Novelists /lit/ would like if they weren't so caught up

Where should I start with Amis? Been meaning to get into him lately because my friend sold him to me as a fun old crotchety fuck.

Lucky Jim maybe?

>>8389778
Amis is one of the writers who was more popular on here in the past. Lucky Jim was mentioned in just about every thread dedicated to humorous novels. I think that stopped because /lit/ is triggered vy academia these days.
That said, I think /lit/ could enjoy some Martin Amis as well.

/lit/ like Kingsley even though he's just a shittier version of maugham

it's his faggot son that we hate

>>8389780
Lucky Jim is good if you're down for a campus novel. The Alteration is a good choice if you enjoy works set in alternate histories.

>>8389786
>Kingsley and Maugham even remotely the same
nigger what

>>8389780
You can start anywhere with Amis- he isnt Joyce. Girl, 20, Lucky Jim, The Green Man, Anti-Death League, are all among his best.

>>8389780

Lucky Jim is the standard but I'd suggest Girl, 20, The Green Man, or Ending up as starting places. You should read Lucky Jim eventually because it is historically important, and good, but it isn't his best imo.

Ending Up is a great and short novel about old people being assholes to each other. Girl, 20 is Amis' take on the Age of Innocence (everything is going to shit,) except it's the 60s and not the turn of the century in New York. The Green Man is Amis' take on a classic ghost story, mainly a guy drinking in a pub-inn.

>satirizes
Eh, pass. I graduated high school a while ago.

>>8389786

He's shitty Waugh if he's shitty anything.

>>8389797
Overly English satirists that made a living parodying high society? I mean i'll grant that Maugham had more serious, critical work with stuff like Sixpence and Bondage, but outside of that they are very similar. I'm guessing the only Mauham you read was Of Human Bondage. Read something like Cakes and Ale and you'll understand the similarities better

>>8389803
I've read Of Human Bondage, Cakes and Ale, The Razor's Edge, and someof his short fiction. As an earlier poster said, he's a shitty Waugh if anything. Their approaches are entirely different. Waugh and Amis are much more humorous than Maugham ever tries to be.

>>8389822
I thought Maugham was hilarious in cakes and ale. And I' being fecetious when i say "shittier version"- I like Kingsley Amis a lot. They were both just Giants of the literary scene in England that satirized English culture. Read Girl, 20 and Cakes and Ale and tell me they arent similar novels.

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>>8389778
I found pic related in the bookstore when it was issued (in this form) sometime in the last decade. It was funny and I impulse-bought it. Then I went looking for Lucky Jim but the library didn't have it, so I read Take A Girl Like You instead, which was breddy gud. agree with the OPs greentext.

A film adaptation of his came on TV one day and I indulged it. Only Two Can Play was the film version of That Uncertain Feeling. Starred a young Peter Sellers, who was less campy and more subtle, which worked for me.

Probably Sam Pink.

I've been looking forever and never found a writer with this level of mundanity, humor and nihilsm all mixed. Cool af.

>>8389778
>Joyce
Yeah, but at least Joyce is an essential novelist. IJ not so much but it's really famous so people read it to be able to discuss it...
You can't really fix the problem

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>>8389778
Amis was rad as fuck

>>8389798
>Anti-Death League
Good but i didnt feel it was as powerful as intended

>>8389799
>Girl, 20
Was excellent, possibly better than Lucky Jim.

Old Devils is also good if not a little longet than necessary. When Weaver dies after being asked to pay for supposedly free booze was funny.

>>8389786
Haven't read Maugham or Waugh but Amis is and was top tier English writing. His work just feels "Englishy".

I haven't explored much of the Angry Young Men bar Silitoe's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (which was dreadful) and Barstow's A Kind of Loving (much better), but both are so obviously working class that the prose feels shitty. Amis' prose was better and, though I'm a working class Englishman myself, I feel more at home in an Amis middle-class sot story than a crummy working class one.

Any recommendations?

>>8389778
>Novelists /lit/ would like if they weren't so caught up in acquiring prestige by reading faddy, prolix things like IJ, or scholar's writers like Joyce, etc.

Probably Jim Thompson.

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>>8389778
This is a great idea for a thread. Amazingly, I don't think I've ever seen Henry James discussed before on this board, despite the fact that he's one of the most influential, idiosyncratic authors the world has ever seen.

>>8389780
everyday drinking

>>8389785
money is pretty good

>>8389786
>shittier version of Maugham

They're not very similar. Maugham had one of the clumsiest styles I've ever read.

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>>8389778

I think Turgenev is underdisussed here for those reasons.

also John LeCarre