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96th out of 1,868 books
—
3,698 voters
Lucky Jim
Kingsley Amis has written a marvelously funny novel describing the attempts of England's postwar generation to break from that country's traditional class structure. When it appeared in England, Lucky Jim provoked a heated controversy in which everyone took sides. Even W. Somerset Maugham reviewed the book, happily with great favor: "Mr. Kingsley Amis is so talented, his o...more
Paperback, 272 pages
Published
September 1st 1993
by Penguin Classics
(first published 1954)
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Aug 07, 2011
Shovelmonkey1
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
be left for last on the 1001 list challenge
Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by:
1001 books... tricked again!
Meh.
What happened? I was really looking forward to reading this having become a fan of Kingsley Amis and his random assembly of hapless, oh-so-british characters after reading The Green Man (its on the 1001 books list so check it out!) and so I picked up Lucky Jim.
Meh.
The trademark and original (this was his first book) Kingsley characterisations were here but this time they all seemed flattened and thinly stretched. Like that last pan cake when you're running out of batter. All of the characte...more
What happened? I was really looking forward to reading this having become a fan of Kingsley Amis and his random assembly of hapless, oh-so-british characters after reading The Green Man (its on the 1001 books list so check it out!) and so I picked up Lucky Jim.
Meh.
The trademark and original (this was his first book) Kingsley characterisations were here but this time they all seemed flattened and thinly stretched. Like that last pan cake when you're running out of batter. All of the characte...more
Satanic Rituals Desk, The New York Review of Books, New York:
"TREMBLE, MORTAL! THOU HAS SUMMONED BELPHEGOR, LORD OF THE OPENING, PRINCE OF HELL. WHAT WOULDST THOU ASK OF THE DEMON OF DISCOVERY?"
"Oh Mighty Belphegor, the time has come to plan NYRB's Fall 2012 lineup. What would you have us publish, Lord?"
"LUCKY JIM."
"Beg pardon?"
"LUCKY JIM. KINGSLEY AMIS. ALWAYS WANTED TO READ IT."
"But--but, Lord! Hasn't Penguin Classics already published it?"
"I CARE NOT."
"But...what I mean to say, Master, is tha...more
"TREMBLE, MORTAL! THOU HAS SUMMONED BELPHEGOR, LORD OF THE OPENING, PRINCE OF HELL. WHAT WOULDST THOU ASK OF THE DEMON OF DISCOVERY?"
"Oh Mighty Belphegor, the time has come to plan NYRB's Fall 2012 lineup. What would you have us publish, Lord?"
"LUCKY JIM."
"Beg pardon?"
"LUCKY JIM. KINGSLEY AMIS. ALWAYS WANTED TO READ IT."
"But--but, Lord! Hasn't Penguin Classics already published it?"
"I CARE NOT."
"But...what I mean to say, Master, is tha...more
Well, this book was picked up as part of the humour club group read, otherwise I'd probably never have thought of reading it. I'm glad I did. Its not the laugh riot it proclaims to be, but that might be that the humour is very much of the time it was written. It was enough to raise a few smiles, and the odd chortle, except the lecture scene, which did have me laughing properly.
Many people claim to dislike the main character, and I can see why, you are essentially seeing everything from his poin...more
Many people claim to dislike the main character, and I can see why, you are essentially seeing everything from his poin...more
Dec 22, 2008
Tamra
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2008-shelved,
fiction-and-literature
Lucky Jim reminds me of The Beatles. I like the Beatles. I enjoy the Beatles. I can recite all the reasons why The Beatles are supposed to be the greatest, most culturally relevant rock band in history. And yet... As a person who grew up post-Beatles, and who has heard The Beatles ALL THE TIME her entire life, the difference between the impact that I am told The Beatles should have on me, and the actual impact that The Beatles have on me, is a huge, yawning chasm of incomprehensibility.
Lucky Jim...more
Lucky Jim...more
The gold standard for seditious British humor. As an old man, Kingsley converted to a Tory welcome at all the best clubs. However, when he wrote this diamond he was a Trotskyite undergraduate who had seen combat while most of his contemporaries had not. Most of his dons at Oxford sat out the war as well. He already decided he had had enough of rules & regulations in the Army. Yet he must get on in college somehow. Most of the book depicts Kingsley's sometimes clandestine, sometimes open warf...more
Ever been going along in your boring little way, doing what your do, when something hits your funny bone and you blurt out a laugh. And you, only you, would have found this thing that funny. This book was exactly that for me. The first five chapters bored me to death. And then came Amis' description of waking up from a bender. "...he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again." That line. Yup. Actually the whole chapter is marvelously funny. Eventually the story would drag....more
Acabei de ler este livro. Um dos aspectos que me suscitou curiosidade e vontade de ler o livro foram de facto as referências como "O Livro mais divertido da segunda metade do séc. XX", e "o melhor romance cómico do séc XX".
