Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
The story centers on James (Jim) Dixon, a lecturer in medieval history at an English university. He doesn’t particularly enjoy his job, nor is he good at it and his working class ways don’t fit in very well with the other, more upper-middle class staff at the university. The comedy centres on the relationship between Jim and his girlfriend Margaret Peel and the young girlfriend of his superior’s daughter, Catherine Callaghan. Jim falls for Christine the first time he meets her, and has a similar contempt for her boyfriend that he has for most of the other characters in the novel.
The story follows his mishaps at work and in love as he attempts to fend of his current girlfriend and woo the younger more attractive Catherine.
I thought Lucky Jim was OK, but wouldn’t share the praise some of the critics had for it. Perhaps if I’d read it in the 1950s I may have had a different experience, but I certainly didn’t think it was “laugh out loud funny” or a “comic masterpiece” as I had read elsewhere. It was however an enjoyable, easy read.
Tags: Comedy, kingsley amis, lucky jim
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