The main problem with this book is that I didn’t find it funny and, with a few exceptions, it was a boring and verbose procession of weak, unlikeable characters and narrative developments that somehow manage to be simultaneously implausible and predictable.
The main protagonist, Jim Dixon, an alcoholic junior academic in the history department of an unspecified provincial university, is depicted as intelligent and capable of making quick decisions on the hoof but also of being profoundly half-witted. We read that he is trying to save his career, after getting off to a bad start, by oiling up to his boss Professor Welch. To this end he attends said boss’s house for a weekend of cultural activities but halfway through seems to decide that he can’t be bothered and goes to the pub to get drunk. Why Jim would choose to attend the event, an active attempt at saving his career, but then sabotage his own aims so violently seems totally inexplicable to me. Equally, while at the party he gets one of his fellow lodgers to call up and pretend his parents have come to see him to get him out of some of the proceedings. Again, this is a far too facile and risky a strategy for anyone to really consider in his position. Wouldn’t his boss want to see his parents? Wouldn’t they be able to check his story with his fellow lodgers? For a man shown to have sharp wits in his exchanges with Professor’s son Bertrand this kind of idiocy isn’t at all of a piece. I was left feeling annoyed at what I thought was sloppy character construction, which probably would have been OK if the results had produced side splitting laughter but the ‘comedic’ incidents that ensue are more likely to induce the reader to roll their eyes.
This incident is not isolated. Jim is also involved in a predictable love quandary whereby he is sort-of-involved-but-not-really-involved with Margaret, a colleague who has recently been dumped and attempted suicide, who he doesn’t really like. This seems inexplicable, given that he is unfazed by making other socially unpopular decisions like fighting all the time with his boss’s son, and he doesn’t even find her attractive. He also adopts a schizophrenic approach to his interactions with Margaret; sometimes behaving in a caring and considerate way and other times totally disregarding her feelings. Perhaps his alcohol consumption is supposed to explain this away but I couldn’t shake the feeling that his character is inconsistently conceived.
The other participant in Jim’s love predicament is his boss’s son’s more attractive girlfriend, Christine. While attempting to woo Christine, he asks her to take a taxi home with him from a College ball all the characters are attending. Her boyfriend, Bertrand, the son of Prof Welch, is ignoring her so Jim orders a taxi, makes the proposal to Christine and waits outside expectantly. Then, just as his taxi is about to arrive, he makes the decision to steal the Professor of Music’s taxi instead for no good reason except to allow the author to drone on for a few more pages about the problems this causes him. The whole incident was totally without merit as there was no reason for him to do it, no explanation offered as to why he did it and nothing funny arises as a result of him having done it. Finally, he manages to snog her at the end of the taxi journey but then breaks off relations with her for no discernible reason except to enable a predictable reconciliation at the end of the book. This incident only serves to reinforce the impression that the narrative, like the some of the characters, has been thrown together at random.
Other aspects of the book that grated included the sneering, snobbish tone adopted by the author when talking about the College, the somewhat floral and pretentious language employed when more simple constructions would serve just as well and the misogyny that sometimes seems to be yet another unattractive facet of Jim’s character and other times seems to be coming directly from the author. Perhaps the latter two can be attributed to the book’s date of publication (1954). Amis also seems in thrall to describing Jim’s various facial expressions in what, one assumes, are supposed to be amusing and evocative terms. However, most of them don’t really provide a very vivid picture and only really evoke feelings of confusion initially, which quickly turn into boredom as he repeats the trick several times during the course of the novel. The first example is this, “He’d draw his lower lip under his top teeth and by degrees retract his chin as far as possible, all this while dilating his eyes and nostrils” and they don’t get any better despite the numerous repetitions.
The better parts of the book involve Prof. Welch and his son Bertrand who are far more consistently odious and idiotic than the deranged depiction of Jim. The Prof’s absent minded self-obsession and his son’s garrulous pretension are far more coherent than the haphazard pick and mix of personalities we find in Jim. Indeed, Jim’s bad tempered interactions with Bertrand are one of the book’s highlights. However, it’s the contrast of Jim’s witty, decisive repartee displayed when jousting with Bertrand that jars so badly with his asinine flapping that caused me such distress. The end of the book identifies Jim as a sort of hero figure, finally getting his rewards after much hardship and tribulation. The problem with this is that he is not at all likeable during the course of the book and behaves in such an imbecilic manner it’s hard to develop any empathy for him as a character. The plot ‘twist’ whereby he not only gets Bertrand’s girl but also manages to unwittingly secure the job he is coveting from Christine’s aristocratic uncle is obvious from a distance of about 50 pages. This only added to my feelings of exasperation with the book and my hope that it would end soon, which it mercifully did! On a more positive note, the storyline about Margaret turning out to be an arch manipulator is much less expected and all the better for it.
I suppose if I was to try and argue against my criticisms of Jim then I’d say he is supposed to be a reflection of what we all are; an inconsistent and irregular mixture of characteristics by turns behaving well and terribly. However, unlike the heterogenous but believable characters that often make great writing so rich and enjoyable in this case it seems like Amis has tried to think of some ‘funny’ situations and then crowbar the protagonist into them using brute force. The overall effect was highly unsatisfactory and there wasn’t enough amusing material to counteract this impression.
