Wednesday 4 November 2009

Oh,

and I was amused by the appearance (or rather non -appearance) in the The Anti-Death League of one L. S. Caton, who featured in Amis's first novel, Lucky Jim. How's that for a shared universe.

The Anti-Death League by Kingsley Amis (A Very Brief Review)

I finished reading Kingsley Amis's The Anti-Death League about a minute ago, and decided to Google the title and see what other people have said about the book. And blow me if the fourth hit wasn't this very blog. That gave me a start, I can tell you.

Anyway, it's a brilliant novel, not at all what I was expecting. The eponymous League barely features as such, but of course the whole novel is essentially about the League, even though it doesn't actually exist. Or rather, it's about death, and God, and love. And it has a wicked little kick in the gonads to finish it off.

(UPDATE: This post was written when I was still feeling my way around what Existential Ennui could and should be as a blog. If I posted it now, it would be more of a proper review and contain lots of nerdy information about the cover artist and so forth. I also wouldn't be so concerned with its Google ranking, although I can't say I've completely rid myself of that unattractively needy trait, as I did just notice this post currently lives on the second page of hits if you Google the book's title. Anyway, the novel has only grown in my memory. It is excellent. For more recent – and better – posts on Kingsley Amis, go here and here.)