It's a Kingsley Amis alright.

There's not really much to say about this one. The witty repartee is, the brutal asides are, and the air of misanthropy lingers long after, as in an elevator. The characters: real, pathetic, almost despisable. A few early caricatures turn out to be (surprisingly) fully-fleshed.

Amis tends to write most of his comic asides from the viewpoint of his main character/surrogate, in this case the of-course-drunk-but-not-as-bad-as-his-neighbors-or-colleagues Patrick. As usual, Amis allows for this character's general ignorance or short-sightedness and things turn out somewhat differently than telegraphed early on.

Expect serious alcoholism, a complexity to more characters than you'd expect, some overlong hand-wringing over cheating or thinking of cheating or even just getting it off and who with, and of course the good ol' K-A wit.


A couple of samples, for those who have read no Kingsley Amis:

"Now while I remember, you're to remember, if by any chance you do get offered a drink up there, grab it whether you want it or not. I'll find a use for it, I promise you." - to his wife, on the way to a party thrown by his employer

"He felt content, or more accurately, a good deal further from either vexation or panic than usual."

And one last one, on choice of drink:

"According to Jenny's father, whisky and water meant a whisky-drinker, but gin and water meant a serious drinker. Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for a tuppence."

Ah, gin, much-maligned back in the days when it didn't cost - what is it now, seven dollars? - a bottle. ( )

What an awful book this is. The cynicism that pervades it is unlikeable enough on its own, but into his dark cocktail Amis mixes in homophobia, anti-Semitism, and anti-immigrant sentiment. He routinely refers to members of these minorities as “one of them” and then smugly trots out lame stereotypes in the guise of seeming worldly. At best, you could use the word “dated”, and as there are very few real moments of humor here, it makes for a very unenjoyable read. I did find it ironic that in one of the laments that there were “no good areas left” in the city because of immigration, a character says that “an awful lot of people would go along with me; deplorable if you like, but there it is.” How ironic to see the adjective “deplorable” used, and indeed. ( )