The Biographer's Moustache

by Kingsley Amis

Gordon Scott-Thompson, a struggling hack, gets commissioned to write the biography of veteran novelist, Jimmie Fane. It is a task which proves to be with extraordinary and unforeseen difficulties. Fane, an unashamed snob, has many pet hates, Including younger men with moustaches and trendy pronunciation. Scott-Thompson, however, is extremely attached to his own moustache and not so particular about his use of language. It doesn't help matters that Fane's wife Joanna isn't yet sure what she feels about moustaches, but has decided views on younger men ...

Genres: Fiction

282 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Best 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

Reviews

[Chanpheng · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading The House of Meetings by Martin Amis, I was interested in reading more books by him. At Dasa, my favorite used book store in Bangkok, I found several more books by him as well as books by his father, Kingsley Amis.

In the Biographer's Moustache, a journalist named Gordon Scott-Thompson hits on the idea to write an in-depth biography about a writer of several grade B novels and poems. Jimmie Fane, an upper-class type, agrees, thinking that it will raise his standing at the club and finds it amusing that it might stimulate a revival of his books. The biographer/ subject relationship becomes uncomfortably close, but Gordon finds that the wealthy seem to get amusement with toying with him and other 'commoners.'

One review I read said this last novel written by Amis was not his best, so I'm interested in reading others. His style is snappy, and his characters are swiftly draw. He writes humor well, although a lot of the snips about classes in the UK were kinda obscure. While his original characterization of Gordon is not that favorable, Gordon does grow during the book. He finds himself in situations created by Fane, which make him weigh what he is doing (even when he considers what the right thing to do would be, and then goes ahead and does the wrong thing). In some of the text, the omniscient narrator knows what Gordon is up to, and describes Gordon's actions as a unwinding mystery to the reader.

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Biographer’s Moustache by Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis, who has become over the past few years my Absolute Favorite author http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/07/t...

10 out of 10





Given that for the past years I have just reached Nirvana reading The Maharajah Kingsley Amis, the State of Grace, exaltation and the like, there was no surprise to find that book number twenty five – it might be, though a thorough count has not been forthcoming – was such a delight, for it comes from the pen of one that is divinely gifted, and can amuse, offer serious themes, even out in some chagrin, since reading him one wonders what the hell am I doing here, putting words on the screen, when surely, if he ever would look this up, he would request immediate and permanent cessation of this activity



Gordon Scott- Thompson if the Biographer in the title and he has a Moustache, well for some of the time, and writing this, I wonder how much of The King (Sir Kingsley allowed friends to call him King) we can find in the young journalist, there are many exquisite passages on writing, one refers to the notion that a writer would try and put all he has in his fist opus, then he is limited by material that had not been used for his first, and needs to rely on what he has accumulated in the meantime, something like that

For The King, there is no such problem, he ventured into comedy, his chef d’oeuvre Lucky Jim http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/03/l... has been included on The All-TIME Best 100 Novels list, and the Maestro has been glorious in Science Fiction, detective work, short stories and The Biographer is yet another testimony, however ignored it seems to be on the internet



The biography that Gordon is to write will be about Jimmie Fane, to give the whole name James Reginald Pruett Fane, also called JRPF at times in the story…he is the son of a baronet and will admit to his biographer at one stage that he ‘was born in a top drawer, but not The top drawer’, where presumably the dukes, prices, royalty belong, and this subject of class and the difference between different personages and categories is one of the paramount themes, if not the number one topic in here…

No, I was wrong to say that, with Kingsley Amis you always have a wide variety of subjects, if Take A Girl Like You http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/06/t... is a comedy, you find love within it, and with Biographer, there are lessons on anything…say grammar, The King was dedicated to his language…we find about In Memoriam by Alfred Tennyson, dedicated to the man he loved, Arthur Hallam, who said ‘unless the poet writes predominantly to create beauty, the result will be false in art’ well, this is not happenstance, it is there for a purpose and there is nobody who can write better than the Magister Ludi, who may have traits in Jimmie Fane, who is not such a calamity



