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 The Wrong Time October 9, 2008
Its probably the wrong time to be reading this book - to me it comes across as being depressingly old-fashioned.
At the time of publication it appears to have been lauded for its satirical relevance, in a few decades time it may have the charm and interest of a period piece. But to me, the deep misogyny and sneering contempt for all things provincial and non-Oxbridge are more unpleasant than the rigid and pompous post war society that the book is attempting to lampoon.
There are some good comic moments - description of a hangover, fight between two characters, and the frustrations of a slow bus journey - but the humour is patchy and my main memories of the book will be its very peculiar attitude towards women.
 Merrie England, Miserable Jim September 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Jim Dixon is in his first year as a college lecturer and he's been in trouble nearly from the second he arrived...unfortunately, since he's also on probation, he's panicking a great deal that he'll lose his job. He despises his boss - an elderly, absent minded and rather self important gentleman called Professor Welch - and doesn't even like his subject, Medieval History. (He only ever studied it himself because he'd seen it as the easy option when he was a student). He's had a few unfortunate encounters with his fellow academics since he started - he'd barely arrived at the college when he accidentally caught the Prof of English (??) with a stone on the knee, and then knocked over the Registrar's Chair at his first Faculty Meeting. (If only the Registrar himself hadn't been on the verge of sitting down...) There had also been the essay submitted by one of Dixon's pupils had submitted an essay heavily criticising a book written by one of Welch's ex-pupils. What made this difficult to sweep under the carpet was the level of Welch's involvement - the book was written at his suggestion and under his guidance - while the essay was based heavily on Dixon's lecture notes.
Jim, however, does have a few allies - including Alfred Beesley, (who works in the college's English Department), Bill Atkinson (someone always happy to provide Jim with a cover story) and Carol Goldsmith (the wife of a colleague at the history department). However, Jim spends most of his time with Margaret - another member of staff at the university. It's not that he particularly wants to - rather, he more or less feels morally obliged to. The problem is things have now got to the point where they're widely seen as a couple. Margaret is now "recovering well" at Welch's house after a recent (apparent) suicide attempt. (Prior to Jim, she'd been spending some time with an utter cad called Catchpole...who, rather understandably, ran off with his new girlfriend to North Wales for a couple of weeks). Jim had been supposed to meet her for a pot of tea that evening , but had backed out to write the following day's lecture...it's something he feels rather guilty about that, bearing in mind what had happened. (This guilt is something Margaret shamelessly trades on throughout the book).
Since Margaret is staying at the Prof's house, Jim can't avoid visiting once in a while. One of the most significant - not to mention disastrous - visits is for a weekend long artistic gathering. Jim manages to set fire to his bedclothes, destroy his bedside table, and make an enemy of Bertrand - one of the professor's sons. Bertrand, a pretentious artist with an awful beard and a significant superiority complex, arrives from London for the proceedings with a very pretty guest called Christine Callaghan. Jim naturally is smitten - but is afraid to make any move...partly for fear of what it will do to Margaret, and partly because he knows stealing Betrand's girlfriend will lower his standing in the Professor's eyes even further. Still, at least he's interested in Christine herself...unlike Bertrand, who's only interested in her uncle - the noted art critic, Julius Gore-Urquhart.
An amusing and easily read book. Jim proves a likeable character - although the laughter comes mostly at his expense, as he lurches from one disaster to another.
Classic Flop? July 18, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
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 - some `wit' had included this on the list of `books to study before coming' as it was supposed to have 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.
 This is a good read April 24, 2008
I'm not altogether sure what attracted me to this novel. I think that I must have caught a clip of the black and white film of the book somewhere in the dim and distant past.
However, I'm glad that I did. It is a great story with laugh-out-loud moments along the way. The plot centres around Jim Dixon who's recently been appointed as a history lecturer at a provincial red-brick university. But Jim finds it hard to fit in with the stuffiness of post-war academia. To make matters worse he is still on probation and must make a good impression on Welch, the Professor of History, a man who Jim despises.
To complicate matters further Jim is trapped in a loveless attachment to Margret, a fellow staff member, but is attracted to Christine, the girlfriend of Welch's son, the obnoxious Bertrand who Jim has afew run-ins with. This is all set, as I mentioned earlier, in a post-war setting. Probably the late 1940's or at the latest 1950.
How these problems in Jim Dixon's life resolve themselves makes for a very amusing book. My only criticism is that there are places where the plot gets bogged down in too much narrative. For example, the first chapter is taken up almost entirely of the car journey from the university to the Welch residence. But don't be put off by that because it's worth reading on. I like the way that Jim experiences emotions that we can all relate to. Having travelled on trains for all of my life I could totally understand what Jim was going through on his not-so-smooth bus journey in the final chapter of the book. There are some great minor characters in this book too, like the other gentlemen that share the house where Dixon is lodging, and Mitchie the over-enthusiastic pupil.
In conclusion, I would say that this is a very enjoyable and funny book. Yes, it's a bit lumpy in places but it's better to read a good novel that'a a bit lumpy in places than to read a bad one that isn't. And I've absolutely no doubt that at some point in the future I will pull out my copy of 'Lucky Jim' and read it again.
 And the joke is....? September 26, 2006
5 out of 25 found this review helpful
This is Kinglsey Amis' first book and it shows. The cover describes it as "a flawless comic novel" and "brilliantly and preposterously funny". By page 100 I was still waiting for the joke. There is almost no characterization and very little plot. The eponymous hero, some kind of history lecturer in a barely-described University, is just not fleshed-out, either physically or emotionally. Even after reading the entire book I do not know what he looks like or anything about his background. The other characters are even less well drawn, if that were possible. The set piece scenes appear mainly to consist of boring parties and one boring lecture. The ending is one of the most pathetic I have ever read. Not recommended.
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