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Patrick Standish and Jenny Bunn #1
Take a Girl Like You
alternative cover edition of ISBN-10:0140018484; ISBN13:9780140018486
TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU is the story of attractive little Jenny Bunn, come south to teach and confront head-on, the cold, cold world.
TAKE A GIRL LIKE YOU is the story of attractive little Jenny Bunn, come south to teach and confront head-on, the cold, cold world.
"The best novel Amis has written; it has the comic gusto, the loathing of pretension that made LUCKY JIM so engaging and high-spirited." (Listener)
"Incendiary stuff...a really formidable blaze. This is his most interesting so far...and no less funny than the first." (Observer)
317 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
55 people are currently reading
1147 people want to read
About the author
Kingsley Amis
210 books554 followersBest known novels of British writer Sir Kingsley William Amis include
Lucky Jim
(1954) and
The Old Devils
(1986).
This English poet, critic, and teacher composed more than twenty-three collections, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. He fathered Martin Amis.
William Robert Amis, a clerk of a mustard manufacturer, fathered him. He began his education at the city of London school, and went up to college of Saint John, Oxford, in April 1941 to read English; he met Philip Larkin and formed the most important friendship of his life. After only a year, the Army called him for service in July 1942. After serving as a lieutenant in the royal corps of signals in the Second World War, Amis returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree. He worked hard and got a first in English in 1947, and then decided to devote much of his time.
Pen names: [authorRobert Markham|553548] and William Bill Tanner
This English poet, critic, and teacher composed more than twenty-three collections, short stories, radio and television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. He fathered Martin Amis.
William Robert Amis, a clerk of a mustard manufacturer, fathered him. He began his education at the city of London school, and went up to college of Saint John, Oxford, in April 1941 to read English; he met Philip Larkin and formed the most important friendship of his life. After only a year, the Army called him for service in July 1942. After serving as a lieutenant in the royal corps of signals in the Second World War, Amis returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree. He worked hard and got a first in English in 1947, and then decided to devote much of his time.
Pen names: [authorRobert Markham|553548] and William Bill Tanner
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
June 15, 2025
This is an exceptionally well-written book about morality and the changing societal attitudes towards sex and relationships at the dawn of the 1960s. It’s very funny in places and yet quite horrifying at times. The characters are all very human, which is to say, occasionally noble but often rather despicable.
July 25, 2007
I love Kingsley Amis, but this book is vile. His sexism -- simmering under the surface in much of his writing -- is on full display here, culminating in what today we would call a date rape. Skip this and read The Old Devils...or just read Lucky Jim again.
September 7, 2017
I hardly know what to say about this book. I do not know whether Kingsley Amis is approving of his characters' life choices or trying to come to grips with the abruptly changing moral landscape of England in 1960. Does he really believe the moral paradigm that traditional relationships grounded in Christian principles to be outdated and incapable? Or is he simply calling it as he sees it?
He certainly does not glamorize what he sees as traditional morals' replacement. His characters lead quite dreary lives. But to sum:
Jenny Bunn is a twenty year old girl from the North of England who has traveled south to a town near London to work as a teacher. She lives with Dick and Martha Torkington who rent a room to her and a French girl named Anna.
Jenny is very pretty and she is conscious of that without being particularly concerned, and even if she was unconscious she was constantly reminded of her looks by the wolfish and lustful gazes of every single man she comes into contact with. Even Anna is attracted to her.
Amis' male characters are all lechers who cannot stop themselves from groping, leering, propositioning and otherwise sexually harrassing women. Not that any of the women mind, not even Jenny, who, though a good girl, does not seem to possess any kind of discernment as to the quality of men she should associate with. She is not much offended when Anna sexually harasses her. although she makes it clear she is not interested.
Jenny is old-fashioned. She's not particularly religious, but she does believe she should remain a virgin until she's marries because that's how she feels and she's quite firm about it.
Patrick Standish is a young headmaster who teaches at a nearby secondary school and happened to be at the Torkington's when he meets Jenny. He immediately goes about trying to seduce her. Jenny likes Patrick and wants to pursue a relationship with him but makes it clear that they will marry before any sex happens.
Patrick makes it equally clear that marriage is not a goal of his, only sex. And he doesn't have any intention of being monogamous either. He does not hide his opinions from Jenny in either word or deed.
One asks oneself why Jenny would remain interested in someone whose quality of character is laid out so clearly before her. But Jenny seems to live in kind of a somnambulic state as she passively watches her world go by.
Patrick is determined to have her and sleep with her. He gets himself quite worked up to the point where he sleeps with a divorcee while dead drunk (he was dead drunk not she and I'm not quite sure how he accomplished that) and also with an underage girl for whom he "magnanimously" finances an abortion.
As the story progresses we wonder who is going to win? Jenny or Patrick? Jenny never compromises. She gets roofied at a party and Patrick takes advantage of her. Hence he gets what he wants but without her permission.
