(2 of 2)
As a result, Jake's Thing rests uncomfortably somewhere between novel and pamphlet. Amis remains a master of throwaway insults. Jake and Brenda go to a restaurant: "The food wasn't much good and they were rather nasty to you, but then it cost quite a lot." Yet Jake nev er amounts to much more than a petty character with a nagging but not earth-shattering problem; he cannot make love, but neither does he make any effort to in spire it. Lucky Jim won sympathy because his persecutors were old goats. Jake fails to do the same because the old goat is himself.