrecognisable as a work which threatened the status quo. Its humour can now appear slapstick and trivial, the stuff of poor sitcoms. The class and sexual mores are set in another world. The rationing and shortages are certainly from another era. And the writing style has also aged - it's a bit laboured in places, a bit coy in others. Amis, himself, was born in South London into a lower middle class family. He attended public school, then Oxford University and was commissioned into the Royal Signals for wartime army service. He emerged to teach at Swansea University, then Cambridge. From the early 1960's he wrote full-time. Throughout his life Amis enjoyed a reputation as an outspoken wit. "Lucky Jim" remains a seminal piece of writing, but many contemporary readers will find its themes and style dated, its humour rather gentle compared to contemporary savagery. It's a very gentlemanly, very innocent, very English, and very middle class novel, still with its comic moments, but no longer with the edge and bite which earned it ... and Amis ... a radical reputation.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a corrective,
By A Customer
This review is from: Lucky Jim (Paperback)
I couldn't understand why the average customer review was only three sars but then I realised there'd only been one review. I hope my review bumps up the average because this is a five star book if there ever was one. Tight plotting and an ending to kill for.Read 'Playing at the Roxy' by Robert Atkins - it's a kind of homage to 'Lucky Jim'.
1 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Amusing enough- absolutely diabolical ending,
This review is from: Lucky Jim (Paperback)
There is a strong sense of the meanings of relations between people in this book and very little really happens otherwise. When I try to remember the storyline it is eclipsed by Malcolm Bradbury's Eating People Is Wrong, which is similar to Lucky Jim but far superior and much more funny. Amis has written a readable book that is interesting in places and will appeal to middle-aged readers more than young. Unfortunately the book sufferers from a lack of plot and has possibly one of the most anti-climatic endings in the history of literature.
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