Why Lucky Jim Turned Roght-Obituary of Kingsley Amis

25 Pages 6213 Words

When Kingsley Amis died last year at the age of 73, the general verdict was that he had been the greatest comic novelist of his generation. After making his mark with Lucky Jim (1954) he never looked back, as one comic novel after the other flowed from his pen. Such was the continued acclaim for his work that in 1986 he won the Booker prize for The Old Devils. As a contributor to The Spectator put it, 'He was above all quick-minded, verbally agile, terribly funny, a vigorous persecutor of bores, pseuds and wankers and a most tremendous mimic.'1

Yet many have wondered just how funny and critical Amis, particularly the Amis of the later novels, really was. After all Amis became notoriously hostile to progressive causes and a political supporter of Margaret Thatcher. He was rewarded with a CBE in 1981 and knighted in 1990. Far from being a vigorous persecutor he seemed to have joined the ranks of bores, pseuds and wankers. The heroes of his novels appeared more and more to be the mouthpiece for Amis's pet hates, uttering a never ending stream of extremely unfunny and narrow- (rather than quick-) minded attacks on gays, nuclear disarmers, women's libbers, and so on. What, it might be said, is the point of reading these novels when a visit to the local pub and an interview with the bar bore would yield the same reactionary rant? Perhaps, though, this is too simplistic a dismissal, one which stems from confusing creator and character. Shouldn't we instead put aside what we know about Amis's personal opinions and value the novels for holding up a mirror to the unpleasant realities of our society? This is the view of the liberal minded literary critic Malcolm Bradbury:

In later works, like Jake's Thing (1978) and Stanley and the Women (1984), he examined the growing gender conflicts between men and women and their impact on the family and on male psychology. And his prize-winning The Old Devils (1986) showed his cantankerously mortal se...