Take a Girl Like You (NYRB Classics)

Another compelling Amis novel. Tensions between very real and different characters move the story along. In typical Amis fashion, there are a lot of memorable scenes and satiric barbs. I'm not the kind of reader who needs to actually like characters - or root for them, or for one of them - in order to like a book. But if you are that kind of reader, you may have problems with this novel. Presumably, a reader is supposed to despise Patrick Standish, and be charmed (if not seduced) by the heroine, Jenny Bunn. While it's impossible not to sympathize with Jenny at the end, I found her priggishly annoying through most of the book. My response to Patrick was the opposite: yes, a heel through most of the book, but not really the depraved lout that I think he's supposed to be until the very end. Also, I felt uneasy with his half-Irish ancestry. I am not sure about this, but I wonder if it's a bit of an uncharacteristic cop-out on Amis's part - i.e., the depraved lout is one of them. I've encountered Irish louts, but there are plenty of English in the same category (just take a weekend ferry to Bruge). In any case, I make this point as an aside. Few writers can create characters as fully formed and complex as Amis's. This is a fine novel. I don't know where to rank it amongst his others, because too many are out of print and unavailable to read, but this one has a more pessimistic bite than the others I have read.

Some might question the four star rating, as opposed to a five star rating, and I would be remiss to say that it is only based on my impression that there seems to be an uneven quality in the tone of this book. Jenny seems in the final third of the book to be more worldly than we were led to believe and Patrick, well, he does not change although I think Amis had some thoughts of making him a shade more sympathetic tpwards the end. No doubt this is due to the break of several years in the writing of the novel.This story is basically a tale of the clash of sexual mores (pre and post WW 2) in England, the old male versus female outlooks on sex told with all the insight and biting observations, that Amis displayed in Lucky Jim, minus the faces. If you hated or were embarrassed by Doris Day-Rock Hudson movies, this is the perfect tonic.

Captures the feeling of the early 60s very well. I will read some of Kinglsley Amis' earlier and later books.

I read this book a long time ago when it was a contemporary classic of humour. I wonder how my concept of humour or our society'sperception of humour has changed. The story of the book is a man's relentless pursuit of a young maiden. It concludes when he achieves his goal when the girl is dead-drunk. Funny?

Love Lucky Jim and would also highly recommend The Old Devils and Ending up; however the main character of this novel, and the sequel, Difficulties With Girls, is such a despicable, amoral opportunist and sexual predator that I would not recommend those novels to anyone.

The author's writing may be terrific...(if you are British). I am not British and therefore had a struggle with much of the terminology. I had seen this story on television several years ago and looked forward to the book. But it wasn't entertaining after all.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSJenny is an admirable character: tough, smart, nice, and--unfortunately for her--beautiful. She's also a virgin, and wants to stay that way until marriage. This causes her to be hunted by predatory men and vilified by envious women, pretty much throughout the story. Creepy Patrick is her main suitor, a not very charming bad boy. He fools around with other women (including a wealthy nymphomaniac and an escort) but has Jenny in his beady gaze. Toward the end, he manages to get her drunk at a party. What happens is unequivocal date rape. The next day Jenny is fired by her employer for her dishevelled appearance. Patrick confronts her, unashamed of his assault. He seems to believe it was long overdo. Her heartbreaking response tells so much about the era in which this novel was written, the way it could break women. She says she was at fault for wanting her life to turn out "the way I wanted it to be." As if she had no right to her own hopes, plans, and volition. Patrick then helpfully suggests they go to bed right then and there to seal their relationship. And I guess they do. Patrick is pretty much a pig throughout, and gets away with it. Jenny deserves better throughout, and doesn't get it. There's a sequel, but this novel left such a nasty taste I'm not interested in reading a followup.

I was first drawn to reading this novel after seeing the film, which is a very good reproduction of the story (although in the novel Jenny Bunn has black hair and in the film she is a blond).Amis's novel reads well with his usual verve and he offers some penetrating insights into the mind of a young woman who has to decide who will be her partner and possibly eventual husband. I believe, from reading his biography, that Amis gleaned a lot of this information by conversations with his female friends, when he would ask them penetrating questions about what how a woman would feel and react in a given situation. The book also offers a good take on how moral attitudes were changing in Britain at the time, particularly amongst young women who no longer needed to remain 'virgins' given the increasingly widespread availability of sexual contraceptives. This is Jenny's dilemma as she moves down from a more conservative and old-fashioned north to the south of England.So, all-in-all a good read and one definitely worth recommending.

Excellent book. Perceptive and amusing

The publication date of 2013 on the Kindle page gives a very wrong impression of this book. It was actually first published in 1960, and gives a (now) sickening account of the behaviour of men at that time, and how it was accepted and not questioned. I can say this confidently because I read the book in the early 60s then again a few years ago, and I was shocked by how my own attitudes had changed. Read the passage in which Jenny dodges round the kitchen table to avoid the advances of her slimy landlord; Amis wrote this as comedy, and it is quite funny, but it absolutely exemplifies how at that time it would be unthinkable for a girl to assertively question or criticise that kind of behaviour in a man. It was, as in Jenny's case, up to her to evade unwanted attention without causing offence. Then when Patrick manages to have sex with Jenny because she is drunk at a party, the implication is that the drink simply loosened unnecessary restraint on her part, and she got what she had really wanted all along. The shock I had about my own attitude was because I realised that as a young woman myself at the time I actually held those views. So don't read this book thinking that Amis wrote it as a clever comment on sexual mores; he didn't, he was writing a straightforward story with the attitudes of a man of his generation. I have given it five stars because I did enjoy it a lot on first reading all those years ago, and because I now think it is a document to explain something of the behaviour of older men such as Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein, who may be extreme examples, or more noticeable, but who are nevertheless products of a generation in which men, if they wished, were expected to have the upper hand.

Having read Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, I wanted to read another one of his books. This is written in the same style and I found it a good read.

Sans intérêt.Les personnages sont d'un autre siècle et le livre tombe des mains.D'ailleurs on abandonne en cours de route.A oublier