... They are mean, malicious, envious... . Charity, kindliness, generosity are qualities which they hold in contempt. They are scum." In 1970 Q. D. Leavis accused Amis of targeting as "the consistent objects of [his] animus" the "only bastions against barbarism: the university lecturer, the librarian, the grammar school master, the learned societies, the social worker. . . ." In 1978, twenty-four years and fifteen novels later, after
Lucky Jim had been translated into nine languages and gained further popularity as a movie, Amis's novel
Jake's Thing (1978) caused at least one critic to find himself "virtually retching at its sheer awfulness . . . cynicism . . . plaintive self-pity and puzzled misogyny."
More pertinent than the often immoderate zeal manifested in the controversy are its underlying causes. To some extent, they take root in Amis's lower-middle-class origins.
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