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September 29, 2004
the father of the son
Kingsley Amis' body of work is both extensive and consistently worthwhile, which is rare for an author so prolific. His best books, like 'Lucky Jim', and 'That Uncertain Feeling' are timeless, and are as hilarious now as they must have been 40 years ago when they were published- but even his lesser-known books, like 'I Like It Here' and 'Take a Girl Like You' have such a perfect focus and mixture of both beautiful descriptions and comic set-pieces that it's hard to imagine that the man ever made a mis-step. Amis the elder seems to have possessed an almost unshakeable grasp of the balance between writing something plot-heavy and writing something that would be regarded as fluff or that merely functioned as scaffolding for his jokes. His prose is wildly inventive; definitely the kind of stuff that you go back and read just to appreciate on a sentential level.
And although Martin Amis, Kingsley's son, is an excellent writer in his own right, 'Dead Babies' was the only work of his we ever really enjoyed even near as much as any one of his father's. If you're going to start anywhere with K. Amis' stuff, start with 'Lucky Jim'- it has a laugh-to-page ratio as high as Sedaris' books. Plus, you know, it's a classic campus novel. Just don't watch the movie, we hear it's pretty much an adaptational rape.
Posted by matt at September 29, 2004 08:00 AM
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