Take a Girl Like You (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

Was reading the reviews of one of my favourite book and noticed a couple of little errors - namely this book is not set in the "jazz age", it is set in the late fifties as far as I can discern. This I know because the follow-up "Difficulties with Girls" is set a few years later when homosexuality has just been legalised. Plus it is somewhat obvious from the novel that it is the late fifties (the styles, the music, the cars and the attitudes plus the mention of "the war" as an event within recent memory (although perhaps come to think of it that's where the other reviewer's confusion arose...)

Anyway, that's beside the point because this is a fantastic and very witty novel.

It has been accused of being extremely sexist which I think arises out of the somewhat condescending characterisation of Jenny Bunn, a beautiful young girl with a heart of suet. I don't know whether Kingsley Amis was just a man of his time or whether her Women's Realm reading, girdle wearing, knees-togetherness was representative of certain females of the period (I actually suspect it might have been but am too young to remember and too old to have a granny alive to ask about whether or not she held onto her ha'penny til she were wed )but I'm guessing the answer is a bit of both. He certainly seems to write a convincing if old-fashioned woman well.

Jenny is treated badly by the male protagonist and throughout is viewed less like a person and more like an Italian sportscar or a swiss watch by the men around her. She clings fervently to the idea that you don't lose your virginity until you're married and that you don't have to do anything you don't feel comfortable with. The first of these ideas has fallen out of fashion, but the second has never been more prevalent for young women.

The novel is an interesting exploration of the way men view women - as objects of sex, fear and ridicule respectively, but seldom with respect - and the way women view men, whether as husband material, meal tickets, or prizes in a game. I used to find it hard to decide whether Amis was poking fun at oppressed women or at the world which oppressed them and I'm still not sure but I think that this is a wonderfully arch and cynical look at how the sexes interact and still relevant today.

...Although the current tv adaptation is a good stab at a difficult book to dramatise (what with all the interior monologues and all), alas i have to regurgitate the old lament "not as good as the book". As for the accusation of being dated, well a book after all is a product of its time, and this was written at the turn of the 50's and 60's, the starkest contrast of any two decades in a sexual context for many a year.Bravo to Kingsley for coming up with a book with the classically 50's Jenny Bunn, and the slyly prophetic Patrick Standish, and being able to mix the two seamlessly... Amis has wonderful prose and one finds oneself coming across numerous passages and paragraphs that need reading two or three times, purely to take in their craftsmanship. His humour is wonderfully timed and paced, and while i admit that this particular book is not in his best three or four, it is still well worth a look. If you find something you find interesting in this, then go straight to the top and get hold of a copy of 'Lucky Jim', and 'The Old Devils'. The Old Devil himself was, as almost always, on top form.

Firstly it is ridiculous to describe this book as 'dated' you might as well accuse Dickens or Jane Austen of not being up to the minute on the 21st century. It is a product of its time. I am not quite old enough to remember the plight of women in the 1950's but it was bad enough when I started work in the 70's before sex discrimination legislation. Amis' delicious wit infuses the novel the characters are all well drawn. It is true that time has not been as kind to this book as to some of the others, because the action Patrick takes, these days would be called date rape,but that IS looking at through the prism of today. I didn't enjoy as much as Lucky Jim or the hilarious I like it Here, my personal favourite but is still a novel I like to re read from time to time