Narrative drive in ‘Lucky Jim’

Spoiler alert: This posting is one long spoiler for Lucky Jim.

I first read Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis, around 1984, some thirty years after it was first published. I found the novel very amusing, if a little dated by then in some of its attitudes. Ever since, Lucky Jim has remained in my mind as an example of a light-hearted, satisfying comedy with no literary pretensions that I would be delighted to have written myself.

Now that I am exploring ways of sustaining narrative interest in my own writing, I thought it might be worthwhile to take another look at Lucky Jim in order to study how Amis keeps his readers turning the page. Does Amis, for example, employ the three-act structure so beloved of those authors of how-to-write-a-novel texts, or does he use some other strategy for maintaining reader interest?

In approaching Lucky Jim from this angle, I’m mindful that ‘sustained narrative interest’ is hardly the first thing admirers of Amis’s debut novel point to when describing its appeal. Yet even a novel famous for its comic moments and outrages must have some kind of structure to carry the reader forward. How does Lucky Jim ‘work’, in this sense?

Sadly, the only way that I can think of to answer a question like this is to make a lot of notes that are unlikely to be of much interest to anyone but myself. For what it’s worth, the following section represents the working notes I made as I reread Lucky Jim, looking particularly at this issue of how Amis sustains narrative interest.

I summarise my actual findings in the Analysis section towards the end of this posting.

Chapter breakdown

Chapter 1

Jim feigns interest in Professor Welch’s tedious account of a musical event he played in. Welch has Jim’s future in his hands. Jim’s fantasy of flushing Welch down the toilet. Jim’s sense of awkward romantic responsibility for Margaret, a lecturer who has attempted suicide after Catchpole has broken off with her. Jim’s failure to get his history paper published. He recently sent it to a Dr Caton for possible publication. Jim’s dim view of his own qualities as an academic. The bad impression Jim has made in the department. Welch invites Jim to a weekend house party. Welch tells Jim he’ll be delivering a public lecture on Merrie England at end of term.

Comment

This chapter introduces the Margaret plot, the plot over Jim’s academic future (with its Dr Caton subplot), and also amply displays Jim’s sense of frustration with his lot. The chapter foreshadows Welch’s weekend house party and Jim’s Merrie England lecture.

By the end of this chapter, we’re wondering:

• How is Jim going to get out of his dreadful relationship with Margaret?
• How is Jim going to get out from under Welch’s thumb?
• What, if anything, is going to become of Jim’s academic career?

Chapter 2

Margaret recounts her suicide attempt to Jim in detail. Jim short of cash. Margaret coming on hot and strong to Jim, who wishes for ‘a purging draft of fury’ that will get him away from here. Jim feels trapped by economic necessity and the ‘call of pity’. He stays.

Comment

This chapter provides a more detailed treatment of matters already raised in chapter 1: Margaret’s manipulative behaviour, and Jim’s sense of entrapment.

By chapter’s end, we’re wondering when and how the ‘purging draft of fury’ is going to overcome the ‘call of pity’ within Jim.

Chapter 3

Jim encounters Michie, a bright and serious student interested in enrolling in Jim’s (so far non-existent) new honours course next year. Jim’s determination to keep the alarmingly bright and questioning Michie out of his course. Jim’s apprehension about winning ongoing employment. At his boarding house, Jim defaces the cover of a magazine that has arrived for Johns, a college administrator who lives there. We learn Jim became a medieval specialist because it was a soft option. Jim learns a Dr Caton wants to publish his history paper, but hasn’t committed to a date. Jim arranges to have his friend Atkinson ring him at Welch’s on Sunday morning with a phony excuse as to why he must leave. Jim travels to Welch’s house on bus for weekend house party foreshadowed in chapter 1.

Comment

This chapter introduces the Michie subplot, contrasting Michie’s academic ardour with Jim’s indifference, and we get the backstory to how Jim became an academic. Jim’s tricksterish qualities are evident in his defacing of the magazine cover and his preparedness to fake a getaway excuse.

The main plots are not further advanced, and the chapter doesn’t strongly raise new questions in our minds.