Some characters dislike JRPF to the point where they call him a ‘shit’, and worse, spoiler alert, indeed, even Gordon would say his subject his not just that, but a ‘self-congratulatory shit’, only it could not be as superfluous as that, I mean, a presence with such limited or absent worth would not contribute to the exaltation which I have mentioned above, and on the contrary, I sort of liked Jimmie, maybe because I identify with him to a (high maybe) degree, and then whatever the author creates, I take with elation, just as happened with A Fat Englishman http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/08/o... where I saw the objectionable parts of the Fat one from the title, but then also was enthused by his adventures in America

The Biographer has a girlfriend, Louise Gardiner, but (another spoiler alert) she may change that name, because she meets a duke, due to Jimmie’s intervention (you see, told you he is not all evil and malediction) while Gordon is attracted by Joanna Fane, fourth wife of the man who was born in 1918 and is now seventy six, but vibrant and keen for mischief, he intends in the last part of the narrative to return to his second spouse, however perilous and unsuccessful that project might prove to be



JRPF is a snob, obsessed with the rich and high class, he is also intolerant in many ways, one being the pronunciation, he calls his biographer one night to ask him to pronounce one, or a couple of words, because he had had a bet with some other posh ruffian at the club…we have the definition of snob, ‘someone with exaggerated respect for wealth and social position’ but that is debated, and Jimmie claims his respect is ‘perfectly proper’

Apparently, Evelyn Waugh has said that ‘being a snob is surely the most sensible thing to be’, and maybe I agree with that, Evelyn Waugh is also one of the my favorite top ten writers http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/10/p... but just as the quote says, it looks as if he was (only) interested in the rich and ‘well born’, something that transpires from the Memoirs of Kingsley Amis, where a figure says that Waugh had been very courteous or more to her, until he found that she has lost her title, maybe her fortune, and then started ignoring her completely



As always, The King is hilarious on most pages, using amusing words ‘they had done the deed of darkness’, sometimes horror images ‘the count might had had his tongue torn out by indignant peasantry’, borrower is a word ‘no American can pronounce’, ‘Jimmie put on a good king-in-exile show, with eighteen oysters and lobster, so Gordon will have to go to bed and…stay there’ and the descriptions are magical

Hungerstream, where Willie Duke of Dunwich resides, just like a multitude of his ascendants, is from a distance ‘in the same league as Windsor Castle, with ‘garage-sized roughstone fireplace’, they walked inside for ‘half a kilometer or so’, the whole beano is a massive delight, just like the other twenty five I have read so far





Now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se



As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...



From To The Heritage:

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life…As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality…Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

[Susie Helme · Rating 5 out of 5]

76-year-old veteran novelist Jimmie (JRP) Fane and his fourth wife, 50-ish Joanna, are hosting a luncheon—or as people are not baronets call it, lunch. One of the invitees is literary journalist Gordon Scott-Thompson, ‘not bad looking if it weren’t for his moustache’, says Joanna.
With Gordon is girlfriend Louise. All the other guest are Lord-this and Lady-that. Gordon wants to write a biography of Jimmie. He can tell already, the old guy’s a right snob, hobnobbing exclusively with the noble and the rich. Gordon is of the belief that ‘decent writing can overcome almost any prejudice in the reader’. Furthermore, Joanna promised to fill him in on ‘the juicy bits’.
They arrange lunch and meet, Jimmie pontificating on ‘small restaurants’, ‘Americans’, ‘buffets’, his son-in-law, as well as critiquing people’s pronunciation of various words, then ordering the most expensive dishes on the menu. The next meeting is at Jimmie’s club, where they are joined by Tommie-this and Bobbie-that. Jimmie waxes pedantic on the pronunciation of words, and the conversation is all about nobles Gordon has never heard of. Tommie and Bobbie question the authenticity of Gordon’s double-barrelled name and his qualifications for the job of biographer due to his unfamiliarity with ‘the sort of society’ Jimmie frequents.
Meanwhile, Joanna tries to convince him to shave off his moustache, succeeding. Suddenly, she kisses him. Jimmie strongly advises Gordon against having an affair with his wife, hinting that his reason has to do with their class difference, but Gordon determines to reject the advice.
Madge Walker comes forward, volunteering info on when she dated Jimmie during the war. The moment her alimony payments stopped from her Peruvian ex-husband, Jimmie went cold. She found out from someone else that he was engaged to an heiress.
Joanna shows up at Gordon’s flat to commence their affair and is visibly disappointed by the cheapness of the décor. An invite to weekend at Duke Willie’s country pile stirs up the quadrangle, further complicated by the additional presence of Mrs Fane Number 2.
As the job progresses, Gordon becomes ever more a part of the story he is writing.
This was written in the latter part of this prolific writer’s career (1995), long enough ago as to seem quaintly old-fashioned. The subject matter being a (hopefully) dying class adds to that. The toffs are depicted and poked fun of with subtle sarcasm, the writing exceptionally skilful.