Na verdade, esforcei-me um pouco a acreditar nestas referências conforme fui lendo a narrativa.
Jim é uma personagem deslocada em qualquer ambiente, metendo-se em situações complicadas, algumas delas bastante caricatas, e saindo delas de uma maneira cobarde e com poucos escrúpu...more
Na verdade, esforcei-me um pouco a acreditar nestas referências conforme fui lendo a narrativa.
Jim é uma personagem deslocada em qualquer ambiente, metendo-se em situações complicadas, algumas delas bastante caricatas, e saindo delas de uma maneira cobarde e com poucos escrúpu...more
Jim Dixon is like a cross between Holden Caulfield and Adrian Mole. Maybe just ever so slightly smarter than either, but just as cynical, aloof, and full of troublemaking buffoonery. That type of humor hits some people in just the right way, while leaving others in the cold. Personally, I was in hysterics.
This book is quite funny if you have worked in upper levels of academia, and particularly hysterical if you have worked at a UK university. The skewering academic humor still rings true today -...more
This book is quite funny if you have worked in upper levels of academia, and particularly hysterical if you have worked at a UK university. The skewering academic humor still rings true today -...more
Despite the title, you don’t start out thinking of Jim Dixon as particularly lucky. He was low man on the totem pole at a provincial English university where the one on top, Professor Welch, was a quirky twit of a man —- absent-minded and egocentric with an excess of class prerogative. Jim was not so lucky in love either. The woman he was with, a fellow academic, plied whatever feminine wiles were available to one with a rather plain appearance. Christine, the more striking young lady Jim met an...more
I didn't know much about this book, but had seen it on a few "best novels of the 20th century lists." I took it on a trip to Toronto with a few other lightweight books, and read it last. There were two key aspects about the book that hooked me. The first was the wonderful cast of very memorable and slightly crazy characters. Even the protagonist -- one Jim Dixon -- was host to several quirky characteristics. Yet the author managed to stay within the bounds of belief.
The second aspect was the wri...more
The second aspect was the wri...more
Ehh, finally finished, but only because I had to return it to the library. I had such high expectations for this novel because its description in 'Faulks on Fiction' was so interesting, but the novel itself ended up being a big pile of fail. Delightful as James Dixon's rants are, they get old pretty soon (especially since he only ever rants about how much he hates his job and how much better he is than everybody else) and nothing else happens in the novel. Absolutely nothing. It doesn't help eit...more
Among the best books I've read. Funny as all hell, and exactly the sort of funny I like. This is one of the few books I've read multiple times. Every few years I get the itch to read it again.
What is there to say about Lucky Jim? When reading this book i was constantly reminded of how much James Dixon reminded me of the ridiculous situations that I have gotten myself into while in college. In a certain sense reading this book shed a really positive light on how I interpret all the mistakes I made. For the most part it made me laugh at myself :)
I really enjoyed reading Lucky Jim because it was my first Kingsley Amis novel (and certainly not my last). There are moments when reading the...more
I really enjoyed reading Lucky Jim because it was my first Kingsley Amis novel (and certainly not my last). There are moments when reading the...more
A smart, smart, funny book. Humor always lies in precision and detail, and Amis describes physiological suffering and boredom with uncanny exactness. The novel is also well-plotted, without any clunkiness until the end (where, as with too many very funny books, the author rolls up his sleeves and gets to the work of suspense-building). His characterizations, even in the wholesale satire of Professor Welch, are complicated and rich -- except for the women. Though Margaret is intriguingly inconsis...more
A wonderful, scathing critique of academia and the seminal campus novel, Lucky Jim remains hilarious to this day. Amis tackles issues that transcend post-WWII Great Britain; the sense of helpless dissatisfaction with one's life choices, the wide gulf between what we think and how we act, and the masturbatory nature of what are considered "intellectual" pursuits are all addressed with his sparkling wit. Perhaps most enjoyable for the reader, though, is how Amis arms his Jim with a love of pranks,...more