One then wonders what is going to happen. Is Jenny going to wake up? At first she seems to. She gives Patrick a telling off and asserts she is never going to see him again. I gather that women did not report date rape to the police back then or statutory rape or consider that someone like Patrick is a repulsive sleazeball. Patrick however does not give up and she finally relents.
Her conclusion is that it was unrealistic of her to believe in commitment and marriage and all that. In fact, it was selfish of her to expect more than to be one of Patrick's many amours.
As I read the book, aside from the brilliant and witty writing at which Amis is a master, I wondered if Amis' real point was to show how modern (at the time) life had emptied out all real meaning as regards relationships. That the Church had rendered itself obsolete but had left a moral vacuum into which the young generation had climbed. What was left?
"I don't love you, you don't love me; I am using you but that's all right because you are using me as well and that is the most anyone can expect while they are alive."
If Amis was intending to create a scene of hopelessness and despair, he succeeded.
Luckily, I don't mistake his book for the Gospel.
He certainly does not glamorize what he sees as traditional morals' replacement. His characters lead quite dreary lives. But to sum:
Jenny Bunn is a twenty year old girl from the North of England who has traveled south to a town near London to work as a teacher. She lives with Dick and Martha Torkington who rent a room to her and a French girl named Anna.
Jenny is very pretty and she is conscious of that without being particularly concerned, and even if she was unconscious she was constantly reminded of her looks by the wolfish and lustful gazes of every single man she comes into contact with. Even Anna is attracted to her.
Amis' male characters are all lechers who cannot stop themselves from groping, leering, propositioning and otherwise sexually harrassing women. Not that any of the women mind, not even Jenny, who, though a good girl, does not seem to possess any kind of discernment as to the quality of men she should associate with. She is not much offended when Anna sexually harasses her. although she makes it clear she is not interested.
Jenny is old-fashioned. She's not particularly religious, but she does believe she should remain a virgin until she's marries because that's how she feels and she's quite firm about it.
Patrick Standish is a young headmaster who teaches at a nearby secondary school and happened to be at the Torkington's when he meets Jenny. He immediately goes about trying to seduce her. Jenny likes Patrick and wants to pursue a relationship with him but makes it clear that they will marry before any sex happens.
Patrick makes it equally clear that marriage is not a goal of his, only sex. And he doesn't have any intention of being monogamous either. He does not hide his opinions from Jenny in either word or deed.
One asks oneself why Jenny would remain interested in someone whose quality of character is laid out so clearly before her. But Jenny seems to live in kind of a somnambulic state as she passively watches her world go by.
Patrick is determined to have her and sleep with her. He gets himself quite worked up to the point where he sleeps with a divorcee while dead drunk (he was dead drunk not she and I'm not quite sure how he accomplished that) and also with an underage girl for whom he "magnanimously" finances an abortion.
As the story progresses we wonder who is going to win? Jenny or Patrick? Jenny never compromises. She gets roofied at a party and Patrick takes advantage of her. Hence he gets what he wants but without her permission.
One then wonders what is going to happen. Is Jenny going to wake up? At first she seems to. She gives Patrick a telling off and asserts she is never going to see him again. I gather that women did not report date rape to the police back then or statutory rape or consider that someone like Patrick is a repulsive sleazeball. Patrick however does not give up and she finally relents.
Her conclusion is that it was unrealistic of her to believe in commitment and marriage and all that. In fact, it was selfish of her to expect more than to be one of Patrick's many amours.
As I read the book, aside from the brilliant and witty writing at which Amis is a master, I wondered if Amis' real point was to show how modern (at the time) life had emptied out all real meaning as regards relationships. That the Church had rendered itself obsolete but had left a moral vacuum into which the young generation had climbed. What was left?
"I don't love you, you don't love me; I am using you but that's all right because you are using me as well and that is the most anyone can expect while they are alive."
If Amis was intending to create a scene of hopelessness and despair, he succeeded.
Luckily, I don't mistake his book for the Gospel.
January 23, 2008
Amis is very good at creating sympathetic characters that are still right bastards.
March 3, 2025
Late 1950’s London. An untrustworthy, but somewhat endearing, Jack-the-lad type is intent on taking the virginity of a nice Northern girl recently moved to the big smoke. Funny in places, cringingly dated in others, and a bit too long for the story it was telling. Reasonably enjoyable but nothing remarkable.
March 22, 2014
My first time to read a book written by Kingsley Amis (1922-1995) who was an English comic novelist. He is the father of Martin Amis (born 1949) whose books I have not tried too. I thought I should start with the father and so after finishing this book I can now line up the son's 1001 books such as "Money", "London Fields", "Time's Arrow" and "The Information." Well, I should also try to read in between other 1001 books by the father such as "Lucky Jim", "The Green Man", "Jake's Thing" and "The Old Devils." This will be another exciting time reading the works of this father-son tandem just like the excitement I felt reading the husband-wife works of Jonathan Safran Foer & Nicole Krauss and that of the Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt (his present wife) or Lydia Davis (his ex).