Chapter 4

Jim caught out as a musical faker at the house party while attempting to mime his way through madrigals. Jim reluctantly contemplates a real relationship with Margaret, despite his misgivings about her. Welch’s artist son Bertrand arrives with Christine. Bertrand’s Tory political views are the opposite of Jim’s. Jim’s poverty and worry about getting the sack at the end of term. We learn Bertrand is using Christine to get access to her wealthy uncle Gore-Urquhart as a potential patron. Jim’s pleasure in Christine’s appearance, but somewhat unfavourable impression of her starchy character. Summer Ball will take place in a fortnight. Jim and Bertrand on verge of fisticuffs during violin concerto over the value and likeability of rich people. Jim walks out.

Comment

We can tell immediately that Christine’s arrival (in the company of the noxious Bertrand) is a major story development.

By the end of this chapter, we’re wondering:

• When and how is Jim going to ‘see through’ Christine’s apparent starchiness to the presumably more attractive person within?
• How is Jim going to manage to steal Christine from the dreadful Bertrand, given that Bertrand’s father, Professor Welch, has a say in whether Jim will keep his job, and given that Jim is already psychologically dominated by the manipulative Margaret?

Chapter 5

Jim, drunk, walks from the pub to the Welches’ house and finds it in darkness. He spies Bertrand speaking intimately to Carol, the wife of a colleague. When Jim cannot reach his bedroom because an intervening bathroom is occupied, Margaret invites him into her room. They smooch and nearly have sex, then Margaret boots him out. Jim drinks half a bottle of port downstairs, then staggers into bed.

Comment

This chapter establishes Jim as someone who may drink too much when under pressure and who could easily become sexually entangled with Margaret, for all his misgivings about her.

The chapter raises the question whether alcohol and poor judgement may yet prove to be Jim’s undoing.

Chapter 6

Jim wakes, very hungover. He finds he’s burned his bedclothes, the carpet and bedside table with his cigarettes. Jim cuts out the burned bits with a razor blade, then goes down to breakfast, where Christine is the only person present. Jim initially dislikes her reaction to him, but warms to Christine when she laughs at his confession concerning the damage he has done in the bedroom. Christine offers to help Jim. Together they remake his bed and conceal the damaged bedclothes. They are just taking the damaged bedside table into the hallway for further concealment when Margaret springs Jim and Christine together.

Comment

This chapter firmly establishes Christine as a potential partner for Jim by showing her amused and tolerant reaction to his having damaged items in his bedroom, but keeps alive the notion that there is a ‘side’ to Christine that Jim doesn’t much like. The chapter’s ending portends an immediate showdown for Jim with Margaret, while his concealment of the damaged bedclothes in the home of his own professor becomes a plot ‘bomb’ waiting to go off at some unspecified time in the future.

By the end of this chapter, we are asking ourselves:

• How and when is this matter of the damaged bedclothes going to blow up, and how far will Jim be harmed when it does?
• When is Jim going to realise that Christine’s ‘dignant’ aspect is not really an obstacle to his hopes?
• What bucket of turds is Margaret about to drop on Jim now?

Chapter 7

Jim secretes the damaged table in a junk room, then faces Margaret’s wrath. Margaret has sensed Jim and Christine are up to something. She throws a neurotic wobbly about their own almost sexual encounter the previous night, insisting Jim behaved inappropriately. Jim tries to reassure himself there must be something wrong with Christine if she’s with Bertrand. Atkinson phones, as pre-arranged in chapter 3, and Jim makes his escape.

Comment

This chapter further underlines Margaret’s neuroticism and Jim’s bafflement at Christine’s apparent double nature. The house party has been a major sequence, spanning four chapters.

Chapter 8

Ten days after house party weekend. Welch warns Jim that Dr Caton is a shady character, recommends Jim write to Caton demanding clarification re publication date for his paper. Jim feels out Welch on his prospect of being retained next year, but Welch gives nothing away. Margaret has relented towards Jim, but is still manipulative: hardly slept last night because he failed to call her as he had promised. Jim learns Bertrand is coming next weekend for Summer Ball. Jim arranges to take Margaret to the ball.

