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"Kingsley Amis's most ambitious reckoning with his central theme--the degradation of modern life--Take a Girl Like You also introduces one of the rare unqualified good guys in Amis's rogue-ridden world: Jenny Bunn, a girl from the North English country has come south to teach school in a small smug town where she hopes to find love and fortune. Jenny is independent, likable, optimistic, openhearted, intelligent, and exceedingly good-looking, but the men who flock around her are all too show more willing to overlook her virtues in the hopes of getting her in the sack. But then Jenny, though no prude, is set on remaining a virgin until marriage. Jenny's fundamental, unshakeable decency and her determination to live life on her own terms--though she is surrounded with a host of brilliantly rendered schemers and fools, male and female, but chiefly male--are in the forefront of Amis's novel"-- show lessTags
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With the end of May, so ends the Kingsley Amis Reading Month as well. Four books in all, one a ghost story of sorts, another a speculative fiction set inside a parallel universe, and two love stories. Every one of these novels was peopled with horrific, tawdry, distasteful people, save for Jenny Bunn, the intrepid school teacher heroine of Take a Girl Like You; you see, Jenny is hard not to like because, for one thing, she is an incredible beauty, and aware of it not one whit! As a result, her sojourn at a rooming house near her elementary school becomes peopled by dubious men, and a few women as well, who are drawn to her flame like the proverbial moth. In some respects, this novel is a Fifties version of a Nick Hornby narrative, only show more darker and heavier, because the misogynists and hustlers who people its pages are a vile and vicious lot. An oddity for me, reading about pre-Beatles England, were the musical references scattered over its pages: Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Mel Torme, Dave Brubeck. There are more than a few chapters describing Jenny's classrooms, seemingly peopled by miniature eight-year old versions of, say, Donald Trump. And then there is Jenny's romantic interest in one Patrick Standish, who in Amis's regard was probably the most loathsome character he ever created. So, I will conclude, on that, with Larry's Law: "When a woman has a choice to make between a good guy and a grifter, nine times out of ten, place your bet on the grifter." Will such a fate befall our down-to-earth Jenny? Read it to see! show less
I picked up this book on someone's recommendation and because I'm interested in sexual mores before the big revolution of the 60s. This book, published in 1960, was eye-opening.
Jenny is a pretty 20-year-old, away from her hometown for the first time, that men literally cannot stop throwing themselves at (despite her bust being only 34 inches, so she must have been QUITE a looker). It goes to show how horrible it must have been for a pretty girl back in the day when men could just make passes at you, and if anyone looked askance, it was to blame you.
The whole story was something like a train wreck I couldn't look away from. On various levels, it was nothing less than horrible; yet I was dying to know, "Will they or won't they!?". The show more characters were almost all dislikeable. I only liked Jenny and - of course - Julian. Not coincidentally, Julian was the only man in the book that DIDN'T bodily throw himself at Jenny. Patrick Standish, her love interest, was a monster who just kept getting worse. I kept thinking, "he can't possibly sink any lower", and finding out that he actually could.
The book is humorous, in a way. But the many passages aiming for humor just, almost, never quite, managed to hit the mark, exactly. show less
Jenny is a pretty 20-year-old, away from her hometown for the first time, that men literally cannot stop throwing themselves at (despite her bust being only 34 inches, so she must have been QUITE a looker). It goes to show how horrible it must have been for a pretty girl back in the day when men could just make passes at you, and if anyone looked askance, it was to blame you.
The whole story was something like a train wreck I couldn't look away from. On various levels, it was nothing less than horrible; yet I was dying to know, "Will they or won't they!?". The show more characters were almost all dislikeable. I only liked Jenny and - of course - Julian. Not coincidentally, Julian was the only man in the book that DIDN'T bodily throw himself at Jenny. Patrick Standish, her love interest, was a monster who just kept getting worse. I kept thinking, "he can't possibly sink any lower", and finding out that he actually could.
The book is humorous, in a way. But the many passages aiming for humor just, almost, never quite, managed to hit the mark, exactly. show less
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 show 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. show less
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 show 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. show less
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.
This work is pretty dated and left me ultimately unsatisfied.
Funny at the time
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Author Information
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Kingsley Amis is generally considered one of the "angry young men" of the 1950s. He was born in London in 1922 and educated at the City of London School. He received a degree in English language and literature from St. John's College, Oxford, in 1947. Until 1961 Amis lectured in English at University College, Swansea, and for the following two show more years at Cambridge. In 1947 Amis published his first collection of poems, Bright November. Frame of Mind followed in 1953 and Poems: Fantasy Portraits in 1954. His first novel, Lucky Jim (1954), established his reputation as a writer. He followed with That Uncertain Feeling (1956), and I Like It Here (1958). A longtime James Bond devotee, Amis wrote a James Bond adventure after the death of Ian Fleming in 1964. Amis's study of the famous spy was titled The James Bond Dossier (1965). Amis received the Booker Prize for the Old Devils (1986). Amis's later works include Memoirs (1990), and The King's English, a collection of essays on the craft of writing well. Amis was knighted in 1990. He died in 1995. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Take a Girl Like You
- Original publication date
- 1960; 1966
- People/Characters
- Jenny Bunn; Patrick Standish; Dick Thompson
- Related movies
- Take a Girl Like You (2000 | IMDb); Take a Girl Like You (1970 | IMDb)
- Epigraph
- Where shall I go when I go where I go?
Go, gentle maid, go lead the apes in hell. - Dedication
- To Mavis and Geoff Nicholson
- First words
- "Hallo, Miss Bunn," Dick Thompson said on a note of celebration.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)'Oh yes, I expect it was. But I can't feeling it's rather a pity.'
- Disambiguation notice
- Contains Confessions of an English Opium Eater, Suspira de Profundis, “The English Mail-Coach”, “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts”, “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth”, and “The Literature of Kn... (show all)owledge and the Literature of Power”. Do not combine with collections containing other combinations of de Quincey's works.
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- Reviews
- 11
- Rating
- (3.20)
- Languages
- English
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- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 14
- ASINs
- 14