The story is about county girl 20-y/o Jenny Bunn who goes to London as a teacher. She meets city boy Patrick Standish and they fall for each other. The problem is that Jenny does not want to give up her virginity prior to getting married. Patrick says "give it to me or I shall leave you" but Jenny is steadfast on her morals so she lets Patrick go. Then in the end
The mood is funny. Well, I am not sure if British people in the 50's or 60's still value their virginity that much. In fact, I don't care about virginity although I married a virgin and I was (and still am) proud of it. Maybe Amis did not care about virginity too even during the 50's and so this book was actually to make fun of those who still strongly believe about being a pure and virgin when one's getting married.
Kingsley Amis was said to be a neo-realist novelist so even if he was a contemporary of Henry James and Virginia Woolf, he did not use any of those literary tool like stream-of-consciousness, metaphors, lyrical poetry and the like. Reading him feels ordinary but his storytelling is solid and his plot is believable. In this book, for example, he made virginity a big deal that if you lose it, you can file for disability in the Social Security System's branch nearest to your house.
The story is about county girl 20-y/o Jenny Bunn who goes to London as a teacher. She meets city boy Patrick Standish and they fall for each other. The problem is that Jenny does not want to give up her virginity prior to getting married. Patrick says "give it to me or I shall leave you" but Jenny is steadfast on her morals so she lets Patrick go. Then in the end
The mood is funny. Well, I am not sure if British people in the 50's or 60's still value their virginity that much. In fact, I don't care about virginity although I married a virgin and I was (and still am) proud of it. Maybe Amis did not care about virginity too even during the 50's and so this book was actually to make fun of those who still strongly believe about being a pure and virgin when one's getting married.
Kingsley Amis was said to be a neo-realist novelist so even if he was a contemporary of Henry James and Virginia Woolf, he did not use any of those literary tool like stream-of-consciousness, metaphors, lyrical poetry and the like. Reading him feels ordinary but his storytelling is solid and his plot is believable. In this book, for example, he made virginity a big deal that if you lose it, you can file for disability in the Social Security System's branch nearest to your house.
May 8, 2010
It's not always pretty when Amis is on about women (The Russian Girl and Stanley and the Women are both sort of ridiculous), but the unelaborated kneejerk conclusion that his handling of the date rape here must therefore be problematic is just asinine. That it was more or less inevitable in this story doesn't mean Amis is excusing it. And in the broader context of the conflict between Jenny's "provincial" morality and Patrick's more "cosmopolitan" outlook, it's clear that while most of Amis's heroes (and, I imagine, the man himself) find the latter to be useful, they ultimately can't shake the former. And it's clear where Amis's sympathies lie. (Of COURSE the ending was meant to be depressing.)
Anyway, not quite as funny as Lucky Jim, and a good deal more complicated, but still very entertaining.
Anyway, not quite as funny as Lucky Jim, and a good deal more complicated, but still very entertaining.
May 17, 2024
An almost blind read I picked up at a used bookstore in Seoul with another dreadfully tiny English section. To all my e-reader girlies out there. I get it. I get you now. If I ever take a long trip like this again, I'm going to have to invest.
Normally I'm pretty good at appreciating the historical context of a novel, but I could not wrap my brain around the shocking sexism of this book. It culminates in a readily accepted date rape?! Utter garbage. I'm going to mail this book to all the Instagram 'trad wives' that want to go back to the 1950s.
Also, the writing wasn't even good. The descriptions were monotonous and winding, and desperately trying to seem philosophical but coming off as filler. If I ever have to read one more multi-page chronicle of a hangover again I'm going to chuck this book through the window of an LCBO.
Normally I'm pretty good at appreciating the historical context of a novel, but I could not wrap my brain around the shocking sexism of this book. It culminates in a readily accepted date rape?! Utter garbage. I'm going to mail this book to all the Instagram 'trad wives' that want to go back to the 1950s.
Also, the writing wasn't even good. The descriptions were monotonous and winding, and desperately trying to seem philosophical but coming off as filler. If I ever have to read one more multi-page chronicle of a hangover again I'm going to chuck this book through the window of an LCBO.
July 29, 2017
The more I read Kingsley Amis, the more I like him. Take a Girl Like You is a tad different from the old letch's other works that I've read: Its heroine is a genuinely good girl surrounded by leering men who want to sample her virginity. The daughter of a North England hearse driver, Miss Bunn is prim and proper -- until she attends a party at the end given by one Julian Ormerod, where she is deflowered while under the influence by her boyfriend Patrick Standish.
Now Patrick is in no way as moral as Miss Bunn, and he samples various fleshpot denizens during the course of the novel. I can imagine Amis thinking, "Well, he's not so bad -- kind of like me in a way!" Still, Jenny is a nice girl, and I find it is possible to write a novel in our day with a genuinely good main character.
