Lucky Jim

Kingsley Amis

Apr 2010 · Penguin UK

About this ebook

Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling.

Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim was published in 1954, and is a hilarious satire of British university life. Jim Dixon is bored by his job as a medieval history lecturer. His days are only improved by pulling faces behind the backs of his superiors as he tries desperately to survive provincial bourgeois society, an unbearable 'girlfriend' and petty humiliation at the hands of Professor Welch.

Lucky Jim is one of the most famous and influential of all British post-War novels.

Ratings and reviews

I found the first act to be tedious and lazily formed, with character introductions feeling artificial, perfunctory and obvious. However the pacing is vastly better in the latter half and by the end I was rather sad to have to say goodbye to Dixon. It is true that the misogyny has dated the book very badly, but if you can forgive it for that and for the first 100 pages or so then there's a wonderful read here that largely deserves its reputation. The sequences with DIxon imitating others over the telephone are low-brow but effective, and still hold up remarkably well.

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About the author

Kingsley Amis was born in 1922 in south London. He wrote over twenty novels, beginning with Lucky Jim in 1954 - which established itself as an immediate classic. He also wrote prolifically on politics, films, poetry, education, science fiction and drink - an abiding interest. He was knighted in 1990, and died in 1995.