Comment

It seems the Summer Ball is being set up as the likely occasion for some kind of showdown, either between Jim and Bertrand, or Jim and Margaret, or both. The most urgent question arising immediately from this chapter is why Jim can’t see he’s digging his own grave by maintaining relations with Margaret — and what kind of blow-up will ensue when he (presumably) finally does?

Chapter 9

Jim in Common Room takes call on Welch’s behalf. It’s Christine, who wants to know if Welch is expecting Bertrand next weekend. Christine’s uncle Gore-Urquhart has invitation to Summer Ball, but doesn’t know whether to come. Christine could persuade him if she knows Bertrand will be there, but can’t contact Bertrand directly. Jim agrees to ring Welches and ask them to ring Christine back. Christine tells Jim she may be going to ball, confesses she doesn’t dance too well. Michie tells Jim the pretty girls previously interested in taking Jim’s honours course are no longer interested owing to the subject’s breadth, which does appeal to Michie. Jim resolves to remove anything from his course that Michie might like. Jim rings Mrs Welch, who immediately recognises his voice and wants to know about the damage to her bed linen. Jim pretends to be a reporter seeking info on Bertrand. Mrs Welch puts Bertrand on the line, and Jim interviews Bertrand, showing him up as a pompous ass. Jim provides Christine with a cover story to hide his tracks.

Comment

A very ‘plotty’ chapter which helps set up some future developments, but doesn’t of itself generate strong narrative interest. The chapter further justifies Jim’s dislike of Bertrand (boo, hiss), so that we become further interested in seeing his come-uppance. The chapter foreshadows Gore-Urquhart’s presence at the Summer Ball, gives Jim and Christine a further opportunity to get to know each other, and further burnishes Jim’s credentials as a trickster.

Chapter 10

The Summer Ball. Margaret tells Jim Bernard has put Christine on his ball ticket and dropped Carol, upsetting Carol. Christine cool towards Jim. Carol is now formally partner to Gore-Urquhart. Margaret flirts with Gore-Urquhart, then makes one of her ‘avowals’ to Jim, declaring she is getting ‘much too fond’ of him. Bernard sucks up to Gore-Urquhart, and Margaret dances with Gore-Urquhart. Bernard dances with Carol, leaving Christine and Jim together. They agree to dance.

Comment

We have heard of Christine’s uncle Gore-Urquhart before this, but now we meet him in the flesh, and watch others (Bernard, Margaret) fawning over him. The Bernard-Carol intrigue, hinted at in chapter 5, is further developed. The chapter’s conclusion leaves us hoping strongly that Jim and Christine are going to become romantically entwined right away.

Chapter 11

Jim thrilled to touch Christine in dancing. Christine suspicious of Bertrand-Carol relationship, but Jim keeping mum about this. Jim still wondering who is the ‘real’ Christine: the reserved or the more forthcoming? After a little spat between them, Christine apologises for her coolness, tells Jim she admired his journalist-impersonation stunt, asks him to hold her closer. Margaret cool towards Jim, but very attentive to Gore-Urquhart. Carol takes Jim away on pretext of wanting to dance with him.

Comment

Another beat in the development of Jim’s relationship with Christine. Christine has asked Jim to hold her close, and has once again expressed her admiration of his tricksterish behaviour. The ending of this chapter (as with the previous one) propels us forward to wonder what revelations may be in store for Jim with his next dance.

Chapter 12

As they dance, Carol tells Jim the background of her sexual liaison with Bertrand. Carol urges Jim to ‘do something’ about Christine. Jim offers to take Christine back to Welches’ in a taxi that will be arriving in 20 minutes. Christine seems reluctant to take up this offer.

Comment

The theme of this chapter is ‘call to action’. The effect of Carol’s revelations is to justify Jim morally in taking Christine from Bertrand — a course of action Carol then explicitly calls on Jim to follow.

Chapter 13

When his taxi doesn’t show up, Jim uses sleight-of-hand to steal another taxi called for a professor as his own. Christine appears, and she and Jim leave in the taxi.