Now Patrick is in no way as moral as Miss Bunn, and he samples various fleshpot denizens during the course of the novel. I can imagine Amis thinking, "Well, he's not so bad -- kind of like me in a way!" Still, Jenny is a nice girl, and I find it is possible to write a novel in our day with a genuinely good main character.
September 3, 2025
Since when is this misogynistic? Spent the whole book feeling nothing but admiration for little Jenny Bunn and nothing but embarrassment for myself and all mankind. Amis may have got nuttier in his old age, I dunno, but this is an empathetic, thoughtful, fun romp with an authentic 60s UK kitchen sink “allo luv let’s get some slap-up grub” ambience.
January 22, 2009
Father of Martin, of whom I'm a big fan so decided to delve into the family archive and try a Kingsley. Read Lucky Jim years ago which was funny, this one not so much. Very much of its time with girls worrying about virginity, boys smoking and being cads 'trying it on', lots of gin and cricket matches etc. Funny in parts, but ultimately didn't really care about any of the characters and found myself skim reading sections of long descriptions of hangovers....
March 24, 2014
My least favorite Amis so far. The book is filled with too topical cultural satire, difficult to appreciate without having experienced 1960s Britain. Although I recognize that the ending is intended to be depressing and bitingly critical of prevailing society, it still struck me as, SPOILER ALERT, rape apologetics. This one is too cynical, even for me.
I will mention, however, that Amis has an ability to capture drunkenness and associated effects that is unsurpassed.
I will mention, however, that Amis has an ability to capture drunkenness and associated effects that is unsurpassed.
August 8, 2012
Some lines made me laugh out loud but the ending completely ruined the book. Patrick is the most loathsome character.
October 1, 2015
Of its time - 1960. Amis is certainly funny and I enjoyed it for that. Did not like the ending.
April 28, 2018
"She's a reet champion lass with her head screwed on and her legs together, is our Jenny. Still, never say die, eh?"
Jenny Bunn, an insanely beautiful young woman with a dark secret journeys south where she comes up against darker forces.
What is her dark secret? Lesbian werewolves? Time-travelling transgender zombies? Wizards with sneakers? No. She's a Virgin!
Who are the darker forces? Faerie, clockwork vampires? Ancient cyborg messiahs? No. Men!
A rare treat, a work both superlative and funny, surprising considering it was written by arch-asshole and bad husband Amis. Surprising, too, is the novel's hero, the inimitable Jenny Bunn whose virtues are practical and whose unwavering (mostly) dedication to the simple idea that she'll have sex with who she wants, when she wants, but not to determined by anyone else (and boy they try) is a welcome respite from the usual schlock accompanying the "modern story about love". Not a "love story", but a modern story about love, because this isn't a love story at all and Jenny, while ostensibly unassailable, doesn't have a good time of it. In fact, maybe it'd be better to not call it "modern" either. In our current state, jenny Bunn would never be noticed at all because all the men (and not a few women) would be staring down at their goddamn phones and virginity, being the lark it is, would be a laughable, petty excuse as a superpower, I guess.
Jenny Bunn, an insanely beautiful young woman with a dark secret journeys south where she comes up against darker forces.
What is her dark secret? Lesbian werewolves? Time-travelling transgender zombies? Wizards with sneakers? No. She's a Virgin!
Who are the darker forces? Faerie, clockwork vampires? Ancient cyborg messiahs? No. Men!
A rare treat, a work both superlative and funny, surprising considering it was written by arch-asshole and bad husband Amis. Surprising, too, is the novel's hero, the inimitable Jenny Bunn whose virtues are practical and whose unwavering (mostly) dedication to the simple idea that she'll have sex with who she wants, when she wants, but not to determined by anyone else (and boy they try) is a welcome respite from the usual schlock accompanying the "modern story about love". Not a "love story", but a modern story about love, because this isn't a love story at all and Jenny, while ostensibly unassailable, doesn't have a good time of it. In fact, maybe it'd be better to not call it "modern" either. In our current state, jenny Bunn would never be noticed at all because all the men (and not a few women) would be staring down at their goddamn phones and virginity, being the lark it is, would be a laughable, petty excuse as a superpower, I guess.
August 19, 2024
eponymous-ey sentence:
p38: "...And it is a little bit my business, because a young girl like you away from home, I'd be failing in my duty if I didn't keep a weather eye on your welfare."
construction:
p51: With his hand still her waist, or perhaps her hip, Patrick got her into the car, which had looked big and dignified at first glance, but had turned out to be big and lively.
spelling:
p180: Everyting had gone well, or anyway much as expected, until the drive home in that noisy old car.
