Take a Girl Like You (1970)

אני לא מוכן להישבע שקראתי את זה אבל סביר שכן. מה ש​ ( )

I love Kingsley Amis, but this book is vile. His sexism -- simmering under the surface in much of his writing -- is on full display here, culminating in what today we would call a date rape. Skip this and read The Old Devils...or just read Lucky Jim again. ( )

It is difficult to judge this book. It was written in 1960 and, by the standards of the day, was a racy little comedy. Sadly, time is not kind to racy little comedies and this is more of a history lesson of innocence than an amusing read. I can see that in its day, it would have been quite daring - I can even see where the humour would have been: its a bit like watching Charlie Chaplin, one knows that one should admire the timing and the inventiveness, but somehow, the humour has seeped away over the years.

The interesting thing that books like this show is how amazingly straight forward life was. The box in the corner has educated us all into the art of subterfuge and we are so much more devious: no more intelligent, and probably more likely to buy a pup but that darned box has told us what it is "cool" to do.

A reasonably interesting romp in naivety, but little else. ( )

Funny at the time

And he probably would have done ( )