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The Old Devils Kingsley Amis 9780099461050 Books

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The Old Devils Kingsley Amis 9780099461050 Books

I have read and re-read "The Old Devils." Halfway through the re-reading, I suddenly realized why Kingsley Amis was a success. His major strength was his ability to create characters who are both horrible and funny.

They may be caricatures, but think about it: "Lucky Jim" has the bizarre, hateful Professor Welch, his two loathsome sons (Bertrand and Michel), and Margaret Peel.

"Ending Up" is a story of old folks who are not necessarily hateful but extremely strange. There is not a genuinely likeable person among them, excepting only the poor woman who had never been kissed in her life "because of her extreme ugliness."

"The Old Devils" is more of the same, with a lot more "people." The four married couples slowly reveal themselves to be more or less hateful (aside from drinking enough to float the Titanic), and the "romantic conclusion" is not convincing.

Amis manipulates these caricatures like marionettes. It makes for "black comedy" reading, but it does not make for great fiction.


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The Old Devils Kingsley Amis 9780099461050 Books Reviews

THE OLD DEVILS won the Booker Prize for Kingsley Amis in 1986. The title refers to an ensemble of six couples, all of whom are in their sixties (as was Amis when he wrote the novel). It is set in South Wales, where five of the couples have lived their adult lives. (One motif of the novel is a gentle spoofing of Wales and the Welsh.) The action kicks off with the return to Wales of the sixth couple, the Weavers, from London. Alun Weaver is an inveterate womanizer and, off and on, he has been the paramour of two of the other wives, while Rhiannon Weaver had been the youthful heartthrob of two of the husbands. Their return releases a certain frisson amongst the old devils - making for something resembling a John Updike novel, only British, more genteel, and less sexually explicit.

Thus, a second motif has to do with the return to (or remembrance of) the flings and flames of youth. For most, this turns out to be a variation in the never-ending state of war - or, at best, state of misunderstanding and confusion - between the sexes. But the dominant theme of the novel is the slackening of age - such things as bowel movements, disintegrating teeth, increasing mass, the ordeal of dressing, and a haphazard memory. And virtually everyone - male or female - anesthetizes the onset of old age and its aches and pains with liberal, daily doses of alcohol.

None of the characters is heroic, but all are human. Amis exposes their foibles, follies, and infirmities, but he does so gently, compassionately, with wisdom and, always, with understated humor. Almost every page is marked with dry wit, such as this random example "His second large Scotch and dry ginger was beginning to get to him and already he could turn his head without thinking it over first. Soon it might cease to be one of those days that made you sorry to be alive."

When I first read THE OLD DEVILS in 1987, I enjoyed it. Now I hesitate to use the word "enjoy". It hits a little too close to home, and I ruefully see myself a little more frequently than I would like. Thus, I think it safe to say that the novel will be most appreciated by those in the autumn of their lives. Unfortunately, as of this posting, the novel appears to be out of print. It may itself be middle-aged as a work of literature (it is not one of the immortal classics), but it doesn't deserve the fate of such an early demise.
Odd that Amis should have written only two very good novels, Lucky Jim, his first, and one of his last,
The Old Devils. All the brilliance of Jim is here and little of the tedious, I'm winding you up by being
unPC racism/sexism, and not too much of the cliched philanderer, the Amis avatar, with an eye for
the ladies and a fat bulls*** detector, or even the heart of gold love interest, who accepts the happy go
lucky existentialist (too froggy a term for Kingsley to use) warts and all.

Amis seems to solve the problem of his earlier novels by writing about a group of oldish men and
women from their different viewpoints, the device taking him outside of his comfort zone, and giving
their views, offensive or not, a non-authorial voice. What we get is the startling beautiful accuracy of
Amis's observations of real people (men AND women for once) leading their shabby real lives. With
his clumsy way of trying to describe the physicality of actions, making them seem more complicated
that they are and leaving you trying to decipher what's going on, he alludes to aging (though this is
part of his style in all his novels) but more to the details of existence, like looking at a very high
resolution photo, you realise that what seems simple has a lot more texture and interest than you
thought at first glance.

Not just that, he describes beautifully the sheer nastiness of Britain, in this case Wales, the horrid
food, houses, and pubs, while still preserving an attractive zest for it all which makes you seriously
think of visiting south Wales and drinking all day in the pub. The evil and nice ways people speak to
each other and their thoughts, said and unsaid, are also part of this book's brilliance, and he of
course has his set piece moments of comedy at weddings, official functions and the like.

Essentially a book with a happy ending, I had always avoided it because it looked so depressing. If
not exactly uplifting, it at least challenges the Yank dominance of great late 20thC writing, and if you
only read one book by Amis, read Lucky J and this.
This book reads like a screenplay; and the movie of the book is faithful to the text. The story is clever, the book is well-written, and the result is a generalized feeling of well-being. If you want a fun read to divert your attentions from the affairs of life/ work/ or other stress-producing events, this is an enjoyable frolic and detour.
Complete satisfaction. Couldn't be better.
No plot and not much of a story. Very boring. And very stereotyping.
At first I was disappointed at the delayed delivery. However when the book arrived I was very pleased at its condition and the reason for the delay was book came from England.
I have read and re-read "The Old Devils." Halfway through the re-reading, I suddenly realized why Kingsley Amis was a success. His major strength was his ability to create characters who are both horrible and funny.

They may be caricatures, but think about it "Lucky Jim" has the bizarre, hateful Professor Welch, his two loathsome sons (Bertrand and Michel), and Margaret Peel.

"Ending Up" is a story of old folks who are not necessarily hateful but extremely strange. There is not a genuinely likeable person among them, excepting only the poor woman who had never been kissed in her life "because of her extreme ugliness."

"The Old Devils" is more of the same, with a lot more "people." The four married couples slowly reveal themselves to be more or less hateful (aside from drinking enough to float the Titanic), and the "romantic conclusion" is not convincing.

Amis manipulates these caricatures like marionettes. It makes for "black comedy" reading, but it does not make for great fiction.