[Tamsin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yawn - what a load of pretentious drivel. Set in the 1990's but read like something out of the 1940's - not at all engaging and interminably dull.

[Electra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven’t read anything this boring in a long while. I only gave it that second start for a few funny bits here and there, as well as some slightly interesting/sympathetic background characters (none of the main ones fit that description imo).

Full of clichés: the wealthy old man going on about plebs and repeatedly bringing up the biographer’s accent. The bored housewife. The young, working-class man who finds himself entangled with people from a world he knows nothing about. The affair. The book’s fate. Ugh!

If you were to overlook the biographee’s contempt for more or less everyone and everything, the characters were completely devoid of actual emotion:You will at some point be told that a particular character has strong feelings about a certain someone. That certain someone will break up with them. It will hurt. That will be when you realise they had feelings for this person, nothing in their behaviour will have prepared you for anything beyond lust and a desire for a bit of an adventure.

There were random racist and homophobic remarks with no real purpose other than to make it known that the author felt like including them. Among them the phrase “he’s black or yellow or one of those” randomly shoved into the last pages, as well as some strange references to “queers” (long before efforts to rehabilitate the term) and “jigs” (yup). Also, the N word, because why not? Mind you, this is not a book about race, or even one in which the characters’ bigotry is developed and given a place in the story, but why the hell not...

Can’t believe I managed to get through it, the temptation to make this my first DNF was there from page 10.

[Nancy Gillies · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a big fan of Lucky Jim back in the day, so I thought I’d give another novel by Kingsley Amis a try. Unfortunately, while The Biographer’s Moustache covers some of the same territory as Lucky Jim did, it does so in a really tedious way. The main character, Gordon Scott-Thompson, has set out to write a biography of Jimmie Fane, a writer whose success is mostly a memory, but whose previous standing and his marriage to a wealthy member of the upper class allow him to continue to cling to the edges of “high society.” As biographer, Gordon gets to observe the lifestyle and attitudes of Jimmie and his lot, and as author, Amis gets to take aim at their pretensions and at those who aspire to be part of their ranks. Unfortunately, his social satire misfires because the characters are simple stereotypes. They are all, it seems, a bunch of alcoholic, boring, self-absorbed snobs. Regrettably, Gordon is as gormless as the other characters are pompous. He does manage to redeem himself slightly towards the end of the novel but overall, the story is plodding and badly dated.

[Gurth Bruins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm in the middle of Kingsley Amis's 'The Biographer's Moustache', which as the title suggests, is more what I would call a comedy than say his son's 'House of Meetings' which I tried to read but gave up in disgust - it was just a continuing tale of the horrors and miseries of concentration camps in Siberia. From that horror, and literally faeces, I wallowed in pleasure at the comic depiction of the life style of British aristocrats and their imitators.
My 4 stars is somewhat provisional as I'm still a long way from the end of the book.
I love Suzi Feay's comment on the cover: 'I found my hand stealing towards this book at every spare moment.' Very apt!

[Ian Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kingsley Amis's final novel showcases his sharp-as-nails prose and impeccable wit alongside an unfortunately lackluster and convoluted plot. The novel is at its strongest when its characters are clashing spears and when we're privy to protagonist Gordon Scott-Thompson's observations about relationships, class, and the cutthroat publishing industry, and at its weakest when the elements of the story attempt to come together into a coherent whole. Overall, not a bad book, but readers should look to earlier work for Amis in his top form.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an amusing read, mocking so much about the vestiges of class discrimination & snobbish fault-lines in British society in the 1990s.
Sir Kingsley Amis was the epitome of a satirist of pomposity, pretentiousness & cant, allied to a self-parodying character, well-aware of his own weaknesses & peccadilloes...including copious amounts of wine, modest numbers of lovers & a petit soupcon of amour propre!!

