Works by Women. Gift Ideas. View All. View Category. Jane Austen. Enid Blyton. Lewis Carroll. Agatha Christie. Arthur Conan Doyle. Winston Churchill. Roald Dahl. Charles Darwin. Daniel Defoe. Charles Dickens. Walt Disney. Scott Fitzgerald. Ian Fleming. It's both as comic and as terrifying as that sounds. Roger Micheldene is, not to mince words, a truly horrible old man.
And not only a world-class lecher, but also fat and morally ungainly. Last month, I read his Girl, 20 , which was also a revelation to me of hidden nastiness. During his writing career, Amis metamorphosed from a liberal to a conservative to a hidebound Tory; and it is this latter which we see in his later novels.
No m Roger Micheldene is, not to mince words, a truly horrible old man. No matter, his character Micheldene compensates by being funny as well as occasionally racist and otherwise biased. At one point, he describes "a girl of Oriental appearance, who would have been quite acceptable if she had had eye-sockets as well as eyes. The action of the novel takes place in a college-town America where all the colleges are named after breweries,such as Budweiser, Ballantine, Rheingold, and Pilsener.
Everyone seems to spend an inordinate amount of time at parties that would be excruciatingly boring if they did not also exhibit the potential female provender. Although he is a frightful curmudgeon, Micheldene is a hilarious observer; and his comments, however not-nice at times, are hilarious. And at times One Fat Englishman reads like a sequel to that earlier novel…one in which Lucky Jim has grown up gross and embittered and roiling with hate. In addition to women, he also excoriates children, teenagers, gays, and pretty much every ethnicity you can name off the top of your head.
Feb 17, Peter Dunn rated it really liked it. As we are meant to laugh both at and with the antics of Roger Micheldene, and also to generally disdain him, we can then wince at his anti-Semitism, and his propensity to want to slap women, but still simply see those traits as just two further reasons to despise the character. But then some angst creeps in because as the character is clearly meant to be at least partly autobiographical of Amis himself this makes those two character properties a little more worrying.
However I think I am reasonably convinced by Amis biographer Zachary Leader that we still should not see Micheldene as a carbon copy of Amis. So the philandering unfaithfulness yes a shared trait, but the willingness to strike women thankfully not so, and hopefully the other unpleasant trait is also not exactly what it first seems.
Oct 30, N. Riding home on a Toronto subway late one night after a lengthy visit to a favoured ale house, I suddenly realised a book had been left on the little shelf under the window next to me. Picking it up and seeing the title, I might have accused anyone nearby of having a rye sense of humour, except the carriage was empty. It was like it had materialised specifically with me in mind - there was no way I couldn't read it. Apparently Mr Amis' wife wrote the title across his exposed body when he'd fallen asleep on a beach once.
Whether it was before or after publication, I don't think really matters. It's hardly a book, either, but more of a novella. Worst, it uses racist language without any sense of irony; if Mr Amis chose certain terms to make proceedings sound more American, he was horribly misjudged to do so, which must also go for the editor and publisher, etc, etc.
The best thing was how well the image on the front cover matched the one described in the first few pages; unfortunately, despite its policy of trying to have every copy of a book released, the particular copy I found has thus eluded Goodreads.
This one, instead, is a bit like it. I'm going to try and post this with no stars, but don't think GR allows that, so it's for the cover artist if there. Kingsley Amis never disappoints - an amusing and not overly complex plot serves as a vehicle for his sociological observations.
In this case, Roger Micheldene, an English academic in America in the early s finds plenty to comment on. His self-loathing may only be exceeded by his loathing for everyone else.
While the ability of not-conventionally attractive men to have their share of conquests among conventionally beautiful women is hardly newsworthy, Micheldene's portrayal of the relative mer Kingsley Amis never disappoints - an amusing and not overly complex plot serves as a vehicle for his sociological observations.
While the ability of not-conventionally attractive men to have their share of conquests among conventionally beautiful women is hardly newsworthy, Micheldene's portrayal of the relative merits of himself and the married woman he is pursuing strains credulity a bit. Among Roger's observations, the one on American men's summer attire is more true than ever: "If being cool meant dressing like a child there was a clear case for staying hot.
Sep 14, Gary rated it really liked it. I found this guilt-inducingly funny. A predictive self-portrait of the public persona of the later Kingsley Amis - fat, drunk, misogynist, selfish, greedy and wonderfully "child-unfriendly" published in , when Amis was in his thirties.
Roger, the central character is an English man of letters pursuing wine, women and food, in reverse order, in American academe. Amis is generous in showing Roger as a tethered bear, goaded and teased by the younger Americans he so despises. The scene in which I found this guilt-inducingly funny.
The scene in which he's beaten at Scrabble by the 7-year old son of one of his fleeting conquests, and his hilariously childish revenge will stay with me for a long time.
Jun 04, McNatty rated it liked it. I do like reading Kingsley Amis but I don't think this story is particularly wonderful, except for the main character Roger. Amis is so eloquent as Roger that I have to admire this perspective on things. His sole objective as Roger is to get his way, get the best of all the other men and generally behave like a selfish snobbish twat.