Still feels like pulling teeth.
p38: "...And it is a little bit my business, because a young girl like you away from home, I'd be failing in my duty if I didn't keep a weather eye on your welfare."
construction:
p51: With his hand still her waist, or perhaps her hip, Patrick got her into the car, which had looked big and dignified at first glance, but had turned out to be big and lively.
spelling:
p180: Everyting had gone well, or anyway much as expected, until the drive home in that noisy old car.
Still feels like pulling teeth.
August 16, 2015
This is a story about getting a girl into bed who’s holding on to her virginity (really her principles) when just about everyone else in 1960s England is giving up theirs at the first opportunity.
Amis handles this with a surprisingly light touch. If Jenny knew too well what she was waiting for, it would have been hard to sympathize with her or like her. The fact that she doesn’t really know, but doesn’t want to do anything that she can’t take back is just a charming aspect of her youth. What we have, then, for Jenny and Patrick, both of whom already have jobs as teachers, is a belated coming-of-age tale. It is dated and a bit stuffy, in spite of a lot of trying not to be stuffy, but it captures something relevant about conflict between the sexes and within the sexes in young love.
There’s something a little bit disturbing about the resolution of the conflict. Standout moments are an amusing rant from Patrick’s friend Gordon about how it is to be unattractive and a beautifully described panic attack.
Amis handles this with a surprisingly light touch. If Jenny knew too well what she was waiting for, it would have been hard to sympathize with her or like her. The fact that she doesn’t really know, but doesn’t want to do anything that she can’t take back is just a charming aspect of her youth. What we have, then, for Jenny and Patrick, both of whom already have jobs as teachers, is a belated coming-of-age tale. It is dated and a bit stuffy, in spite of a lot of trying not to be stuffy, but it captures something relevant about conflict between the sexes and within the sexes in young love.
There’s something a little bit disturbing about the resolution of the conflict. Standout moments are an amusing rant from Patrick’s friend Gordon about how it is to be unattractive and a beautifully described panic attack.
August 17, 2022
I didn't really warm to any of the characters, nor did I think much of the plot (or the ending! Jeebus!) but I really enjoyed this nevertheless, the writing was brilliant and made me laugh out loud a lot - particularly the chicken that tasted like a damp tea towel. Also, from now on I'm going to divide people into the two categories of 'smashers' and 'duds'.
January 28, 2010
Quite well done, albeit with a few loose ends plot-wise. The writing is superb, especially when putting a character's viewpoint in deadpan contrast with reality. A sly romp of a sex comedy as well as a sharply observed snapshot of England circa 1960.
November 5, 2014
Very old-fashioned. I would have given up except for the beauty of the writing.
September 13, 2022
A well written, humorous novel with interesting characters and entertaining incidents. Jenny Bunn, a primary school teacher, is adamant about not losing her virginity before marriage. Jenny is twenty year old, slim and pretty. Patrick Standish is a thirty year old college teacher. He is a womaniser who mostly gets his way. Jenny lives in a small boarding house with the owners, Dick and Martha Thompson. Anna Le Page, a French girl, is a fellow boarder with Jenny. Graham, a teacher, lives with Patrick. Patrick and Jenny become a couple, but Jenny only allows hugs and kisses. Patrick becomes quite frustrated.
A book with good plot momentum and well developed characters, however I did not like the ending!
This book was first published in 1960.
A book with good plot momentum and well developed characters, however I did not like the ending!
This book was first published in 1960.
April 6, 2023
Okay. This is probably the most sexist book i have ever read. But my god i hoovered up that 60s suburban feeling. What a four star bind.
July 26, 2016
I liked Jenny Bunn from the start. Through the story she exuded a certain something, an innocence and a sense of humour that appealed to me. I found I couldn’t wait, for her sake, the sexual revolution of the mid 1960s, just so that she – in her 30’s - could break the bounds imposed of her by the Patrick Standish.
Kingsley Amis described Patrick for what he was, a Master of Arts, and a cad, frequently a counterfeit, someone that a fairly liberated woman, or a hard one, once said of him ‘you’ll make a nice man a wonderful wife one day’. Or as Jenny described him in her thoughts: ‘Mr. Heart Throb’. Patrick, the leach, saw something decent in Jenny, bringing with and in his company a ‘mood of pleasure and trust’. Amis drew Patrick Standish as chronically weak I thought, someone who is spite of his insights into his deficiencies would never conquer them, would never mature, would remain a wannabe playboy until he became, like George Bowling, fat, balding, with a new set of false teeth, and would probably unsuccessfully muddle through life, and doing a fair amount of hurt too. And yet he seemed eminently human, just frustratingly (for him and us) flawed. There was one point where Patrick could not stand the thought of an ode to a sexual lament: lamenting his friend’s (and his own historical) lack of success, statistically speaking, of bedding a sufficient number of women, comparatively speaking.