Comment

There’s a lot of stage business concerned with Jim’s nabbing of the professor’s taxi which provides a small frisson of excitement but is of no longer term interest. The main development in this chapter is that Christine does accept Jim’s offer of a taxi ride, despite her apparent reluctance to do so in the previous chapter. This signals her interest in Jim is deepening.

Chapter 14

Jim and Christine talk in taxi as it drives to Welch home where Christine is staying. Jim mentions Christine’s appearance of starchiness. Christine describes her history with men (who always want to seduce her) and her relative attraction to Bertrand, who she thinks may want to marry her. Christine asks Jim if she should marry Bertrand. Jim says no. Christine snuggles up to Jim and snoozes. They reach the Welchs’. Jim accepts Christine’s invitation to ‘come up’, keeps the taxi waiting.

Comment

Jim’s proto-romance with Christine is now in full bloom. How far can Jim push things tonight? Will the Welches, including Bertrand, come home and spring him?

Chapter 15

Jim and Christine enter Welches’ house through French window. They kiss, declare mutual affection, while acknowledging that each is in some sense bound already to another. They agree to meet for tea at 4:00 next Tuesday. Jim departs via window when the Welches get home.

Comment

Jim and Christine are obviously close now, though each still has another partner, at least in theory. Clearing up those impediments shouldn’t be too difficult, we expect — though we are still left wondering what price Jim will have to pay for his romance. The foreshadowing of Tuesday’s afternoon tea is another example of the novel laying out a calendar of future events (as it has already done for Jim’s Merrie England lecture, the Welches’ weekend house party, the Summer Ball). The Summer Ball and its immediate aftermath has been a major sequence, spanning six chapters.

Chapter 16

Jim drafts a prank letter to Johns purporting to come from a working class lad warning him off a typist in Johns’ office. Letter is intended to provoke amusement at Johns’ expense in Jim’s digs at breakfast time. Jim needs to start preparing for his Merrie England lecture. Margaret visits Jim, upset about his treatment of her at the ball. Jim finally tells her he’s not up for romance and Margaret has hysterics. Two neighbours intervene to settle Margaret with a slap and whisky. Margaret appears to accept Jim’s decision and departs, but Jim feels that everything has been spoiled, and he’ll no longer be able to enjoy seeing Christine on Tuesday.

Comment

This appears to be the ‘final’ showdown with Margaret we’ve been waiting for since chapter one, and it’s a ripper — but oddly, Jim still seems to be in Margaret’s clutches psychologically. This is dramatically necessary (to sustain tension) but feels forced. Jim’s prank letter to Johns creates a small amount of narrative momentum (how will prank be received?) unrelated to the novel’s central plot. Thread re forthcoming Merrie England lecture returns to the foreground.

Chapter 17

Johns gets the prank letter. Johns realises he’s being ragged, is tersely annoyed. Jim has prepared eleven minutes of his Merrie England lecture. He learns Dr Caton is going to South America, so may not publish Jim’s paper. Welch asks Jim to look up papers in public library and report back to him at five o’clock today. Foreshadowing of examiners meeting Jim will have to attend at five o’clock Tuesday. Jim will have only 45 minutes to spend with Christine.

Comment

This chapter is mainly taken up with stage business. The prank with Johns is paid off. Welch’s demand of Jim underlines how much Jim is under Welch’s thumb (not exactly news by now).

Chapter 18

Pleased with Jim’s library work, Welch invites Jim to dinner. Jim tears his trousers in car. When he arrives at Welch home, Mrs Welch confronts Jim re damaged bedclothes and for pretending to be a journalist on the phone. Jim fesses up to the bedclothes damage, but denies pretending to be a journalist (so as to protect Christine for her part in the cover-up). Bertrand warns Jim off Christine. Margaret tells Jim he will be happier with Christine than with her. Jim, presumably out of a sense of duty or fatalism, invites Margaret to the pictures. All pile into Welch’s car and head for town.

Comment

We’ve waited a long time for the damaged bedclothes ‘bomb’ to go off, and when it does now, the repercussions are surprisingly mild. It’s hard to know what to make of Jim’s determination not to throw Margaret over: is he really an utter dimwit?

