Kingsley Amis as' a. critic
W. W. ROBSON What Became of lane Austen? And Other Questions Kingsley Amis (Cape 48s) Kingsley Amis is one of the most skilful novelists now writing. His best stories have earned an individual place in that long tradition of fiction which amuses by mimicry. He has turned what could have been the gifts of a scholarly linguist, with a refined ear for the nuances and 'registers' of speech, to purposes of satirical observation (though within a narrow range) of the English intelligentsia. What his readers differ about is not his technical accomplishment but his 'point of view' or 'attitude to life.' In considering this, we may find a_ disharmony between Amis's serious purposes and the scope of his talents. Confronting modern barbarism (in this book he describes the late Jack Keronac as 'a pioneer of the movement, now in full -career, to reduce argument to animal bawling and culture to egoistic tomfoolery') he has found himself more and more in favour of civility. But his own best work has been done in mockery of its traditional custodians. The result is an"effect of negativeness, which is increased, in the novels after That Uncertain Feeling, by their mode of presentation. As a rule, the main character dislikes most of the other characters; we come to dislike him; and before long it is clear that he dislikes himself. Our sympathies are thus defeated in all directions.
Amis's critical personality, as revealed in these essays, is more sympathetic than that of his heroes. There is often a disappointing meagreness in collections of occasional prose by an author whose chief work lies in novel- writing; but this book is an exception, because Amis has a genuine interest in criticism and has given serious thought to how it should be done. Some of his most interesting critical remarks are in fact to be found in his novels, where they are sometimes patently 'out of character.' Those who have been interested by such remarks will be pleased to read a collection of them 'in character.' What makes the best parts of this book more than witty journalism is the interest Amis shows in critical-principle. The general implications of his asides are well worth pondering. He observes, for instance, that 'an interest in realism turns up when a genre is past its first youth.' In a well- balanced discussion of Ivy Compton- Burnett, he refers to 'that large area of weakness which, wherever it may lie, invariably accompanies the kind of talent that some people will want to turn into a cult.' Speaking of a novel by Warwick Deepitig, he remarks that 'it is the bad teaching of good lessons that can be painful.' Most strikingly of all, after a clever but unconvincing depreciation of Keats, he adds, in an afterthought written some years later, a penetrating comment on Keats's `tremendous originality and audaciousness' which `by making poetry personal, so to speak democratised it' . . . 'An ability, which must have sprung from the same root as his self-indulgence, made it possible for anyone at all to identify with him in the process of reading the poem.' Such things go beyond the merely- clever reviewer. But much of the pleasure to be derived from this book does lie in the timing and phrasing of its witty journalism : 'This is a volume which every admirer of [Dylan] Thomas's poems will want to possess, for .most of the qualities of the poems are to be found in it. In spite of this, the book seems to me to be worth having.' And 'This air of being haitily trans• lated from some other tongue is endemic to Mr Wesker's dialogue.'
As these quotations make clear, Amis is a judicial or -evaluative •critic. His usual standard (to be expected in a novelist) is `convincingness'.—he is too practical and businesslike in approach to have time to consider the difficulties in this Aristotelian canon. . - Some may think The range of interests displayed rather narrow. Little is said about any English writer before the nineteenth century, and . little sympathy shown with European or American writers. There seems a rather. comical narrowness in the attack on 'the legion of the lost' (provoked by the appearance in 1956 of Colin_ Wilson's The Outsider) which seems to decry a whole phase of European literature, beginning with Dostqievsky's Notes frap: Underground. Amis's general iconoclastic purpose appears in the demolition of bad books enjoying a temporary highbrow vogue (Lolita, Portnoy's Con:plaint); in the devaluing, or at least questioning, of 'some reputations which current critical'. orthodoxy fayours (Jane Austen, Keats, Dickens, D. H. Lawrence): and, correspqndingly, in a generous praise for the craftsmanship and integrity of writers whom it scorns, such as Ian Fleming. or various writers of detective-, ghost-, or horror-stories. (Amis likes inventiveness as well as convincingness.) His critical position may be accused of parochialism and narrowness; but it is coherent. We always know what he is saying. His descriptions of books are clear and his criteria intelligible. These are rare virtues in modern critical writing.
The non-literary part of this book includes several autobiographical pieces. Some are primarily . amusing, like the -one on the author's schooldays, or his experiences at an Eisteddfod or the crowning of a beauty queen; some are more mordant, like the account of his disappointments when a don at Cambridge; a few are touching, like the tributes, in prose and verse, to his dead father. We have the impression of a man easily moved to exasperation or grousing. but not unkindly. Some who dislike Amis's work are quick to impute to the author the boorishness of his James Dixon; but there are few signs of philistinism here—certainly none in regard to philosophy, or scholarship, or the things of the mind. The people who most irritate him appear to be the ideologues, with their intellectualism, conceit, and inhumanity. They in turn, if not too irritated by Amis's anti-Communism to be capable of argument, might retort that for a `rational critic' he sometimes gives up reason too quickly. Thus at the end of the last piece. a thoughtful reflection 'On Christ's Nature. he denounces the 'canting humanistic nonsense' of modern Christians, and declares that the Church 'must still or once more preach, not indeed torments or sectarian hatred, but an all-powerful, all-loving God and his divine Son.' But these are beliefs which Amis has just given his reasons for rejecting. Surely a rationalist, especially a rationalist like Amis, should not ask other people to propagate what he believes to be false?
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