But there was something about Jenny, that although somewhat cognizant of the ways of the woman and of men, remained trusting, even at the end, when feeling sad by what she had lost, a certain innocence, she seemed nonetheless to me to have retained that innocence. I think too that as she emerges from the 1960’s and into the 70’s she is going to do fine. Patrick already had a pot belly, and is moving already into a slack middling middle age that George Orwell could easily have written of in his Coming Up for Air. “Keep me sweet and sound of heart, in spite of gratitude, treachery or meanness’ is a motto that I think Jenny will stay true to, that she won’t succumb to cynicism, even though her judgment of people and events may be caustically withering: so for me, Kingsley Amis created a character I liked throughout, that I rooted for and in which whose present and future I believed. She’s someone for whom the story continues.
Kingsley Amis used a lot of words but ably descried the time, still a somewhat post-war England, well over a decade after the end of the Second World War, and overall it seemed – of the men – a sad portrait of lost souls, existing in the ashes of an Empire, stuck on a now claustrophobic Island, educated and seemingly nowhere to go. Patrick was one of a band of voraciously unscrupulous men into whose company Amis placed the pretty, rather conservative (‘bourgeois, prim and prissy’) and idealistic Jenny. ”With a girl like you, those Bible-class ideas take a knocking, an inevitable knocking”.
Take a Girl Like You seemed to miss something, in spite of Amis’ volubility seemed to have left too much out, too much undeveloped. I found it interesting that Kingsley Amis hadn’t seen the mid 1960’s coming, hadn’t as a creative thinker, writer, sensed that times were a changing, especially for the women, that in spite of his ability to get into a Jenny Bunn’s head, to be sympathetic to her plight as a young women, he hadn’t anticipated through his reading that the 1960’s would happen, that books like ‘Against our Will’ would be written a decade later, that brilliant books like The Second Sex existed. So in spite of its 316 pages, the book seems parochial, unnecessarily limited to a place and time where people, especially the men and most if not all the women, were less than they were, didn’t read, didn’t think, were no more than cogs in a bland bit of machinery dully marching along almost mindlessly.
I have no idea where I got the book from, published as it was in 1963, Perhaps I bought it 2nd hand, like the title, the cover, and how can one resist the book with a forward “Where shall I go when I go where I go, Go, gentle maid, go lead the apes in hell’, and perhaps Kingsley Amis wanted to create a modern version of Much Ado about Nothing. It was a good book and an enjoyable thought-provoking read.
Edwin
June 10, 2024
A fun, funny and (to me) surprisingly insightful novel. Jenny Bunn is an attractive young woman from the north of England, who has come down to somewhere near London to work as a teacher. She draws the attention of several local men, the most eligible being Patrick Standish, a fellow teacher with bohemian leanings and plans on her virginity. Much of the novel is about the pressure laid by Patrick - portrayed throughout as selfish, impulsive, and driven solely by lust - on the very grounded and reasonable Jenny, who is tempted but conflicted. A strong contrast with the confident, jazz-loving Patrick is his flatmate Graham, a nerdy Scotsman who listens to classical music and takes everything seriously, which Jenny sees as his fatal flaw. (One of Jenny and Patrick's favoured games is observing strangers, and noting people who are "stooges" or "duds".)
That remark, and the watchful look that went with it, had in it what she now saw as the thing that ruined his chances far more than any amount of face could: a heaviness that would make Alice in Wonderland sound like something by Sir Walter Scott or one of those, a way of talking about everything so as to make it as important as everything else and fit in with everything else.The ending is pretty shocking, by modern standards: I think it's pretty clear that Amis is not condoning Patrick, but this ending did give me second thoughts about recommending this book to others. But I still think it stands the test of time. It's plain-spoken, true to life, and full of good lines; here are a few.
But I do keep putting it on with all these disgusting cream cakes and chocolates and marshmallows and waffles and syrup and things. It quite worries me the way I keep at them, I just don’t seem to be able to stop myself. How do you manage to keep so lovely and slim? You’re like an absolute wand. You can’t eat enough to keep a flea alive. Of course all these shortages with the war and everything, that was really my best time, I was quite thin then.
In fact this was one of those evenings when the thought of death seemed intrinsically uninteresting, like the doings of the Queen and her consort or the history of banking.(Graham on Patrick's wealthy friend Julian Ormerod)
"Isn’t it now?" he agreed eagerly. "The money that must have gone into all this. And the upkeep must be something quite staggering. I’d like a wee glance at the details of Mr Ormerod’s monthly income, I must say. Where it all derives from, in particular." Then he quietened down, like somebody who knows he has let on to being a bit too interested in how they manage the floggings in prisons.
Getting drink into Jenny was usually like getting blood into a stone.And this impassioned speech by Graham about lookism.
"It’s a long time since I could fool myself over that. I know I’m unattractive. Not just not attractive. Unattractive. A positive quality."
"Please don’t say any more, let’s go back."