I remember this book as being the only bright flame among the dull, grey embers of a college class on Modern British Literature. Unlike the sleepy "scandals" of D.H. Lawrence, Lucky Jim made me want to stay awake in class or on the bus or wherever it was I went with him. I tried reading more of his work ( The Anti-Death Leauge, The Old Devils), mostly out of respect for his son, Martin, but I couldn't be bothered to finish them. They just didn't seem to have the same spunk and spew that his fir...more
Reading Kingley Amis's "Lucky Jim" as "a flawless comic novel" (back cover) might be a bit strange since the protagonist's name as 'Dixon' (his family name) has been generously used in the novel, that is, unconventional 'Dixon', with formal 'Mr Dixon' somewhere (p. 181), a few 'James' (p. 162, p. 185, p. 187, etc.) and 'Jim' (p. 168, p. 169, p. 171, etc.). His readers could not help wondering why not 'Jim' to conform with the novel's title. Possibly it is a unique way in addressing a colleague b...more
It's easy to call a book funny and it's also easy to consider who is making the claim and use your own judgement to determine the value of such a statement. This very well might be the funniest book ever if you've never read Orkeny, Zoschenko, Voinovich, Ring Lardner, Rabelais etc. etc. So the next recently-unstuffed Englishman that wants to sell me funny books, bluegrass or BBQ just might get the worst deadfish handshake I can muster for his efforts. Lucky Jim has some funny parts - but if you...more
This novel tells the story of a junior lecturer, Jim Dixon, as he attempts to secure his standing at the rural English university at which he teaches history. His strategy is to please Prof. Welch who controls the history dept. Dixon, however, acts carelessly and drinks excessively. Rather than ingratiating himself to Welsh, he offends him and his family and is forced into humorous contortions to attempt to make amends.
The novel also follows Dixon’s interactions with two potential love interes...more
Not sure exactly what to say about this book. At points it is very, very funny. It is also very well written—there are few authors who can get inside their protagonist minds and do it so well, amusingly, while at the same time pointing out all the little details on life and analyzing them (read: making fun of).
On the other hand I feel a bit flat after finishing. I think it is because of the happy ending—gets the girl, gets a bette job, moves to London—when really what is the best is Jim Dixon as...more
On the other hand I feel a bit flat after finishing. I think it is because of the happy ending—gets the girl, gets a bette job, moves to London—when really what is the best is Jim Dixon as...more
A history lecturer at a not-too-prestigious British university, Jim Dixon, is compelled to please his superior, the amiable but tedious Professor Welch. He is invited to medieval musical revivals, meets Welch’s fatuous, bearded painter son Bertrand, and falls in love with the latter’s delightful girlfriend despite being bound by ties of guilt to a needy female Professor who recently attempted suicide.
It’s a brilliantly comic novel, bursting with anger at the unfairness of Britain’s Old School Ti...more
It’s a brilliantly comic novel, bursting with anger at the unfairness of Britain’s Old School Ti...more
Considerada literatura cómica, de um dos melhores autores de humor do século XX.
Versa a história de um professor universitário na província inglesa, James Dixon (Jim, o Sortudo), que vive enfastiado com a realidade que o rodeia. Nada o satisfaz: nem o local onde vive e as pessoas com quem convive, nem o trabalho, nem a relação amorosa que mantém com uma jovem protegida pelo seu mentor no departamento de História na universidade.
Acaba por descobrir outra realidade, após algumas peripécias, que fa...more
Versa a história de um professor universitário na província inglesa, James Dixon (Jim, o Sortudo), que vive enfastiado com a realidade que o rodeia. Nada o satisfaz: nem o local onde vive e as pessoas com quem convive, nem o trabalho, nem a relação amorosa que mantém com uma jovem protegida pelo seu mentor no departamento de História na universidade.
Acaba por descobrir outra realidade, após algumas peripécias, que fa...more
I just remember finishing this book and thinking to myself how wonderful it felt to finally have a literary hero. Jim Dixon is - if I remember correctly - a bitter and rather pathetic academic enrolled in entirely the wrong field (Medieval History). And yet he is the most intensely likeable and entertaining character I think I've ever come across in the pages of a book. I rooted for him from beginning to end, and turned the last page feeling satisfied in a very unique way.
'Dixon was alive again....more
'Dixon was alive again....more
NOT-SO LUCKY, LUCKY JIM
“What actually would be next: a masked hold-up, a smash, floods, a burst tyre an electric storm with falling trees and meteorites, a diversion, a low-level attack by Communist aircraft, sheep, the driver stung by a hornet?”.
