The Amis Papers

Kingsley Amis is back on campus: Dr Jake Richardson is discovering a strange world in which his loss of sex drive leads him to re-evaluate his relationships with women while he undergoes therapy and treatment.  Hailed at the time as funny if divisive, but sounding worse now, when Amis's attempts to undermine Jake's views fall flat.  I also discuss why Leonardo DiCaprio would disagree with Amis's law of age and attraction, how far university has changed since Lucky Jim, and the strange recycling of the sleeping pills plot.

A quick update while I'm preparing the episode covering Jake's Thing.

News about the Cambridge Companion to Martin Amis, just published and a My Martin Amis event in London.

And then a recording of me reading some of my poetry at the Llandeilo Comedy Weekender, July 2026.

Amis's foray into speculative fiction examines an alternative history in which England remains Catholic, the Papacy retains its hegemony, and young Hubert Anvil's soprano voice is so exceptional that his elders and betters propose to preserve it by castration.  His best novel of the 70s depicting life under a religious totalitarian government with at the core an adventure story.  

Things mentioned:

Philip K Dick The Man in the High Castle (1962)
Len Deighton SS GB (1978)
Robert Harrris Fatherland (1992)

John Salisbury - Kinglsey Amis YouTube playlist 
Kingsley Amis on the Russell Harty Show (1975)
Audiobook The Alteration

Five old people live in Tuppenny Halfpenny Cottage and spend their time dealing with health problems, the prospect of death, and their irritating housemates.  A black comedy which leaves few characters from its aim (apart from what is probably the only positive depiction of an advertsising executive in literature). 

Language note: includes a  homophobic slur and racist attitudes

1989 TV adaptation with John Mills and Lionel Jeffries


 

In 1936, among the residents of the modest houses of Riverside Villas is 14 year old Peter Furneaux, obsessed by model aircraft, jazz and the mysterious world of sex.  Amis builds a murder mystery around an evocation of very particular time, place and social context, taking the opportunity to parody the tropes of the crime novel while drawing heavily on autobiography and taking consequences seriously.

Content note: the podcast discusses child sexual abuse and includes ethnic slurs

Things mentioned:

George Orwell The Decline of the English murder (1946)  
R C Sherriff The Fortnight in September (1931)

There is a radio dramatisation of the story https://youtu.be/FS2jO7vCZeE?si=ADA3UGJmwKy8YmMM  

A morality tale set in late 60s London, often praised as a satire of young people these days and their older cheerleaders, but in fact an exploration of Henri de Montherlant's philosophy of the self-sufficient man who only engages with romance as a passing diversion.  

Note on sound quality: heavy rain at times.
Note on content: includes a discussion of racial slurs

Links

Henri de Montherlant  The Girls translated by Terrence Kilmartin 

De Beauvoir and Montherlant 

More about The Girls 

Deep Purple Concerto for Group and Orchestra

One of Amis's best novels, worth reading, and worth reading unspoiled. 

Maurice Allington, alcoholic and adulterer, runs a country pub near Cambridge abounding in ghosts and the presence of the supernatural entity the Green Man.  In this discussion I highlight Amis's adoption of the M R James approach to writing about ghosts, the dubious antiquity of pub names and the 'green man' sculptural motif, and whether seeing ghosts would prove the existence of the afterlife.  Amis again tries to explain the appeal of womanising, while noting that some womanisers don't seem to like women at all. 

Amis writes perceptively about the impacts of alcoholism and infidelity, leading me to define the Kingsley syndrome: “the ability of a novelist to understand and depict the negative consequences of a character’s behaviour without leading to the novelist altering his own behaviour”   

The presence of a threesome in the plotline is perhaps surprising when two years earlier David Crobsy thought he was being young and radical in proposing one in 'Triad', confirming that every younger generation thinks they invented sex.

I also look at the TV adaptation by Maclolm Bradbury (author of The History Man)  which is perhaps less worthy of your time.  Part 1   Part 2   Part 3  

Amis presents a fairy tale in which a Sleeping Beauty is saved by love, dressed up as a satire of the ultra rich and 1960s talk shows.  Ronnie Appleyard, ambitious and selfish, meets Simona Quick, listless heiress, and struggles to prise her away from the influence of her autocratic mother Lady Baldock, while visiting Greece and the southern United States.  Ronnie finds his usually weakly-held convictions tested by the behaviour of the wealthy and overt racism and he stands up for right against his better interests.  

Content note: discussion of sexual assault

As a bonus (of sorts)  this episode includes a reading of my long short story, Change and Decay, which examines the murky ethics underlying an aristrocatic family.

This episode looks at Amis's contributions to the James Bond literature - Colonel Sun, his continuation of the Fleming series, set in the Greek islands, and a critical review of Fleming's work as a whole.  I discuss whether the novel works as a Bond book (yes), whether Amis fans will find much of his usual pleasures (no)  (and on the way manage to get E M Forster's definition of story and plot confused, and examine the theory that Amis was choosing less personal projects at this time because of the turmoil of his private life).  The James Bond Dossier is more interesting, addressing head-on the criticisms levelled at Fleming's work as appealing to male reader's wish fulfilment and full of pornography and sadism, and Amis makes a good case that these are largely unfounded; he is on weaker ground arguing that what the critics really disliked was that Bond was presented as patriotic, uncomplicatedly pro-West and brave.  Amis also slyly uses his defence of genre writing to implicitly argue that popular literature deserved more respect than polite literature.

Sources mentioned

Dear Philip, Dear Kingsley- The Letters between Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin  (Radio play) 

Amis, Amis & Bond  Radio documentary

A change in approach, with a sort-of thriller in the near future, following an experimental army unit preparing to use a secret and terrible weapon.  But much of the story is about love, and Amis abandons irony while exploring whether the existence of God can be reconciled with the existence of suffering.  

References

R D Laing The Divided Self (1961)

John Robinson Honest to God (1963)

Dylan Thomas "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, By Fire, of a Child in London"

Father Ted "That would be an ecumenical matter"

Wee Gwen (British Tactical Nuclear weapon)