SOURCE: A review of Lucky Jim, in Books Magazine, Vol. 8, July, 1994, p. 18.

In the following review of Lucky Jim, Ritchie, a travel writer, states that Amis created a revolutionary novel for the time by focusing on an ordinary man.

These days, owning up to an admiration for Kingsley Amis is a bit like saying you're rather keen on blood sports or that nice Michael Howard. Amis senior seems to be English literature's living embodiment of Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, a curmudgeon who rails against the Arts Council, trendy lefties, one-armed bandits, poetry that doesn't rhyme, uppity women and all manner of symptoms of the decline and fall of a Britain that used to be great.

Still, though, but … taking a deep breath and covering my head with my hands, I am going to blurt out that Kingsley Amis is a great writer. Yes, I know he is a...