Although Kingsley Amis's acid satire of postwar British academic life has lost some of its bite in the four decades since it was published, it's still a rewarding read. And there's no denying how big an impact it had back then--Lucky Jim could be considered the first shot in the Oxbridge salvo that brought us Beyond the Fringe, That Was the Week That Was, and so much more.

In Lucky Jim, Amis introduces us to Jim Dixon, a junior lecturer at a British college who spends his days fending off the legions of malevolent twits that populate the school. His job is in constant danger, often for good reason. Lucky Jim hits the heights whenever Dixon tries to keep a preposterous situation from spinning out of control, which is every three pages or so. The final example of this--a lecture spewed by a hideously pickled Dixon--is a chapter's worth of comic nirvana. The book is not politically correct (Amis wasn't either), but take it for what it is, and you won't be disappointed.


From AudioFile
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. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

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