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.
Lucky Jim (Penguin Decades)
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Review
A brilliant and preposterously funny book (Guardian )
It has always made me laugh out loud . . . a flawless comic novel' (Helen Dunmore The Times )
A seminal campus novel (David Lodge ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
It has always made me laugh out loud . . . a flawless comic novel' (Helen Dunmore The Times )
A seminal campus novel (David Lodge ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
About the Author
Kingsley Amis' (1922-1995) works take a humorous yet highly critical look at British society, especially of the period following the end of World War II. He was born in London. Amis explored his disillusionment with British society in novels such asTHAT UNCERTAIN FEELING (1955). His other works include THE GREEN MAN (1970); STANLEY AND THE WOMEN (1984); and THE OLD DEVILS (1986) which won the Booker Prize. Amis also wrote poetry, criticism, and short stories.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
42 of 44 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Lucky Jim is one of Amis's best works, filled with intense humour, false bravado and absurd characters. The 'hero' Jim Dixon, is intially engulfed by the diverse scope of the eccentric social group with which he finds himself into at University, his students and collegues alike causing him no end of problems. Speaking as a student I find the novel to be in parts painfully close to reality, particularly in Jim's dealings with his over-keen student Michie, and the general irreverent nature of university life, despite the fact that it is set over forty years ago, it is still a humourous and well-recorded version of campus life. Overall the main strengths of the novel are its varied cast of characters whose imbecility, social ineptitude or plain naivety constantly amuse the reader throughout, whilst the climax is a fitting end to Jim's trials both socially, intellectually and morally. Deeply funny.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I'm not one of those people who ever laughs out loud at any book. However, even I found myself emitting the occasional snort at the humorous situations that Jim Dixon gets himself into. Nearly fifty years on it's still all relevant: the English man's clumsiness with women, the academic pomposity and the battle with one's superiors.
Amis builds up the characters wonderfully and writes in such a fluent and full style. This was my first Kingsley Amis book, but it won't be my last.
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful
By El Fidela
Format:Paperback
I am in complete agreement with the 14 year old boy who found this absolute classic in with his dad's old books. I bought this for £2 out of the university bookshop bargain bin when I was in first year at university ( I should add I am 27 so no old fogey) and vaguely remembered seeing Terry-Thomas as Bertrand ("AH SAAAAM") in some old black and white sick-day film on a tuesday afternoon. I started reading it on the train home and didn't stop till I was done. I was actually shocked to see that people hated this and found it dated or "middle-class" (I assume that's meant to be pejorative?). This has to be one of the funniest novels of all time - particularly all the fighting talk "Would you like a slap?" "Not much" and Jim's ability to turn any situation to his complete disadvantage.
I now have a theory that the reason this novels appeals so much to some and not to others is that the world is divided into Bertrands and Jims - the former definitely would hate this book. They'd be into magic realism or something. If you like this you will almost definitely like "Take a Girl like You" which is almost the same book with the characters shifted round a bit but slightly less funny - apart from Julian Ormerod who is pant-wettingly hilarious. Every time I read either of these I crease up and for a long time after I read Lucky Jim even thinking about it was enough to set me off. Buy two copies cos you'll loan one to your friend and never see it again.
I now have a theory that the reason this novels appeals so much to some and not to others is that the world is divided into Bertrands and Jims - the former definitely would hate this book. They'd be into magic realism or something. If you like this you will almost definitely like "Take a Girl like You" which is almost the same book with the characters shifted round a bit but slightly less funny - apart from Julian Ormerod who is pant-wettingly hilarious. Every time I read either of these I crease up and for a long time after I read Lucky Jim even thinking about it was enough to set me off. Buy two copies cos you'll loan one to your friend and never see it again.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lucky Jim
Cheap to buy and delivered efficiently. I read the book quite quickly. Did not like it much. No sympatheitic character. Read more
Published 15 hours ago by R. G. Harris
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oh Lucky Jim
Buy it, read it, and never suffer from a hangover in quite the same way again. Amis at his best.
Published 3 months ago by Historymaster
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic
One of the funniest novels in English. Very much a period piece admittedly. Laugh out loud is an over-used expression but genuinely applies here. Much loved.
Published 4 months ago by DJJ
4.0 out of 5 stars
A deserved classic
Although the subject matter is a little dated, "Lucky Jim's" humour still stands today. The main character is one with whom most can identify and the other characters are equally... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Jonny
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best English comic novels of the 20th century
To celebrate my 100th review for this site, I turn to one of my favourite books. The 1950s saw the birth of a new genre in English literature, the campus novel. Read more
Published 7 months ago by J C E Hitchcock
3.0 out of 5 stars
The funnyest lecture
I find Lucky Jim at times obscure and hard to read but there are some classicly funny stuff, the Merry Olde England Lecture is a comic classic and the bus ride at the end, I live... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Bella Maria Delorus
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic entertainment
God knows what Kingsley Amis must have been like in person; his ability to find fun in everyone's otherwise irritating and frustrating behaviour is astonishing. Read more
Published 11 months ago by anozama
5.0 out of 5 stars
The collegial academic life, in Britain, in the `50's...
...well, maybe the last two, but as others, notably Mary McCarthy, in The Groves of Academe (Transaction Large Print) have depicted, there seems to be nothing collegial about... Read more
Published 11 months ago by John P. Jones III
5.0 out of 5 stars
postwar britain brought to life
a seminal work, which foreshadows the social changes that were to come in the last decades of the twentieth century. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mr. J. E. Fisher
2.0 out of 5 stars
boring
The second most boring book I have ever read. Where were the laugh out loud parts? Book destined for Oxfam.Lucky Jim (Penguin Modern Classics)
Published 15 months ago by suelorna
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