''Jake's Thing'' is a satirical novel written by

Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social a ...

, first published in 1978 by Hutchinson

Plot summary

The novel follows the life of Jacques 'Jake' Richardson, a 59-year-old Oxford don who struggles to overcome the loss of his libido.

Reception

In the magazine '' Prospect'', critic

Andrew Marr Andrew William Stevenson Marr (born 31 July 1959) is a British journalist and broadcaster. Beginning his career as a political commentator, he subsequently edited '' The Independent'' newspaper from 1996 to 1998 and was political editor of BBC ...

discussed his expectation that Amis' work would be retrospectively beyond the pale. "What slightly spoils this diatribe, however, is that to prepare for it I went back to Kingsley Amis’s novels and enjoyed myself more than was convenient for my purposes. ''Jake’s Thing'', for instance, famously rancid with misogyny, turns out, on re-reading, to be surprisingly tender in parts, and intensely moving on the humiliations of impotence. ''The Old Devils'' will last as long as novels do; but it is not the only brilliant treatment of old age-''Ending Up'' is one of the most delicately tragic funny books I have ever read. And so on." Writing in

The Millions ''The Millions'' is an online literary magazine created by C. Max Magee in 2003. It contains articles about literary topics and book reviews. ''The Millions'' has several regular contributors as well as frequent guest appearances by literary no ...

, critic Catherine Baab-Muguira acknowledged the novel's "comic brio."

References

External links

Kingsley Amis "The Art of Fiction," ''The Paris Review''

Plot summary

Reception

References

External links

Further reading