Despite the ire displayed here by some silly ideologues, this is really a first-rate novel by the inimitable Kingsley Amis. He creates a character with an authentic voice, a character that is both comically befuddled and ultimately depressingly confused. But always likeable, likeable because he is true and concerned. His portrait of his ex-wife and his present wife are biting, although at the beginning he is certainly taken with and devoted to that present wife. But the male characters don't really fare much better. They're mostly foolishly powerless sots. To the extent it can be said to be misogynistic, its a misogynism that is earned. And a misogynism that is wonderfully comic. Amis's male characters in his fiction have suffered much worse. Grow up.
As a corrective if you like, read Amis followup novel The Old Devils. It just might be the best novel ever written about romantic love between two old people that I've ever read. The genuine feeling the male protagonist has for a woman he loved and lost and comes into contact with again is so heartfelt that it is amazing. Read it and you'll see that Amis's views of women are complex and can't be so readily dismissed. This is what gives his work body and texture.
Best known novels of British writer Sir Kingsley William Amis include Lucky Jim (1954) and The Old Devils (1986).
This English poet, critic, and teacher composed more than twenty-three collections, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. He fathered Martin Amis.
William Robert Amis, a clerk of a mustard manufacturer, fathered him. He began his education at the city of London school, and went up to college of Saint John, Oxford, in April 1941 to read English; he met Philip Larkin and formed the most important friendship of his life. After only a year, the Army called him for service in July 1942. After serving as a lieutenant in the royal corps of signals in the Second World War, Amis returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree. He worked hard and got a first in English in 1947, and then decided to devote much of his time.