Chapter 19

Jim rings Welch house, intending to tell Christine their afternoon tea is off because he will be continuing relationship with Margaret, but Christine isn’t available to take call. Jim gets call from Catchpole (Margaret’s ex) enquiring after her welfare. Jim and Catchpole arrange to meet Thursday morning to clarify an apparent misunderstanding about Catchpole’s previous relationship with Margaret. Jim rings Dr Caton and finds him evasive about possible publication date for Jim’s paper. Jim has prepared 44 minutes of content for his lecture. Rushes to tea with Christine. Both are convinced their relationship is doomed by their prior commitments and distance (Christine lives in London, Jim far away). They part, knowing their last meeting will be at Jim’s Merrie England lecture.

Comment

By now we’re presumably pretty sure Jim and Christine will get together somehow and that Dr Caton is never going to publish Jim’s paper. We’re still interested, though, in how Jim and Christine are going to get over all the ‘prior commitments’ nonsense. Once again, we’re given a calendar date to remember: Catchpole’s meeting with Jim on Thursday. Presumably the novel’s job and romance plots are going to interlink eventually — but how?

Chapter 20

We get a preview of how Jim is planning to pad out the conclusion of his Merrie England lecture, to be delivered tonight. Bertrand arrives, and he and Jim fight over Christine. Jim gets the better of Bertrand. Michie arrives and announces he’s going to do Jim’s special subject, but the pretty girls aren’t. Jim heads off to get whisky from Atkinson.

Comment

Jim’s lecture sounds like it’s going to be filled with empty academic posturing. How will that go down, we wonder. Jim’s physical fight with Bertrand is an ‘obligatory scene’, in the sense that the novel would not feel complete without some decisive showdown between them. This fight appears to resolve the Jim/Bertrand conflict (in Jim’s favour). We get another beat in the Michie/honours course subplot, where Michie’s academic sincerity is once again ludicrously contrasted with Jim’s utter insincerity in the same field. Jim’s desire to get whisky bodes badly for this evening, given how disastrously things turned out the last time Jim got really drunk, at the Welches’ house party. So how drunk is Jim going to get, and just how big a disaster will his Merrie England lecture turn out to be?

Chapter 21

Jim gets stuck into drinks with college and society big nobs before his lecture. Gore-Urquhart notes he’s been in a fight. Gore-Urquhart takes Jim aside. He has correctly diagnosed Jim’s unhappiness and intolerance of the boredom he finds everywhere. Gore-Urquhart calls Jim a ‘fellow sufferer’. Jim tells Christine of his fight with Bertrand. Margaret tells Jim she can see he still longs for Christine. In the men’s toilets, Gore-Urquhart gives Jim more whisky to drink. Jim is starting to feel pretty drunk.

Comment

In effect, we’re seeing a charge of gunpowder being poured into a cannon here: Jim’s anxiety and alcohol are likely to prove a potent mix. Gore-Urquhart’s behaviour towards Jim is interestingly ambiguous: is he championing Jim’s cause, or setting him up to fail even more spectacularly than already seemed likely?

Chapter 22

Jim’s very well-attended lecture is a debacle. While it’s still in progress, Christine and Carol exit the hall together. Jim ends up sarcastically deriding Merrie England, then passes out. Only Gore-Urquhart seems immensely amused.

Comment

This chapter is the climax, and payoff, of a lot of setting-up earlier in the novel, particularly with Jim’s derisive attitude towards academia and his love of a drink, both well established by now. So how bad will the repercussions of this disaster be for Jim? Will the urgent conversation between Carol and Christine cause Christine finally to break with Bertrand? And is Gore-Urquhart’s amusement at Jim’s performance merely malicious, or will there be some spin-off benefits for Jim?

Chapter 23

Jim learns Welch has sacked him, but has forgiven him over the bedclothes. Jim discovers Dr Caton has passed off Jim’s paper (translated into Italian) as his own. Jim says farewell to Michie, who is polite to the end. Jim expecting to continue relationship with Margaret, near whom (unlike Christine) he will still be living after his job loss. All Jim’s prospects change when Gore-Urquhart offers him a job in London as his private secretary. Jim heads off for his meeting with Catchpole.

