He is a fraud, having chosen the Medieval module in his history degree at Leicester University simply because it was the easiest course, then finding himself nervously emphasising it in the interview for the current job, then quietly horrified to find himself appointed the Medieval History specialist, all the while knowing nothing and caring even less about the subject.

James Dixon is a short, round-faced young history lecturer struggling with his first job in an unnamed redbrick college. It led Amis to be included in the crop of writers labelled with the catch-all journalistic phrase, ‘Angry Young Men’, coined a few years later in light of the fuss around John Osborne’s famous play. This is Kingsley Amis’s first novel, published in 1954 when he was 32 (b.1922 south London), the comedy classic which made his name, giving voice to a post-war generation dissatisfied with the pompous provincialism of English life and rebelling against its smug narrowness.

Why couldn’t they leave him alone? Why couldn’t every single one of them without exception whatsoever just go right away from where he was and leave him alone? (p.92)

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