The world of academia can be quite tiresome, and nobody knows this better than Jim Dixon.<\/p>\n
For this week\u2019s column, I sat down with English Literature Professor Robert May to discuss English 20th-century writer Kingsley Amis\u2019 debut novel, <\/a>Lucky Jim<\/a> (1954). The story centers around a young medieval history lecturer, Jim Dixon, as he navigates his mundane life at a small red brick university.<\/p>\n He gets increasingly irritated with Margaret, his coworker with whom he\u2019s landed in a complex relationship with, and his stuffy, pompous boss, Professor Welch, the head of the history department. He yearns passively for Christine, a girl he finds much dreamier than Margaret, and dreams of one day giving everyone who annoys him a piece of his mind. The novel is a biting satire of academic life that comically attacks the pretension, boredom, and stuffiness that often seem to come with the territory. <\/p>\n \u00a0Lucky Jim was inspired by Amis\u2019 friendship with English poet Philip Larkin<\/a>, a librarian at a provincial university like the one Jim works at in the story. Amis and Larkin swapped letters<\/a> back and forth following WWII, each complaining about everything\u2014from their relations with women to their careers to J.R.R Tolkien\u2019s<\/a> teaching style. The novel is a portrait of the mid-20th-century, straight from the generation that lived through Hitlerism and WWII, only to have to return to \u201cnormal life\u201d that had become suffocating and meaningless.<\/p>\n Yet though Jim (and Amis and Larkin) seems quite miserable, there\u2019s something almost profound within their misery and bitterness.<\/p>\n \u201cWe live today in an age of pervasive niceness. Everyone seems to compete with each other, bending over backwards to be as nice and accommodating as possible. There\u2019s nothing more annoying than that and there\u2019s nothing more artificial than that. Jim is not afraid to be nasty,\u201d Professor May said in an interview with The Journal.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of Jim\u2019s most entertaining characteristics is just how hilariously nasty he is, and it\u2019s almost refreshing, because finally, here is someone who is speaking like it is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something appealing about the disdain Jim openly has for his snobby coworkers, his pretentious overachieving students, and generally most other things. As a student creeping towards the end of my undergraduate career, Jim\u2019s irritation resonates with me in some ways. We all have a little bit of Jim within us, especially in our moments of disillusioned youthfulness.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve all drunk too much and embarrassed ourselves, felt frustrated and outshone by peers, and experienced awkward romantic miscommunications. There\u2019s a paragraph in this novel that describes Jim\u2019s hangover in such ridiculous and absurd similes that it\u2019s hard not to laugh and sympathize with those dreadful mornings.<\/p>\n Even though Jim is kind of\u2014actually, scratch that\u2014totally a jerk, you can\u2019t help but root for him as a reader.<\/p>\n In the introduction by Keith Gessen<\/a>, he suggests that this regard is because hatred and irritability can be a source of humour and liveliness\u2014 \u201cIf you hated intensely enough, deliberately enough, with enough determination and discrimination, you might just end up with something new, unexpected, true to life.\u201d<\/p>\n Amis seems to suggest there\u2019s something about hating with intention that can actually make you more insightful and funnier, even if it\u2019s uncomfortable to admit.<\/p>\n As someone who deeply admires the world of academia, Lucky Jim was a cynically funny mockery of a novel that poked fun in all of the right places, save Jim\u2019s disdain for Margaret, whom I surprisingly grew a fondness for.<\/p>\n Professor May earns an A in my books because Lucky Jim led me with the perfect ratio of moments to chuckle at, scenes to mull over, and characters to empathize with. <\/p>\n Tags<\/p>\n \n book<\/a>, Book review<\/a>, Column<\/a>, Kingsley Amis<\/a>, Literature<\/a>, Lucky Jim<\/a>, novel<\/a>, professor<\/a> <\/p>\n All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and\/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world of academia can be quite tiresome, and nobody knows this better than Jim Dixon. 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