"Varsity Blues." Lucky Jim

‘The AV Club’ is a pop culture website which I enjoy. One of its irregular features is ‘Better late than never?’ in which a writer takes on a piece of culture that was hugely popular or acclaimed in its day but which the writer has never experienced till now. Usually they focus on films, but sometimes music or even more rarely novels.  The writer is coming to the work weighed down with expectation and preconceptions or even just the awareness of what they are taking on has the reputation of being ‘great.’

It can be a problem when reading classic literature, and maybe what puts people off: the fear they won’t like the work, and if so, the problem must be with them. On the other hand, finding you like a famous novel can be a relief. I didn’t like Bleak House as much as I hoped I would, though I still found it rewarding to read. On the other hand, Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim, with the reputation of one of the funniest novels of the 20^th century, was as enjoyable as promised.

The introductory essay (I had one of the new Penguin editions with the old white and orange covers) was off-putting when it said the novel wasn’t as continuously funny as remembered. I stopped reading then and went straight to the text. I have toyed with this idea before and now I recommend it: with Penguin editions (or any with a helpful introductory essay) of books you have not read before, skip the introduction, read the book and come back to the introduction afterwards.

Lucky Jim is James Dixon a junior lecturer in the history department of a provincial university in Britain in the early 50s. He is trying to hold on to his job and work out his romantic life. Working with and against him are his Head of Department Professor Welch, a classic eccentric and vague don, Welch’s wife, their egregious and pretentious son Bertrand, Jim’s neurotic girlfriend Margaret, and other colleagues in the History Department.

This is a funny novel, a combination of situation and character-driven comedy. One of the best laughs I had was from a throw-away phrase, slightly funny in itself, made hilarious as a culmination of a minor subplot. That’s genius comedy writing, not the relentless rhythm of set-up and punchline, but revealing humour you didn’t see coming even while the details were being prepared in front of you. The novel also contains the single best description of a hangover ever committed to paper

Amis’ has been criticised for his female characters. Christine, the object of Jim’s affection is a fairly shallow creation. She did come to life for one scene, when helping Jim cover up his indiscretions after a drunken night at the Welch’s. Jim’s other love interest, Margaret, was a richer character. Perhaps I’ve just known more Margarets than Christines. Worse luck for me.

Amis was counted as one of the Angry Young Men, attacking the suffocating complacency of post-war England, a label he rejected. Lucky Jim is not angry in the way Look back in anger is. Nor, oddly, as dated. Stories about young men desperate for jobs, caught in impossible relationships, yearning for something, and someone better, while battling pretentious artists, hopeless bosses, and a sense of being trapped are always going to resonate. Perhaps Amis wasn’t satisfied with the state of the world, but then what thinking person ever is?  However, I don’t think he was going for a comment on the state of the nation.

And so another classic novel read. Another drop of water from the sea, another grain of sand from the beach, examined. What do we hope to achieve, we readers? What vast mosaic will we one day step back from and finally see?

[PS I realise now I've misinterpreted this novel. But going to uni in the late 80s and early 90s in Australia meant your tedious self-important lecturers were inevitably left-wing. Hence my mistake!]