Horizon

Tone of voice more than anything isn't it? In its time an anarchic, piss taking voice against the old order--doesn't do much for me either though as you say some lines are funny. By and large I find the old order funnier--Amis, IIRC, thought Waugh 'a c*nt who wrote one good book: Decline and Fall'. That's a very silly view IMO but then Kingers held Dick Francis in high esteem.
By an Horizonsynch I bought his Collected Letters in very posh Hardback today: remaindered for £1.( I had them in paperback but the book fell apart.) I really enjoy his Letters (Tom Deveson is in the Acknowledgements) but his novels don't get me jumping too high, though he is miles ahead of Martin, the patron saint of the modern, modish overwriter.
I'm surprised to find you even laughing at Lucky Jim Mab....

[32 words of flamebait deleted by MB]

cheers

Cheers to you too, Robbie, with the exception of those 32 words. I edit lightly but I do edit. Enjoyed the rest of your post, for which thanks.

Interesting that we can agree on not identifying with Kingsley Amis' form of rebellion. The David Lodge intro to my Penguin 20thC Classics edition of the book suggests it's full of subtext about soldiers returned from the war, and that does seem right. Jim is always cursing under his breath, resisting High Culture events, failing to live up to hostesses' expectations, pining for a beer, resenting his own trivial-seeming academic work, etc. and at first you could think class or age differences were the cause of his restlessness. But really it's about his being an ex-soldier, isn't it?

I think Amis was under the real shadow of people like Waugh and Edith Sitwell and people who sung madrigals and read the Church Times and he wanted to have a swipe at it all, the whole fussy lot of it--as anyone would do. What he's doing with the narrative voice--if you see it in context of its time--is a kind of rock and roll. Amis was still--or had just ceased to be--a communist when he wrote it and certainly was one when he was having the experiences that led up to writing it. So the boot on the neck for the old order and its culture was the order of the day.

[Final paragraph deleted by MB. The author is as always free to publish the deleted material on his own website.]

And if anyone has the impudence to want to see what 'flamebait' was airbrushed by the commissars go here:http://robbie.journalspace.com/

And dig my poem about snow while you're at it!

I preferred your Henry story, for what it's worth. Actually had me making noises out loud, though I can't remember which ones tonight.

David Lodge was in my Akkadian class in 1993 and was another one of the dead language techies crowd. He was a bit older than the rest of us, but actually looked the part, with a ponytail hanging out the back of a baseball cap and a goatee. Also was something of a Mac head, and did something clever for the language lab involving version numbers in cuneiform, if I remember correctly.

Think he ended up in grad school somewhere. I've often wondered what he's up to, though with a name like that you can hardly Google him. Strange when your memory of someone's eventual destiny is something as impermanent as "grad school somewhere."

The David Lodge who wrote this introduction writes that he first read *Lucky Jim* in 1955 after completing his B.A., so it may not be the same man.

I expect Martha's David Lodge is David Lodge the english comic novelist and academic (who often writes comic novels about academics).

LOL at further censoring: a classic example of the liberal jackboot: since we're abusing Politics and the English Language I thought I'd get in on the act (the notion that Internet slang might be an abuse of that is what really offends you I think. It's code that is close to your heart but is certainly a way of helping the Commissars rule ie anything you don't like becomes 'flamebait' or 'trolling', beneath the pale and not neccesary to explain or think about further. Reminds me of Un-American activities actually. While we're on that subject here is a beeyootiful demolition of Arthur Miller. He was the salesman all right...)

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?id=5704&issue=2005-02-19

"Why couldn't they leave him alone? Why couldn't every single one of them without any exception whatsoever just go right away from where he was and leave him alone?"

Also forgot to say about Lucky Jim, that Amis's book struck a democratic blow for freedom in its choice of character and his outlook. Before L.J heroes of comic novels were pretty upper class and often just twits.

I finished the book last night. Is it Orwell-monomania to find it interesting that the solemn ex-soldier Michie's girlfriend is named Eileen O'Shaughnessy? It's a common enough name of course but it also happens to be the name of Orwell's first wife, and there are some definite similarities in that story to *Keep The Aspidistra Flying*.

Re: Amis being either at or just past the point of becoming an ex-Communist when he wrote this, I wouldn't be surprised if it was driven by resentment at the guilt-inducing appeals of a very demanding organization as well as by reading too much Maugham.

Eileen O'Shaughnessy? It's a common enough name of course

It is?

OK, it isn't? I was just thinking that "Eileen" and "O'Shaughnessy" are both popular Irish names so they must appear together every so often. But it's interesting, no?

I am usually very wary of these kind of name-associations (cf. all that nonsense about 'Mr. Jones' back in the Scottish newsgroup), but in this case I think it's a dead giveaway.

Good point about names tho we did just have that David Lodge mixup. Yes, I think it's a dead giveaway too, especially in a novel that begins with a disappointed and sarcastic twentysomething young man rationing his cigarettes for lack of pocket-money. I was just qualifying the suggestion so I wouldn't sound all "Bob Dylan Wrote This Song 'Specially For Me."