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From: J Category: Books Date: 10 March 2008 Time: 05:37 PM Review: Odd that Amis should have written only two very good novels, Lucky Jim, his first, and one of his last, The Old Devils. All the brilliance of Jim is here and little of the tedious, I'm winding you up by being unPC racism/sexism, and not too much of the cliched philanderer, the Amis avatar, with an eye for the ladies and a fat bullshit detector, or even the heart of gold love interest, who accepts the happy go lucky existentialist (too froggy a term for Kingsley to use) warts and all. Amis seems to solve the problem of his earlier novels by writing about a group of oldish men and women from their different viewpoints, the device taking him outside of his comfort zone, and giving their views, offensive or not, a non-authorial voice. What we get is the startling beautiful accuracy of Amis's observations of real people (men AND women for once) leading their shabby real lives. With his clumsy way of trying to describe the physicality of actions, making them seem more complicated that they are and leaving you trying to decipher what's going on, he alludes to aging (though this is part of his style in all his novels) but more to the details of existence, like looking at a very high resolution photo, you realise that what seems simple has a lot more texture and interest than you thought at first glance. Not just that, he describes beautifully the sheer nastiness of Britain, in this case Wales, the horrid food, houses, and pubs, while still preserving an attractive zest for it all which makes you seriously think of visiting south Wales and drinking all day in the pub. The evil and nice ways people speak to each other and their thoughts, said and unsaid, are also part of this book's brilliance, and he of course has his set piece moments of comedy at weddings, official functions and the like. Essentially a book with a happy ending, I had always avoided it because it looked so depressing. If not exactly uplifting, it at least challenges the Yank dominance of great late 20thC writing, and if you only read one book by Amis, read Lucky J and this.