[Lynda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a satire on class structure in England. It feels as if it were written n the 1930s but was actually written in 1995. As such it is quite frightening. Amis is a brilliant writer and the arrogance of the upper classes, based on nothing but birth, is horrible. Gordon, middle class attempts to write a biography and literary critique of ageing womaniser, social climbing upper class Jimmie Fane. Although this is both stinging and amusing at times, it feels too nasty to be really enjoyable.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoyed it well enough, but only because it it happened to catch me in just the right mood.

[Steve Erickson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Old bigot yells at clouds for almost 300 pages.

[Christian Schwoerke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an odd book in that it never seemed to have any particular summarizable point of view. There is a good deal about the classes, a good deal about the proper use of language, and there is a shambling plot with a few subplots that doesn’t ever really go anywhere. And yet…

The novel’s underdog and middle-class protagonist, the eponymous biographer Gordon Scott-Thompson, works up a plan to take a sabbatical from his newspaper to write a biography of James Fane, hoping to revive Fane’s nearly forgotten oeuvre and make his own name. Fane accepts the proposal offhandedly, at the same time mocking Scott-Thompson for his pronunciation and for his moustache, both too common. Joanna, Fane’s fourth and current wife, begins a cautious affair with him, and Scott-Thompson shaves off his moustache.

Scott-Thompson has second thoughts about the worthiness of Fane as a subject, since he finds he is a cad and a suck up to aristos even higher in the stratosphere. A weekend gathering at Sir William’s ducal estate—with all the principals including Scott-Thompson’s girlfriend and Fane’s second wife—brings everything to a head. In succession, the biography is dropped on principle (also the intended publisher wants to drop it as not a profitable undertaking), Joanna breaks off the affair (she wants to ensure Fane makes the first move in some sort of marriage-breaking infidelity), Fane and the second wife don’t after all get back together, and Scott-Thompson’s girlfriend ends up with the duke.

There is some other business about an old jilted flame of Fane’s whom Scott-Thompson aids financially, but this seems to lead nowhere. In fact, the whole novel is one of status and stasis, where the characters (excepting the girlfriend) all have simply run in place (mostly entertainingly), only just barely aware of having done so. Readers are left with some diverting banter and a couple of bromides that may reflect something more than middle-class thought: “class doesn’t imply decency” and “class differences don’t keep people apart, it’s thinking that they matter that does”.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amis is obsessed with class. None of his characters are likeable - which makes the book hard to enjoy. However it was easy to read and the story was ok. I would prefer to read Evelyn Waugh or Mitford sisters if I was to read about divisions of class in UK. All at book club agreed.

[Dan Honeywell · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I started reading this one I wasn't so sure. By the end I was. It's not a perfect book but I enjoyed it. It doesn't have as much humor as some of Kingsley Amis's other books but the characters are well developed.

[Jc · Rating 2 out of 5]

At a certain point, Amis becomes a self caricature. The British affectation of refusing to recognize US brand names but splattering the pages with the UK brand names is particularly annoying. But face it, the man was mostly just phoning it in by this point.

[Jered · Rating 1 out of 5]

A rather pointless read. A smattering of amusing one-liners throughout, but on the whole, banal. I suppose it's a novel about class distinctions in modern Britain. Whatever. Read Evelyn Waugh if you want that sort of thing done well.

[Sophie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dud.

[Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very amusing take on class boundaries in England - definitely worth a read.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just an OK read. I don't really give a $#!+ about English class pretensions but I'm sure Kingsley thought he was being pretty funny.

[Ezra · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just can't finish this book. It's too boring. I think this is the first book I'll never finish and I don't even want to know what will happen in the end.

[Preeta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as funny as Lucky Jim, but it's got its moments. Wonderful commentary about class in Britain.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a treatise on social class than an interesting story. Easy to read.