Lucky Jim (Kingsley Amis), 3/5
By Claire Yubin Oh, Multimedia Editor
I’ll start with a personal confession: when it comes to books dealing with history in academia, I might have a shopping problem. No, I don’t mean those thick non-fiction bricks on the Holocaust or McCarthy or whatnot; my 9-to-5 as a history student gives me enough of those. I’m talking about a few surviving gems like Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim, where protagonists willingly suffer through a series of day-to-day catastrophes while in college.
Amis’ debut novel centers around Jim, a bored, bitter, and hopelessly inept junior lecturer in medieval history (which he hates) at a prestigious British university (likewise). The novel begins with his desperate efforts to convince the head of department, Ned Welch, a similarly unlikeable and hence comedic character, not to fire him from a job that Jim himself “dislikes,” to put it lightly. The rest of Lucky Jim is an interplay of his disaster-prone academic career and personal life, which he is equally incapable of taking charge of. For a long part of the novel, Jim finds himself entangled in a relationship with Margaret Peel, his colleague and a skilled trainee of emotional blackmailing. In between the sheer awfulness of Jim’s tragic life exists a drunken fiasco rooted in his signature ‘whatever’ attitude that allows the novel to breathe in comedic unpleasantness. Can’t stand your boss talking? Run away to a pub and drink. Caught up in a toxic relationship? Get drunk.
All in all, Lucky Jim is a 250-something page description of Amis’ unlikely hero and his one defining quality: that he has no clue of what he wants to do with his life. He will likely continue in the darkness, with his inability to actively express his wants. Despite having the demanding role of a lecturer of medieval history at a red-brick university, he is the epitome of ‘fake it till you make it’: choosing a concentration he happens to be good at, then walking a safe, stable path of an academic career (which is questionable now, but mind you this was written shortly after the world wars). A smart man, with a long-time girlfriend, coming from a supportive background; Jim is lucky. And this scares me.
Starting my final year at LSE, there are some questions I can’t stop myself thinking about. Yes, the occasional thoughts about careers and internship applicationscareers and internship apps thoughts might be a minor part (really), but beyond them is that one post-it note stuck on my bedside, reading “WHAT DO I REALLY WANT? WHAT MATTERS FOR ME?” On one hand, I’m eager to make this final year a great one without regrets (maybe too much), and I find that everything I do in this formative moment in life is an investment before I graduate – which feels like one of my last chances to actively mess up. Being part of LSE means that 1) I have been a student competitive and eager enough to keep up with my studies and 2) I am also choosing to be surrounded by people who always talk about careers and linkedins and return offers (and my lack of them); it’s quite natural to fall in the pitfalls of comparing and trying to do things that I am not even remotely interested about, to be one of the (seemingly successful) others.
I guess Lucky Jim is my showstopper. “Haven’t you noticed how we specialise in what we hate most?” asks Jim, and my worst nightmare would be to become another Jim. So cheers to yet another year full of nights starting at my bedside wall, full of post-its of existential questions, whatever. Everything about Jim is so painfully real, and to see this on text is blissfully refreshing.