He roams around drinking and taking his snuff conversing with all the ladies who find him intriguing because he is so different to the American man. His I do like reading Kingsley Amis but I don't think this story is particularly wonderful, except for the main character Roger. His obnoxious behaviour is refreshing and I love how he loathes children and secretly wants to smack imbeciles around him on the head.
Brilliant, but not as good as Lucky Jim. Nov 15, Dan Honeywell rated it really liked it. You have to be slighlty twisted with a dry sense of humor or something to appreciate this kind of writing and you also have to understand that the main character is, like the title says, one fat Englishman. And he's a jerk. But that's the point. He slid about a bit in doing so, either because of the gin or because he was holding his stomach in so tightly that his legs You have to be slighlty twisted with a dry sense of humor or something to appreciate this kind of writing and you also have to understand that the main character is, like the title says, one fat Englishman.
He slid about a bit in doing so, either because of the gin or because he was holding his stomach in so tightly that his legs worked like stilts or because the grass was slippery. It's like an ungrateful payback to Henry James' Portrait of a Lady - a fat sloppy and snobbish Englishman goes to the US, gets tangled with an americanized ice queen and gets his heart broken.
More about the form than the contents: you can see Martin's genes in full action here. Jun 17, Jonkers Jonkers rated it did not like it. I've never read a Kingsley Amis before and I have to say that I won't be reading any more.
I forced myself to get to the end but it didn't improve. I couldn't see any humour in the book and wouldn't have known it was meant to be funny if I hadn't read that it was. Hugely annoying and unbelievable main character and lots of other annoying characters. I realise that Roger Micheldene is meant to be awful, but I didn't even find his awfulness amusing.
Very disappointed. Feb 02, Carofish rated it really liked it. My first Kingsley Amis and I loved it.
The irreverence and caustic tone was refreshing. Although the protagonist is really an awful man you can help but be delighted with the things he says and does.
A privilege to read such great writing. Jun 13, Ross Mckeen rated it it was ok Shelves: The titular character, Roger Micheldene, is a misogynist and racist slob. I don't mind despicable characters when they show some hint of redeeming value There's none here. He's just unpleasant and the book feels mean. Sep 12, Bill rated it it was amazing. A contemporary and even more mordant view from the same era as Mad Men.
Amis was pretty ruthless. Oct 12, Jill Cordry rated it it was amazing. A hilarious story about a despicable character. Nor, when I later reprinted my essay in a book, did I extend it to include consideration of that novel. The reason for this silence was that I didn't quite know what to make of One Fat Englishman, and it certainly didn't fit the general drift of my argument.
I hadn't really enjoyed reading it, and enjoyment was very much at the heart of my interest in Amis's earlier fiction. Those books, I wrote, "speak to me in an idiom, a tone of voice, to which I respond with immediate understanding and pleasure". Lucky Jim and its successors had that effect on many readers of my generation, who came of age in the s, especially those from lower-middle-class backgrounds who found themselves promoted into the professions by educational opportunity, but remained uneasy with, and critical of, the attitudes and values of the social and cultural Establishment.
The heroes of those novels were quick to identify and satirically subvert any hint of pretension, affectation, snobbery, vanity and hypocrisy in public and private life. What they stood for is most simply described as "decency", and when they didn't live up to their own code, they felt appropriate remorse.
The least ethical of these heroes, Patrick Standish in Take A Girl Like You, is balanced by the transparently decent heroine, Jenny Bunn, whose point of view complements his. Roger Micheldene, the corpulent British publisher whose adventures on a brief business trip to America are chronicled in One Fat Englishman, is a very different character.
He is rude, arrogant, snobbish, lecherous, treacherous, greedy and totally selfish. But I wonder if the overall contempt for America, and the specifically anti-American comments which litter the text, permanently damaged his reputation in the States.
Now this is the same L. I hope he is mentioned in every Amis novel. Very funny in a sometimes rather desperate way. Some hilarious scenes rather damped down by the wrenching portrayal of his genuinely hurt wife. Lewis eventually rejects the whole monied, corrupt scene and moves with his wife to a small mining town where he feels more in touch with his Welsh roots.
In particular the male lead, dashing James Churchill, who has a genuinely touching love affair with beautiful and damaged Catharine Casement. Long, windy, self-pitying, misogynistic. Long and gruelling until its surprisingly moving and uplifting conclusion. His most enjoyable novel for years. Instead of being harshly punished, Clive finds himself being exonerated and forgiven by everyone, which leaves him boiling with rage and frustration.
Brutally funny. Very enjoyable. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account.
Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Email Address:. Follow Books and Boots. And he is in America, somewhere in New England, a guest of the fictional Budweiser College ho ho ho , where he loses no opportunity to: insult his hosts become painfully, offensively drunk lecherously proposition almost every married woman he meets his mind packed to overflowing with vitriolic abuse of America and his genial hosts, as well as casually insulting thoughts about Jews, blacks, gays and Asians.
Plot Fat drunk lecherous English publisher Roger Micheldene attends a number of parties where he a gets drunk b really obviously eyes up married women. On meeting Molly Atkins sober: The smile she gave him was cordial enough… He gave a much better smile back, with more eye-work and a quiet hello. He took up an offensive position by the refrigerator. Rate this:. Like this: Like Loading Leave a comment. Posted in Books , Comedy , Novel. Leave a comment Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:.
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