Kingsley Amis

Amis achieved popular success with his first novel Lucky Jim, which is considered the exemplary novel of Fifties Britain. The novel won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction and Amis was associated with the writers labelled Angry Young Men. Lucky Jim is a seminal work, the first English novel featuring an ordinary man as anti-hero. As a poet, Amis was associated with The Movement.

Lucky Jim (1954)

Lucky Jim is set sometime around 1950 and follows the exploits of the titular protagonist James Dixon, a reluctant lecturer at an English university. It exemplifies the use of a precise but plain-spoken narrative voice.

Dixon is not particularly dedicated to his job, having taken it because he feels that he'd be no use as a schoolteacher and unable to obtain work in any other field. Having made a particularly bad impression he is concerned about being fired, and seeks to gain approval by maintaining good relations with his superior, the tedious Professor Welch, and by attempting to get his article on historical shipbuilding methods published. Jim is largely without tact and prudence, character traits exagerated by his difficulty in accepting the pretension of Welch and others. This attitude towards pretension is possibly his most important trait, and Jim is often understood as representing a new type of existensial character who is much different than the French style of existensial protagonist seen in the works of Jean Paul-Sartre. The novel culminates in Jim's speech on "Merrye England," which he gives in order to please Welch. The speech goes horribly wrong as Jim uncontrollable begins to mock Welch and everything else he hates while giving the speech; he finally goes into convulsions and passes out. Welch, of course, fires Jim. However, a wealthy Scottish business man who seems to have a tacit respect for Jim's individuality and attitude towards pretension give Jim a good job in London that pays much better than his lecturing position. Jim finally has the last laugh as Christine, who had been engaged to Welch's son, decides to assume a relationship with him in London. The end of the book has Jim and Christine bumping into the Welchs on the street; Jim can't withhold from walking right up to them with Christine on his arm and exploding in laughter.