Comment

The chapter ties up some loose ends (Welch’s view of the bedclothes incident, Michie) while on the important job front, one door closes for Jim and another immediately opens, making an ongoing relationship with Christine now practicable. So what new light is Catchpole going to shine on Margaret?

Chapter 24

Catchpole and Jim swap notes. Jim learns that Margaret’s ‘suicide attempt’ over Catchpole was totally staged, and Catchpole wasn’t nearly as involved with Margaret as she made out. Jim finally feels morally clear of Margaret. Jim learns that Christine has left a message that he can meet her at station at 1:50 if he wants. He hastens to station on frustratingly slow bus and arrives at 1:48, only to learn there’s no 1:50 train to London at all. Christine arrives in Welch’s car.

Comment

Jim finally becomes aware of a degree of falsity and manipulation in Margaret’s behaviour towards himself (and Catchpole) that he has (somewhat unaccountably) not been sure of before now — the effect of which is to free him to be with Christine. The second half of the chapter is a variation on a chase sequence.

Chapter 25

Explanations all round. Jim explains how confusion has arisen over time of train to London. Christine explains she now knows from Carol of Bertrand’s unfaithfulness. Jim lets Christine know he’s free of Margaret, and tells Christine of his job offer. Jim and Christine meet the extended Welch family in the street and Jim doubles up with laughter at their ludicrous appearance. The Welches get in their car. Jim and Christine walk on.

Comment

Everything that hasn’t already turned out for the best now does so.

Three-act structure?

So, does Lucky Jim follow a conventional three-act structure?

There’s an argument to be made that a decisive division exists between the conclusion of chapter 19, when it seems Jim’s romance with Christine is ‘finally’ over, and chapter 20, when we hear in some detail lines Jim is preparing to deliver in his Merrie England speech, and immediately after this witness a decisive physical fight between Jim and Bertrand that has been brewing ever since the two men first met in chapter 4. From here, we move swiftly into the Merrie England speech sequence and its denouement which, taken together, clearly represent the novel’s end section.

Is there an equally clear delineation between an Act One and an Act Two? The moment when we get a clear sense of ‘ah, so this is what this novel is about’ occurs in chapter 4, with the arrival of Christine. Christine is clearly, in Jim’s eyes, a worthy rival to Margaret and, in our eyes, a more desirable match for Jim than his plainly devious and underhand colleague. Jim’s sudden departure from the insufferable house party (in favour of the pub) might well mark a kind of Act One curtain — though the dramatic impact this ‘curtain moment’ (if we’re to think of it that way) is somewhat softened by Jim return to the same scene some hours later, as the house party scene sequence continues.

On balance, I’d say Lucky Jim does employ a three act structure, though the separation between the first and second acts is not quite so clear-cut as we’d find it in a typical Hollywood movie.

How Amis micro-manages reader interest

When we say a novel employs a three-act structure, we are essentially saying that the novel poses a compellingly interesting question once we have got our bearings in the novel’s milieu, and that towards the end of the novel a point is reached where we know that a resolution of the novel’s question must be imminent, but we can’t get to that resolution immediately. In effect, the end of the first act and the end of the second act are like large signposts saying “Watch this space” and “Watch out: explosion about to occur”.

As I’ve noted above, these moments do occur in Lucky Jim — but on re-reading the novel I can see that they are only part of the machinery helping Amis maintain his readers’ interest. In practice, nearly every chapter serves to maintain the reader’s curiosity in some way. Techniques Amis uses to maintain our curiosity include:

• cliff-hanger chapter endings
• introducing new, external complications that might affect the outcome
• keeping established plot questions alive by restating them in slightly different terms, and
• adding to the novel’s ‘calendar’ a future event that will presumably turn out to be significant

Cliff-hanger chapter endings occur in chapter 6 (when Margaret comes upon Christine and Jim together), in chapter 10 (when Jim and Christine agree to dance), in chapter 11 (when Carol whisks Jim away on the pretext of dancing with him), in chapter 12 (when Jim gives Christine an ultimatum about joining him in a taxi), in chapter 14 (when Christine invites Jim inside after their taxi ride), in chapter 20 (as Jim prepares to deliver his lecture, aware that he is feeling drunk), in chapter 24 (as Jim collapses at his lecture podium) and in chapter 25 (when Christine arrives at the station, expecting to leave for London).