"A great British prime minister once remarked that the people were divided into two nations, the rich and the poor, and in effect that these had no knowledge of each other. One might say the same, perhaps, of those who live in parts of the world where segregation by races is practised. But these barriers, or the reasons for them, belong to a part of our history which is fortunately passing away. There is one barrier, however, which no amount of progress or tolerance or legislation can ever diminish. I’m talking about the barrier between the attractive and the unattractive, and if you think I sound as if I’ve got this learned off, so I have, pretty well. As I said, I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.
"Unless you sit down and do have a real good think about it, you can have no conception of the difference between the lives of those who look like you and those who look like me. No doubt you and I are extreme examples. But, you see, the whole pattern of our thinking and feeling is just miles apart. Our hopes and our ambitions and the chance we have of making them come true – that’s the important one – well, they move on totally different levels, they almost go in opposite directions altogether. You think I’m talking about sex, don’t you? Well, so I am, but we’ll get on to that properly in a minute. I just want to say first that it applies to friendship as well. Haven’t you ever noticed that groups of friends and associates tend to, I’m not saying always, but there is a distinct tendency for the attractive to congregate and the unattractive likewise, wouldn’t you say? Why do you think I see so much of the Thompsons, for instance, so much more than Patrick does? It’s not that I like them any better. Look round any community like a masters’ common room where the association isn’t purely voluntary, and you’ll see the duffers marking one another out. Like very small men getting together, a mutual defence system. Or any minority. That’s what we really are, the duffers, a minority, nothing so grand as a nation. Most people are passable, after all. But it isn’t all that easy, is my point, for a duffer to make a friend of an attractive person. There’s me and Patrick. We’re friends. And you’re maybe going to mention those mixed pairs of girls you see going round together, one pretty and the other ugly. But does that really happen often? Don’t we notice it because it is so rare? And I’d suppose it was often a kind of manhunting tactic when it does occur; you may know. I’m not saying it may not be a genuine friendship in many cases. After all, friendship includes charity. But there’s no charity in sex."
"Do stop, Graham, don’t tell me any more, there’s a dear."
"I won’t say anything that may shock you, rest assured of that."
"It’s not that, I just don’t want you to upset yourself."
"Upset you, you mean, by showing you something you’d prefer not to think about. No, that’s not fair to you. And why should you think about it? It can’t ever concern you. Let’s say, then, that I won’t be upsetting myself if I merely say out loud what I’ve already put into words for my own benefit hundreds of times. I never have said it before, but I’m going to finish it now, and I’ll apologize later for keeping you standing here in the dark listening to it. There’s not much more.
"You can’t imagine what it’s like not to know what it is to meet an attractive person who’s also attracted to you, can you? Because unattractive men don’t want unattractive girls, you see. They want attractive girls. They merely get unattractive girls. I think a lot of people feel vaguely when they see two duffers marrying that the duffers must prefer it that way. Which is rather like saying that slum-dwellers would rather live in the slums than anywhere else – there they are in the slums, aren’t they? A great German thinker once said that character is destiny. Appearance is character and destiny would have been better, and truer. What use is your character to you if you can’t turn it into your destiny? When I see someone as pretty as you I always start off by thinking that it’s going to be different this time, this time she’ll have to want me a little because I want her so much. That’s the bit I always do fool myself about, at first. Perhaps it isn’t normal, all this wanting. But I wouldn’t know, would I? I haven’t any way of knowing. What’s sex all about? How would I know? And not knowing that means not knowing a lot of other things, too. For instance, literature. I used to be a great reader at one time, but not any more. Eternity was in our lips and eyes, bliss in our brows' bent. It’s not envy. Simpler than that. What’s he talking about?"
"Oh, Graham, for God’s sake don’t go on. I can’t stand it."
"I’ve finished. There isn’t any more."
"You mustn’t think those things." She went up to him and put her arms round his bulky shoulders and laid her cheek against his. "It won’t always be like that; you see."
"I have upset you. I didn’t mean to."
"There’s bound to be someone for someone as nice as you."
"Someone, oh yes, there’ll be someone."
"Someone nice."
"Yes, someone nice, that’s it."
March 16, 2016
"Documented as a personal favorite of Kingsley Amis, Take a Girl Like You, originally published in 1960, is peopled with subsidiary characters, ranging from the posh and pedantic to the proletarian and pessimistic. These characters, with names like Julian Ormerod or Dick Thompson, mildly stimulate most scenes with their eccentricity, such as at meals or an impromptu shooting competition.
One of the larger problems is that Amis’s prose is constricted by realism. This is the inclination of what Rubin Rabinovitz in The Reaction Against Experimentation in the English Novel calls ‘neo-realists,’ writers whose “styles are plain, their time-sequences are chronological, and they make no use of myth, symbol or stream-of-consciousness inner narratives.” In other words, it is the style of the quotidian, if not the banal and predictable.
In the 21st century, the novel as a whole reads like a curio of stuffy, formal, almost stilted speech; dated humor; and redundant moral clashing, rather than an exploration of “modern life” as the synopsis on the back of the book declares."
