Lucky Jim FROM THE PUBLISHER
Kingsley Amis has written a marvelously funny novel describing the attempts of England's postwar generation to break from that country's traditional class structure. When it appeared in England, LUCKY JIM provoked a heated controversy in which everyone took sides. Even W. Somerset Maugham reviewed the book, happily with great favor: "Mr. Kingsley Amis is so talented, his observations so keen, that you cannot fail to be convinced that the young men he so brilliantly describes truly represent the classes with which his novel is concerned."
FROM THE CRITICS
AudioFile - Robert I. Grundfest
It's nice to know that England's higher education system suffers from the same problems America's does. Poor Jim Dixon has to suffer a scatterbrained department head, cutthroat colleagues and fickle students. It's a good thing he's lucky he needs it. Paul Shelley's wonderful narration ably amplifies the story and brings vivid characters to life. His rich British accent is a joy, in addition to being very soothing. Shelley knows just how to read the text so we hear all the wit, anger and subtlety in Amis's words. He is especially good at capturing conversations in the book, knowing when to pause, stutter, feign outrage, etc. This makes listening to Lucky Jim a delicious experience. R.I.G. cAudioFile, Portland, Maine
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
"A classic comic novel, a seminal campus novel, and a novel which seized and expressed to the mood who came of age in the 1950s. But there is more to it than that...it's university setting functions primarily as the epitome of a stuffy, provincial bourgoise world into which the hero is promoted by education, and against his values and codes he rebels, at first inwardly and at last outwardly." — David Lodge
"Dixon make little dents in these smug fabric of hypocritical, humbugging, classdown British society...Amos cought the mood of post-war restiveness in a book which, does socially significant, wise, and still is extremely funny." — Anthony Burgess
Home
