Chapter 25 comic novel

"Now let's see, what kind of title did you use?" Dixon looked out the window, the fields flowing across his field of vision, glowing bright green with the passing of April.Not because the double-exposure effect of the last half-minute talk had left him speechless, for such things were a staple of Wilson's talk.He was dumbfounded by the memory of having to recite the titles of the articles he had written.It was a flawless title in which the indifference of the essay, the yawning fact of the funeral procession, the glimmer of non-problem it casts are all frozen.Dixon has read, or has begun to read, dozens of similar articles, but the air of his own, assuming belief in its usefulness and importance, makes it seem clumsier than most.The article begins: "Considering this is a strangely neglected topic." What kind of neglected topic?What is strangely overlooked?He always thought so, but didn't destroy or burn the typescript, which only made him look more of a hypocrite and fool. "Let's think about it." He pretended to have trouble remembering, and said in response to Wilson: "Oh, that's right. "The Economic Effects of the Development of Shipbuilding Technology from 1450 to 1485", after all, that's it." ..."

Unable to complete the sentence, he glanced to the left again and suddenly saw a face staring at him from nine inches away.The frightened face belonged to the driver of a covered van Wilson had picked to drive with him over the sharp curve between two stone walls.At this time, a large bus came into view from the wind speed at the far end of the bend.Wilson drove a little slower to ensure that they were still close to the van when the bus arrived, and he said firmly, "Well, I should say, it's a beautiful job." Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim (1954) The comic novel is a genuinely British, or at least British and Irish, novel that doesn't always travel very far.John Updike, reviewing a later novel by Kingsley Amis, Jack's Stuff, said condescendingly: "His ambition and reputation rest on the 'comic novel'." Then he He also said: "There is no need to write 'funny novels' when similar things in real life can be comic enough if they are carefully arranged." Some people may ask who is enough to tell?Indeed, the number of comic novels in the canon of British fiction is unparalleled, from Fielding, Stueth and Smelett in the eighteenth century, through Jane Austen and Dickens in the nineteenth century, Until Evelyn Waugh in the twentieth century, even writers whose primary purpose was not comic fiction, such as George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and E.M. Laugh out loud scenes, even with familiar faces.

The comic factor in fiction seems to have two main sources, though closely related: the style of the environment (which in turn is determined by the characters—what is comic for one character may not be another).Both are very dependent on timing, that is, on the sequence of words and the information they carry.A sentence from Evelyn Waugh's "Decline" illustrates this principle.At the beginning of the novel, the shy and cowardly protagonist, Oxford University student Paul Panifitzer, is stripped of his trousers by a group of drunken aristocratic companions, who are accused of misbehavior by the school authorities. A very unfair punishment was imposed and he was fired.The first chapter ends like this:

"God curse them, send them to hell," Paul Panifitzer said softly to himself as he drove to the station, and then he was ashamed of it, because he rarely swore. If we're laughing at this (and I think most readers will be) the reason is that the word "meekly" came up very slowly.Originally, according to the situation at the beginning of the sentence, it seems that the wronged protagonist should get angry to vent this grievance, although this anger comes a little later.But in the end it was not like this, but further demonstrated his cowardly and submissive character.This effect would not have been possible if the sentence had been written like this: "While driving to the station, Paul Panifitzer murmured softly to himself: "God curse them, send them to hell..." This implies Another feature of comedy in the novel is the combination of surprise (Paul is finally about to say what he feels) and consistency of type (eventually he doesn't say it).

We all know that humor is purely subjective, but the reader who does not laugh at a passage from "Lucky Jim" must be hard-hearted, for this passage exhibits the characteristics of comic fiction in a very perfect form.Jim Dixon is a temporary teaching assistant at a local university, and his continued employment depends entirely on the patronage of his absent-minded professor;Jim scoffed at the professor and the academic rules, but dared not speak out.So his resentment internalized, sometimes taking the form of violent hallucinations (e.g., "Tie Wilson to a chair, hit him on the head and shoulders with a French name for his son.") Sometimes, as in this excerpt, it's just a mental sneer at the mannerisms of the professors and the dogma of the school that repressed him.

The style of "Lucky Jim" introduces a new tone to the English novel, one that is gentle but classless, rich but not traditionally refined.The narrative is meticulous and precise, almost unbelievably precise, showing its influence (especially in this sentence: "It casts to the Void on Non-Problems").Full of little surprises, blemishes and doom throughout, the book ironically deconstructs clichés and pedantic responses. Dixon didn't immediately respond to Wilson's question about the title of his article, although "it wasn't because the double-exposure effect of the last half-minute talk left him speechless." If not, why tell us?For two reasons: (1) it makes a teasing comment on Wilson's obnoxious habit of speaking (saying something Jim just said as if he had just thought of it himself); (2) it creates a An excuse for procrastination, a short comic suspense, to reveal more deeply the real reason for Jim's silence: he is embarrassed by having to recite the title of his article.It is a "perfect" title only in the sense of irony that distills every trait of academic discourse that Jim loathes. "Dixon has read, or has begun to read, dozens of similar articles..." The underlined words tell us how bored and impatient Jim is with reading academic journals.He provides an excellent structural analysis of the opening sentence, in which every conventional academic term is sneered at in turn without further comment.What follows is Jim's characteristic rebuke of his own lack of academic soundness, which ends in his occasional permanent release by being fired from the hotel for giving a messy lecture on happy Britain.We finally have the title of the article, the epitome of academic research.Many academic readers I know remember this vividly.This confession could have been followed by Wilson's question without damaging the internal logic of the narrative, but the comedy would have been much less effective in that case.

The embodiment of Jim's impotence is that he is merely a passenger in Wilson's car, an impotent victim of Wilson's brutal driving.The banal and obviously superfluous earlier description of Dixon looking out at the green fields outside the car now proved effective.Jim, looking out of the same window a few minutes later, is startled to see "a face staring at his face from nine inches away." The surprise is consistent with the combination of character type (Wilson's incompetence).Effortlessly precise language creates a slow-motion effect (“nine inches away,” “full of terror,” “pick him and drive over”) that provides a comic contrast to the imminent collision.The reader is not immediately told what happened, but is induced to make such a conclusion by reconstructing the character's surprise and alarm.It all comes down to timing.