Read my full review here: http://atticusreview.org/king-of-shaf...
One of the larger problems is that Amis’s prose is constricted by realism. This is the inclination of what Rubin Rabinovitz in The Reaction Against Experimentation in the English Novel calls ‘neo-realists,’ writers whose “styles are plain, their time-sequences are chronological, and they make no use of myth, symbol or stream-of-consciousness inner narratives.” In other words, it is the style of the quotidian, if not the banal and predictable.
In the 21st century, the novel as a whole reads like a curio of stuffy, formal, almost stilted speech; dated humor; and redundant moral clashing, rather than an exploration of “modern life” as the synopsis on the back of the book declares."
Read my full review here: http://atticusreview.org/king-of-shaf...
July 7, 2022
More of a 3.5; laughed my ass off and loved certain characters - Jenny, Martha and Julian - but the ending left a bad taste in my mouth. I felt it contradicted a lot of the points it was making and just turned it into a story of sadistic triumph against a woman’s boundaries, rather than a satire on Sixties sex and love. Jenny is a far more interesting character than Standish, and I would’ve liked to hear more from her. She’s quite fun and moralistic for her own reasons rather than anyone else’s - plus, her character arc and change feels far more noticeable than Standish’s.
Speaking of Standish, he’s a horrific character, full of bile and misogyny. At the beginning of the novel I felt as if he was the one portrayed as the butt of the joke, rather than Jenny, but as the plot progresses lines get dangerously blurred. Definitely the villain, which makes the ending all the more awful! I would’ve liked to see Jenny give him up entirely and carve her own path for herself, but I guess I expected too much from such a novel…
Speaking of Standish, he’s a horrific character, full of bile and misogyny. At the beginning of the novel I felt as if he was the one portrayed as the butt of the joke, rather than Jenny, but as the plot progresses lines get dangerously blurred. Definitely the villain, which makes the ending all the more awful! I would’ve liked to see Jenny give him up entirely and carve her own path for herself, but I guess I expected too much from such a novel…
September 18, 2010
I was going to give it four stars, but the more I think about it, the funnier it gets, and I'm going to go ahead and give it five. Nothing escapes Kingsley Amis and his wicked sense of humor, and this story was just begging for someone like him to tell it: a sheltered hot virgin moves into a shitty town nearer London with lots of teachers hanging around being various shades of asshole, a fake French woman into socialism and coming onto girls, etc etc, everything Kingsley Amis would normally skewer the shit out of. My copy of this book was bought second hand in Bangkok, so no telling how long it's been sitting around not getting read, I had to repair it twice just to keep it from falling to pieces in my hand. What a shame. Anyone have a better copy to send me? I'd like to read it again some day.
December 14, 2010
The worst thing I can say about it is that there is hardly anything I want to say about it. Since I began this blog, I have been marking things to mention as I read. This time I marked two things. Once, I simply wrote 'tedious' in the margin. The other time was to mark one of Amis' hilarious and pitch-perfect sentences.
These sentences are what made me stifle giggles all through Lucky Jim. Unfortunately, they are noticeable chiefly by their rarity in this novel. The one I marked was as good as any Amis has written:
"The satisfied look altered him enough to do away with some of the music-hall idea about his cap and instead give the feeling that he might be an evil organist on holiday."
That will give you a flavour of his style. If you like it, buy Lucky Jim.
These sentences are what made me stifle giggles all through Lucky Jim. Unfortunately, they are noticeable chiefly by their rarity in this novel. The one I marked was as good as any Amis has written:
"The satisfied look altered him enough to do away with some of the music-hall idea about his cap and instead give the feeling that he might be an evil organist on holiday."
That will give you a flavour of his style. If you like it, buy Lucky Jim.
May 25, 2012
Come on Jenny, don't settle! AARGH, maybe it's a sign of the times. This was the first audio book I have ever listened and I have mixed feelings about it. I did find my mind wandering at times especially during the Patrick being a jerk stages, which is a fair bit. Nevertheless it is an o.k. book, Patrick's a cad, Jenny's a good girl. It doesn't seem like it's a new story so I'm not sure why it's a "must read". And maybe it's a symptom of the 50s or Amis' mysogyny but Jenny ends up doing the exact opposite I would home most modern women would do. She's only 21 and supposedly beautiful I'm sure she can find better and she knows she should but she takes the cad's appology and accepts him. AAARGH!
July 8, 2011
This seemed less sexist to me than Lucky Jim. The characters are trapped in sexist patterns of behavior, but the main female character (evidently the "girl like you" of the title) is a real, fleshed out character, flawed but sympathetic. She is not just a ball-buster/cock-tease like all the female characters in Lucky Jim, although she is sometimes that as well. She endures much harassment and many indignities which were presented humorously, but to me it was more of a satire on the mores that give rise to such behavior, not jokes at her expense. This was enjoyable and funny, but a bit long.
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