Romance

I chose this spontaneously because I have watched the movie. And didn't like the ending a lot. The novel's ending is indeed different from the movie - but it's even worse. It is a comic novel from the 1960s about the different approaches to sex.

On the one hand we meet the charming, handsome playboy Patrick Standish who doesn't commit to any relationship. On the other hand there's sweet, innocent Jenny Bunn who comes from a loving but very conservative family from the North of England. She wants to wait until marriage before she sleeps with a man. They meet...

You could think that a novel with that premise can only be tacky. It actually isn't. It is well written and entertaining with a good eye for the people and the society in general. Both main characters are on eye-level and I really enjoyed Jenny putting Patrick in his place. And there is an interesting character development going on as well.

It is just the ending - how the issue between those two is finally solved - that makes me want to gag.

Here comes a big SPOILER ALERT, as I haven't figured out how to do the button thingy. Don't read that part if you don't want to know how it ends!
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So, both of them are at a party. She drank way over her limits and friends put her to bed. And then suddenly Patrick is there taking advantage of her being basically unconcious. Do I need to continue? I can't imagine that this was even okay in the 1960s. It was just such a disappointment for the whole book. Also, how Jenny delt with the situation afterwards by kind of just shrugging it of with resignation... doesn't fit the whole story beforehand.
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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 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! ( )

אני לא מוכן להישבע שקראתי את זה אבל סביר שכן. מה שבטוח שזה היה באוסף שלי ( )

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. ( )