Jim Dixon is the main character of the novel “Lucky Jim”, written by Kingsley Amis. During the whole plot, Jim is responsible to amuse us with his own disasters and complicated situations. We could say that he was born with hard luck by his side, since...more
“What actually would be next: a masked hold-up, a smash, floods, a burst tyre an electric storm with falling trees and meteorites, a diversion, a low-level attack by Communist aircraft, sheep, the driver stung by a hornet?”.
Jim Dixon is the main character of the novel “Lucky Jim”, written by Kingsley Amis. During the whole plot, Jim is responsible to amuse us with his own disasters and complicated situations. We could say that he was born with hard luck by his side, since...more
Why was “Lucky Jim” such a funny book, in spite of some serious themes? One reader suggested that it was because we could all identify with Jim’s sense of being out of step with the world around him, and enjoy his sometimes infantile responses to that feeling, such as pulling bizarre faces in secret, and playing practical jokes such as anonymous letters, faked phone calls, and stealing taxis. The proposer demonstrated a memorable face of his own which he was wont to pull when exiting unsatisfact...more
Perhaps I'm a stuffed-shirted bore, but I didn't find Lucky Jim anywhere near as funny as it was made out to be. Granted, it did make me smile sometimes, and laugh out loud occasionally. But it doesn't seem to have much else going for it. There's wit enough, but much of the comedy is physical rather than verbal, with strong elements of farce, and would probably work better on stage or screen than in print. The language is gratingly formal and often feels mechanical, even when viewed as a parody...more
Having seen the Boulting Brothers’ film version of this book, and not been particularly enamoured of it (principally due to a rather annoying theme tune), I had to hoped to be rather more impressed by the original book. Unfortunately, I was not.
Although it is a reasonably readable account of the ups and downs (mainly downs) of an aspiring regional academic in the post-War period, the eponymous James Dixon (curiously, always referred to as “Dixon” in the book, never James or even Jim), I found it...more
Although it is a reasonably readable account of the ups and downs (mainly downs) of an aspiring regional academic in the post-War period, the eponymous James Dixon (curiously, always referred to as “Dixon” in the book, never James or even Jim), I found it...more
The only Kingsley Amis book in Hallie Ephron's "1001 Books for Every Mood". She placed this under the mood category "FOR HYSTERICAL." It got four stars (the highest possible) for "literary merit"(like Gunter Grass' The Tin Drum which I had just reviewed, by the way), plus four more symbols: one for "provocative" (books that make you think or provoked controversy); another one for "influential" (books that influenced people or defined an era); the third for "humorous" (books that make you laugh);...more
It makes me squirm with unease to give a book, any book, a full five stars out of five, because it seems to suggest that there isn't anything better to be found out there.
It makes it doubly worse, because I can think of a dozen obvious problems with Lucky Jim right at the outset. Objectively, it doesn't stand out particularly from a whole lot of mid- to late-20th century British fiction. It doesn't have the bite of Evelyn Waugh's finest, it doesn't play out on as many levels as some of Malcolm B...more
It makes it doubly worse, because I can think of a dozen obvious problems with Lucky Jim right at the outset. Objectively, it doesn't stand out particularly from a whole lot of mid- to late-20th century British fiction. It doesn't have the bite of Evelyn Waugh's finest, it doesn't play out on as many levels as some of Malcolm B...more
Kigsley Amis's Lucky Jim is a humorous book with an academic setting and an aptitude for exposing real life. Built around the premise that class segregation is a barrier to modernity, Lucky Jim is the story of a young assistant professor, Jim, who tries to save his job by obtaining tenure in the England of the 1950s. In doing so, Jim has to overcome poor origins, a drinking problem, total lack of academic prowess, and an inability to go around women. This trivial setting (for the people of the 2...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The 1000 Books Bo...: What did you think about 'Lucky Jim'? | 1 | 7 | Apr 15, 2013 06:55am | |
| NYRB Classics: Discussion for Lucky Jim—Janurary pick | 36 | 55 | Feb 25, 2013 01:42pm | |
| A-Z Penguin Class...: Lucky Jim | 5 | 26 | Oct 21, 2011 01:39pm |
Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than twenty novels, three collections of poetry, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. He fathered the English novelist Martin Amis.
Kingsley Amis was born in Clapham, Wandsworth, Couty of London (now South London), England, the son of William Robert Am...more
More about Kingsley Amis...
Kingsley Amis was born in Clapham, Wandsworth, Couty of London (now South London), England, the son of William Robert Am...more
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“If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.”
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87 people liked it
“... all his faces were designed to express rage or loathing. Now that something had happened which really deserved a face, he had none to celebrate it with. As a kind of token, he made his Sex Life in Ancient Rome face.”
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27 people liked it
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