Traditionally John Bull is a bloody-minded, insular, beer-swilling, xenophobic philistine with a thick neck and a truculent manner. He hates wogs, he hates the young, and he wishes women would disappear as soon as it's over. This choleric figure has been lying low of late, and I'm sorry to report that he has dictated a novel to a battered amanuensis called Kingsley Amis. His novel [Jake's Thing] has half-a-dozen good jokes, a brilliant title, but it is often tedious and sometimes insolently stupid. (p. 52)
As Amis—or John Bull—charts [his] banal hell of rancid grievances and utterly average sensuality he has the cheek to suggest that undergraduates today are a poor lot who are vandalising the English language…. More of Amis's prose emphatically means worse. Take this sentence:
This is a free excerpt of 127 words. There are 306 words (approx.
1 page at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Amis, Kingsley 1922–: Critical Essay by Tom Paulin Access Pass.
