Lucky Jim

Rating:
Summary: Holds Up Well
Review: Lucky Jim holds up awfully well for a comic novel about British academics circa 1947. Tweed jackets and glasses of sherry, medieval musical's and lectures so dull, one must drink a bottle of good scotch to get through the muddle.

Jim Dixon is hanging on by his academic fingernails. Professor Welsh could hire him on for another year, but first Jim must be Welsh's scholastic slave. Margaret is the dowdy love interest and she has a way of locking a bloke up with hysterical outburst and suicidal pill popping. The effete Bertrand, Welsh's son has the lovely Christine and a penchant for snobbery and married women. Christine is a London girl and out of Jim's league. Somehow Jim and Christine come together because they both disdain the heavy-handed collegiate snobbery.

Kingsley Amis made his career with this novel. It is a classic and I think will hold up for all time.


Rating:
Summary: Utterly Hilarious
Review: No wonder this book is deemed a "Classic." James Dixon is a 20th Century everyman. Poor beleaguered James Dixon. With his academic career hanging on a thread, not-so-lucky Jim has to kowtow to his witless superior and his witless superior's hugely annoying wife and equally obnoxious son during a weekend get together. From there, everything goes downhill fast for Dixon. But out of Dixon's dilemma comes wonderfully comic moments as he attempts to extracate himself from a bad situation. Amis creates wonderful, quirky but believeable central characters (and secondary) and Dixon's hilarious internal dialogue kept me laughing out loud -- I should think we can all relate to Dixon's thoughts (rude, catty, cynical, nasty, incisive, mocking, witty and insecure by turns) as we routinely censor what we will say aloud. There are so many terrific moments in this book that I immediately re-read it so as to savor them all over again.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for anyone who ever went to college...
Review: What a treat to pick up this book whilst I was taking a break from cramming for finals. It totally put my academic career into perspective. The book is witty, charming and chucklesome on almost every page. I could read it again.