|
| Lucky Jim (Penguin Modern Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Kingsley Amis
Creator: David Lodge
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $13.16
Buy New: $9.29
You Save: $3.87 (29%)
New (17) Used (4) from $5.47
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 80309
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0141182598
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780141182599
ASIN: 0141182598
Publication Date: May 25, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new book delivered from the UK in 10-14 days.
|
| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-9 of 9 | | « PREV | | |
A classic campus comedy, one of the great works of 20th Century British fiction August 17, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Kingsley Amis is one of my favorite writers, and Lucky Jim (1954) of course is probably his most famous novel. It's also his first novel, which makes him one of those writers who spent their entire career trying to live up to early success. Despite Lucky Jim's preeminent reputation, several later novels are at least as good: I'd mention as my personal favorites The Anti-Death League, The Green Man, Ending Up, The Alteration, and The Old Devils.
I think this is my third reading of Lucky Jim. It remains a very enjoyable book. It's the story of Jim Dixon, a history lecturer at a provincial English university shortly after the second world war. Jim is involved in an unsatisfactory relationship with a drippy fellow lecturer called Margaret Peel, who uses emotional blackmail such as implicit suicide attempts (she took sleeping pills after breaking with her previous boyfriend) to keep him on the string. He hates his job, and he hates his boss (Professor Welch) if anything even more, while worrying that he won't be retained for the next school year. He hates phoniness in general, particularly that represented by Professor Welch, who is into recreations of old English music (recorders and all).
The plot revolves mainly around Dixon's growing attraction to Christine Callaghan, a beautiful girl who is nominally Professor Welch's son Bertrand's girlfriend -- but Bertrand is also fooling around with a married woman, and he's a crummy artist to boot. Also, Dixon is working on a lecture about Merrie Olde Englande, which he hopes will impress Professor Welch enough that he can keep his job, but every sentence of which he hates. The resolution is predictable, if rather convenient for Dixon (involving a rich uncle of Christine's), but it satisfies. The book itself is really very funny: such set-pieces as Dixon's hangover-ridden lecture, and his disastrous drunken night at the Welch's, remain screams after multiple rereadings.
I should say that some things bother me a bit. Some of Dixon's stunts (such as stealing a colleague's insurance policies and burning them) seem, well, felonious. And of course Margaret Peel really is someone he's better off breaking up with, but the way Christine is presented as naturally good because she is beautiful does seem rather sexist. Still, all this can be laid to accurate description of a certain character -- and if we root for Jim (as we more or less naturally do), it should be with some uneasiness.
All this said, Lucky Jim is deservedly a classic of 20th Century fiction, and an enormously entertaining book. This edition includes an introduction by David Lodge, who is both an first rate writer of comic novels in the same mode as Lucky Jim, and a first rate critic as well.
Still Funny After All These Years August 22, 2005
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Though the sexual mores of Kingsley Amis's 1950's feels decidely quaint,Lucky Jim does not seem dated. The book is a riotous comedy that is satire at its greatest. Evelyn Waugh's reputation soars above that of Kinglsey Amis, but in most of Waugh's satires, like most satire in general, we care little about the characters. We care about Jim Dixon--Amis's greatest creation. Amis never wrote a better book than this, his first; he grew increasingly bitter and, while the later books are often more complex, none bring the pure satisfaction of this perfect gem.
A Laugh a Page! February 24, 2004
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
A pleasant and refreshing read. Sir Kingsley's mastery over the English language combined with a hilarious 'common man' story makes LUCKY JIM undoubtedly one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Follow the misadventures of Jim Dixon, the novice college professor who can't seem to find happiness or luck anywhere, until his life turns around for the better, ironically because of his own irreverance and ineptitude at the climax of this outrageously funny novel. Certainly the funniest book on my shelf-- concise, witty and timeless.
One of the Funniest Books Ever January 8, 2004
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book is a hilarious balm for a quarter life crisis and should be required reading for anyone who is in Generation X. Set in the 1950's, Jim proves that today's young professionals are not the first to be "slackers". Newly graduated, Jim feels lost, does not like his job, dislikes his boss (and the boss's family), and enjoys making fun of pseudo-intellectuals with his razor sharp intellectual sense of humor. During this turmoil Jim finds himself hopelessly falling in love with a woman who is "off limits" and he is forced to make some serious choices. This book is truely a classic and one will fall in and out of love with this witty anti-hero with every passing page.
|
|
|
| |
