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Essay Subject:
Examines characters, style, dialogue, humor in novel critiquing British society & human folly.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Examines characters, style, dialogue, humor in novel critiquing British society & human folly.
Paper Introduction:
Kingsley Amis’s 1953 novel Lucky Jim is a book meant to make us laugh at the absurdities of many of the people that we make while at the same time assuring us that there the small and downtrodden can come out ahead. In this novel, he tells a tale that we all want to hear, which is that sometimes the good guys win just because they are the good guys.
Amis, born in 1922, has made his focus as a novelist the creation of a humorous but highly critical look at British society, especially in the period following the end of World War II in 1945. Born in London, England, he was educated at Saint John's College, at the University of Oxford and his first novel and the subject of this paper, Lucky Jim was a bitingly satirical story of an unheroic young college instructor.
The book influenced a group of British playwrights and novel
Text of the Paper:
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His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. And yet, it is also as easy to sympathize with Jim Dixon and to longfor him to find the happiness that he will in fact gain in love as it is tolaugh at others. 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. This work, for all the fact that it often seems to be about nothingmore than Jeeves-ian glory in the slipperiness of language, has profundityin it, too, and is a brilliant novel. There is nota single word wrong in this novel. Although there is some of the anger in this book that will carry Amisthrough his next ten or so works, there is also a core of optimism in thisnovel, a humane, let-the-good-guy-win mindset that disappears for severaldecades. Dixon was alive again. Anotherway of viewing Dixon is not simply that he is an Academic Everyman, butthat he serves as a proxy not just for academics but for anyone who isbrowbeaten by the people in their lives. Consciousness was upon him before the could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. Always provided, of course, that I have permission to ask. The language is poetic and highlyliterary, but at the service of the story, something that many writers donot have the ability to blend. During the night, too, he'd somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He is trying to show us with Dixon, who is kindly,mischievous, unpretentious and good-humored, that we must remember theimportance of such quiet virtues and believe in the strength that they willgive us each in the long run. We know that we want Dixon to get as good as he deserves from the verybeginning of the book, but we are absolutely convinced of this once we haveAmis's description of Dixon's terrible hangover. Lucky Jim. Not, alas again, pictures of trade unionists or town halls or naked women, or I should now be squatting on an even larger pile. Lucky Jim has wonderfully poetic sentences,that, even if you did not notice their poetry, serve a reader who wouldonly need the sentences for their furthering of the narrative. Amis'swriting is diffuse in many ways, but this book very much does underscoreAmis's sense that there is far too much pomposity and self-importance inthe world and that the truly valid and artistic and intellectual are fartoo often suffocate in the little oxygen that is left. Works Cited Amis, Kingsley. Lucky Jim captures the sense that many college students have felt atrealizing that a faculty member is about to start on a long tirade abouthis favorite topic and go prattling on interminably. No no; just pictures, mere pictures, pictures tout court, or, as our American cousins would say, pictures period. He is in many ways what many academics would like to be butdon't quite have the nerve (or alternately the bad manners) to do. He felt bad (Amis 64). He has the ability to distance himself from characters enoughto get an accurate assessment of their follies but never get so distantfrom them that he loses an appreciation for their humanity. Kingsley Amis's 1953 novel Lucky Jim is a book meant to make us laughat the absurdities of many of the people that we make while at the sametime assuring us that there the small and downtrodden can come out ahead.In this novel, he tells a tale that we all want to hear, which is thatsometimes the good guys win just because they are the good guys. Dixon hesitated; Bertrand's speech, which, except for its peroration, had clearly been delivered before, had annoyed him in more ways than he'd have believed possible (Amis 43). Born in London, England,he was educated at Saint John's College, at the University of Oxford andhis first novel and the subject of this paper, Lucky Jim was a bitinglysatirical story of an unheroic young college instructor. One of Amis's redeeming skills as a writer is that he is funny. One of Amis'sgreatest skills as a writer lies in his ability to let us see the inane inthe regular. It is hard to imagine a human arena in which there are nopompous idiots droning on and on, and no fragile talent being squelched andignored in the corner. New York: Viking, 1953. As with much of Amis's writing, this story is told by someone who isboth an insider and an outsider, in this case the university professor JimDixon who doesn't quite fit into the world of academe. The book does not easily crystallize around a single theme, becausemuch of the pleasure of Amis's writing is his ability to create interestingcharacters and beautiful dialogue and then just to sort of let the storydrift amongst these interesting people with their Wildean sentences. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. He is talking about the absurdities of English academia inthis book certainly, but he is also talking about the more general foiblesof anyone living in the Western world in the years after World War II, andwith this book's focus on the unbearable ways in which people try to makethemselves seem and feel more important than their acquaintances andcolleagues, it is in fact a book that seems as if it should be translatableinto any culture. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. For while Amis is angry at who gets to hold power in Englishsociety, he is also at the same time trying to get those without power tohold onto their ideals. No no; I paint pictures. His later books have actually beensomewhat gentler, such as the 1986 The Old Devils, a humorous look atmiddle-class Welsh people and the 199 The Folks That Live on the Hill, asatirical portrayal of middle age, retirement, and quirky family life. Amis, born in 1922, has made his focus as a novelist the creation of ahumorous but highly critical look at British society, especially in theperiod following the end of World War II in 1945. The book influenced a group of British playwrights and novelists whowere known as the Angry Young Men because of their rebellious and criticalattitude toward postwar British society. Notin the way that movies, for example, are funny, but in more subtle waysthat usually require an appreciation for nuanced dialogue. Not, alas, a painter of houses, or I should have been able to make my pile and retire by now. Lucky Jim has been called by critics the funniest book written in theEnglish language and one of the striking things about reading it is howwell it has aged - which is a testament not only to Amis's writingabilities but his acute sense of the truth that lies under the particularsof the general. The book also gets tothe core of why self-important bores (whether from inside the academy oroutside it) are so awfully loathsome. It is easy when reading this book to laugh along with Amis and thepeople that he is mocking as he mercilessly skewers phonies, the affectedand other miscreants of academic life - the artistically pretentious, thebores of dinner parties, those who go on about "Art with a capital 'A',"any male over the age of thirty with facial hair, the tendency of academicwomen to dress like peasants, "filthy Mozart," and just in case he missedanyone Modernism in general. It is this twin reward - not only are the bad guys mockedand so punished but the most literate (and therefore surely the best)person in the book is rewarded - that is the strength at the core of thisbook. Here is one description of such pomposity and Dixon's attitude inmeeting it: "I am a painter. The miseries of this hangover stand for all of the miseries that allof us face in life, and in believing that Dixon deserves to be deliveredfrom them, we believe that we to deserve such deliverance. The book, in addition to being an indictment of the British academicsystem of a certain era (although one does wonder, perhaps as a reflectionof Amis's own cynicism, how much it might actually have changed in theintervening decades) is also an affirmation of learning. Butin Lucky Jim the face that Amis turns to his readers is angry and defiant,although this is a defiance marked by a lack of cynicism, and the in-the-end-truly-heroic Dixon triumphs above the less than worthy people in hisworld. He is a professorwho hates teaching classes, which in itself does not make him unique, buthe also is bothered by overachieving students, finds himself forced towrite journal articles on topics he doesn't like, and ridicules the chairof his dept. Amis would take up the same themesand the angry tone in the 1955 That Uncertain Feeling and Take a Girl LikeYou, published five years later. The central theme of this book (if one must choose one) is actually adual one: The pompous prosper while the virtuous are punished - but only upto a point. And what work do you do?
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