Book # 112 Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

While in New York we visited the gift shop at the New York Public Library and I used that occasion as an excuse to buy a new book. I picked out Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis because it was on the extended 101-200 portion of the list. I had no idea what it was about.

Lucky Jim is about a young medieval history professor at an English college that is nearing the end of his first year on the job. He's worried that he's going to be fired at the end of the year because he is always making bad impressions with everyone important on campus. It doesn't help that he is a bit of a lazy drunkard that likes to play childish jokes on people. The novel follows him around while he has to try and make a final good impression on an important professor... and during this time he meets the professor's son (whom he hates) and the son's girlfriend (whom he finds perfect in every way). There is also another professor that he sort of liked, but she is recovering from a failed suicide attempt. He is also asked to give a presentation that could have a large impact on whether or not he gets fired.

The novel is very funny and even though Jim has many faults and does some mean stuff, I was always rooting for him. The situations he gets himself in are very comical and all of the characters are well written and unique. I found the scene when he must take the bus to the train station to meet a girl before her train leaves laugh out loud funny. Here's a sample :

"Just then the bus rounded a corner and slowed abruptly, then stopped. Making a lot of noise a farm tractor was laboriously pulling, at right angles across the road, something that looked like the springs of a giant's bed... Dixon thought that he really would have to run downstairs and knife the drivers of both vehicles; what next? what next? What actually would be next: a masked hold-up, a smash, floods, a burst tyre, an electric storm with falling trees and meteorites, a diversion, a low-level attack by Communist aircraft, sheep, the driver stung by hornets? He'd choose the last of these if consulted."

I'll give it an A.