At the same time, Lucky Jim rejected the literary experimentalism set down by Modernist writers of the previous era-such as the avant-garde approach of the Bloomsbury Group in the 1920s and 1930s-preferring instead to kick back against priggish snobbery and entrenched pretentiousness. In Lucky Jim, we see Dixon contend with the manipulative wiles of Margaret Peel, a love interest he attempts to shake-off, who is essentially a gross caricature of the kind of self-absorbed meddler who no doubt peppered the upper social echelons of post-war Britain.Īs a work of satire attacking this underlying seam of class conflict and social hypocrisy, Kingsley Amis’ debut into the world of fiction was an attempt to undermine the reader’s faith in the academic establishment and, by extension, the status quo. The main character, in truth, was partially inspired by Kingsley Amis’ contemporary, the poet Philip Larkin, who today is regarded as one of Britain’s best-ever poets but whose personality seemed rather eccentric and world-weary-in other words, a perfect hero. The novel tells the story of Jim Dixon, a medieval history lecturer at a red brick university, who finds himself facing up against the phony-minded pretentiousness of his university superior, Professor Welch, whilst at the same time clumsily navigating his way towards a romantic denouement. Despite winning the Somerset Maugham Award in 1955, there are few books in the pantheon of British contemporary fiction which get overlooked as much as Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis.

Lucky jim review