Kingsley Amis's longest, and some say his best, novel, recounts the tortuous relationship of innocent Jenny Bunn and lascivious Patrick Standish as they negotiate societal mores and personal boundaries in a pre-Pill world.  In this episode I explore the source and meaning of the epigraph "Go, gentle maid, go lead the apes in hell", whether the book can be read as an indictment of the male gaze, what the old website Hot Or Not tells us about Pretty Privilege, what Amis means when a character says that they are too busy trying to not be a nasty man to worry about being a bad man, and similarities with the plot of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa.  

Content note: discussion of sexual assault and consent

References:

Song of the Wanderer by Harry James
Word Histories: Meaning and origin of 'to lead apes in hell'
Ernest Kuhl "Shakspere's "Lead Apes in Hell" and the Ballad of "The Maid and the Palmer" 
John Davies of Hereford "A Contention betwixt a wife, a widow and a maid"
Philip Larkin reads his poem "Lines on a young lady's photograph album"


Take a Girl Like You (1970 film)
Take a Girl Like You (2000 series) Part 1   Part 2  Part 3