Complications that might seriously affect Jim’s fate arise in chapter 4 (with the appearance of Bertrand and Christine in Jim’s life), in chapter 6 (when Jim sets about concealing the damage he has done to his host’s bedclothes and carpet), in chapter 11 (when Jim conceals his true identity from his professor’s wife over the phone), in chapter 11 (when Bertrand’s probable unfaithfulness to Christine emerges), in chapter 19 (when Margaret’s supposed former lover Catchpole contacts Jim and claims his role in Margaret’s life has been misrepresented), and in chapter 21 (when Gore-Urquhart emerges as a figure who might possibly save Jim’s bacon).

While Jim’s job insecurity, poverty, frustration with academia and enthralment to Margaret are all established quite early in the novel, Amis reminds us of one or another of these sore points for Jim in nearly every chapter. Whether the effect of this repetition is to build our sympathy for Jim (and hence, our desire to see his problems resolved) or is merely annoying is a moot point (for me, anyway), but this repetition is clearly a part of Amis’s strategy for maintaining our interest in Jim’s fate.

Finally, it’s noteworthy how Amis often lays down quite explicit markers for future events that we, as readers, can only assume will be turn out to be significant for Jim, thus creating a de facto ‘calendar’ of expectation for us. Events Amis places on this ‘calendar’ (often well beforehand) include:

• Welch’s weekend house party
• The Summer Ball
• Jim’s tea with Christine (Tuesday, 4 pm)
• Jim’s Merrie England lecture
• Jim’s meeting with Catchpole

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another novel that uses this technique quite so often, although of course novelists frequently ‘plant’ one or two future events in their narratives that will presumably turn out to be important.

Conclusion

A common way of describing how a narrator creates interest is to suggest that a good narrative ‘raises questions’ in the reader’s mind, and Lucky Jim does appear to fit this description quite well.

Two questions always prominent in my mind as I read Lucky Jim were:

• How and when is Jim going to give the awful Margaret the shove? and
• How and when is Jim going to put n stop to the false position he’s entered into by pretending to be an academic, when he’s really nothing of the sort?

In a sense, both these questions are aspects of one larger question, namely ‘When, if ever, is Jim going to become authentic?

While the overall structure of Lucky Jim does conform fairly closely to a conventional three-act model, there are some divergences. We don’t need to wait until the act one curtain to find out what Lucky Jim is ‘about’: its fundamental question is already pretty clear by the end of chapter 1. Sure, the introduction of Christine in chapter 4 provides Jim with a strong motive for escaping Margaret, but it seems to me the novel is much more about escaping Margaret and academia than it is about attaining Christine.

For me, Margaret’s sway over Jim is a lot more powerful and psychologically credible than Jim’s somewhat shallowly-based attraction to Christine — and for all Welch’s dreariness and Michie’s earnestness, it’s Margaret who is the real repository of horror in this novel. Margaret’s twisted personality is the true engine driving Lucky Jim, the real foundation of the perfectly serviceable scaffolding that keeps us turning the pages.

What do you think?

This has been a pretty long ramble, valuable to me as a way of thinking aloud about how the author of a light work of fiction I have admired has structured his story to keep it interesting, but probably of little intrinsic interest to many readers.

What about you?

• If you’re a writer yourself, do you find there’s some difference between the way you think about, and write about, a novel compared to how you might have done when you were writing about the same novel as part of an English class?
• Have you ever made detailed notes for yourself like these about the way a particular novel ‘ticks’?
• Do you think there’s some benefit in writing out such notes explicitly, rather than leaving them simply as ‘mental notes’ in your own mind?