He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. In this position he was able to lower himself gingerly into sleep. Swearing hoarsely, he heaped up the pillows, half-lay, half sat against them, and dangled his legs half-over the edge of the bed. He was evidently in a highly critical condition. He put his legs on the bed but didn’t lie down. “After a few moments he swung his legs back and lay down. “New Fiction: Standing Alone,” The Times, January 27, 1954. Altogether Lucky Jim is a notable achievement, not only as a first novel.” He has a sharp eye for character, which shows in the description of Dixon’s colleagues as well as of Dixon himself, and his dialogue is sometimes brilliant. Amis could have afforded to give it a further polish, but he writes with such energy and enjoyment that it matters little.

“The style of Lucky Jim is at times rough, and Mr. Amis shows him off sympathetically as well as humorously, and his account of the various incidents that cause Dixon’s academic career to be a short but not glorious one makes most enjoyable reading. Dixon is a young lecturer at a northern university, determined to stand on his own feet, who finds that in so doing he is unable to avoid treading on the toes of many of the people around him. Amis has successfully accomplished at first shot the rare feat of creating a genuinely comic yet credible character.

Kingsley amis novel 1954