Lucky Jim

By: Kingsley Amis

Narrated by: James Lailey

A hilarious satire about college life and high-class manners, this is a classic of postwar English literature.

Regarded by many as the finest, and funniest, comic novel of the twentieth century, Lucky Jim remains as trenchant, withering, and eloquently misanthropic as when it first scandalized readers in 1954.

This is the story of Jim Dixon, a hapless lecturer in medieval history at a provincial university who knows better than most that “there was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.” Kingsley Amis’s scabrous debut leads the audience through a gallery of emphatically English bores, cranks, frauds, and neurotics with whom Dixon must contend in one way or another in order to hold on to his cushy academic perch and win the girl of his fancy.

More than just a merciless satire of cloistered college life and stuffy postwar manners, Lucky Jim is an attack on the forces of boredom and a work of art that at once distills and extends an entire tradition of English comic writing, from Fielding and Dickens through Wodehouse and Waugh.

As Christopher Hitchens wrote, “If you can picture Bertie or Jeeves being capable of actual malice, and simultaneously imagine Evelyn Waugh forgetting about original sin, you have the combination of innocence and experience that makes this short romp so imperishable.”

©1953 Kingsley Amis (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Satisfactory, but a Bit Stale

I suspect this novel was a lot more pleasing to the reader in the 50s when it was written.

Amis likely well caught the mood and matters of life on English campuses back then, with the faculty and all that made up their lives.

It frankly felt mostly stale to me now in 2023. And so I believe it hasn’t worn particularly well. But, actually, I’m not sure it was ever that strong creatively or literarily.

I’ve long admired Amis. But I can’t offer much fresh testimony here for why.

wonderful language

loved narration and though not much of a story kept me intensely interested throughout

A classic comic novel that everyone should read, very well read.

This is probably Kingsley Amis’s best known and best loved book, but they’re all pretty good. Not a bad one to start with, full of brilliant and often hilarious writing and some very candid observations about the sexes which might get him cancelled today. If you like this one, try “that uncertain feeling,” unfortunately not available on audible.

University Life

University Life

A series of conversations and meetings that give us the flavor of university life among the professors..

Great narration

All-time favorite!

This book has been a favorite of mine for years, and I was excited to see it finally available on Audible. Highly recommend it. The narration was tight and easy to listen to.