Bruce Charlton's Notions

The Angry Young Men was a largely nonsensical media coinage for what was supposed to be the new generation of post WWII writers - the term was launched in 1956 by the play Look Back in Anger by John Osborne and The Outsider by Colin Wilson.

I became aware of the Angries only after discovering The Outsider in the summer of 1978, having read Kingsley Amis's novel Lucky Jim a year before (which, although from 1953 is usually regarded as an 'Angry' book; it is one of the funniest books I have ever read). For some reason I became very interested in the general idea of the 1950s at this point; and took to listening to Trad Jazz and wearing a corduroy jacket with leather patches - with or without trademark polo neck sweater.

I sampled a wide range of the literary output of the fifties - but aside from Colin Wilson I must admit I did not find very much to enjoy. Among those mentioned in this book I did not take to John Wain, Stuart Holroyd, JP Donleavy, Samuel Beckett, Arnold Wesker, Alan Sillitoe - and I never read John Braine or Kenneth Tynan.

I wasted a lot of time reading Amis, without finding anything else anything like as good as Lucky Jim - although his second and third novels (That Uncertain Feeling and I Like It Here) both had good stuff in them. Look Back In Anger was certainly original and had a kind of energy - but watching it was a torment; and Osborne's other works were entirely without interest.

I don't like it nowadays, but Iris Murdoch's first novel - Under The Net - was a favourite re-read for several years. And of course that miserable so-and-so Phillip Larkin (who is sometimes, absurdly, regarded as an Angry) was our last really worthwhile English poet.

Despite this long term interest, I have only just read Colin Wilson's account of the era. Especially considering the book was written in his mid-seventies - there is a lot of detail and energy in it - and I found it well-organised. Although I should warn that this book is certainly depressing in its sordid litany of lives ruined by drink, drugs, dissipation, sexual promiscuity and marital infidelities - Wilson is actually pursuing a thesis throughout: he clearly had a philosophical, almost spiritual reason for writing the book about his contemporaries and their successes and failures.

Indeed, as he approached the end of his life, Wilson seemed to be returning to the same focus as his second philosophical book: Religion and the Rebel - the necessity of a spiritual awakening, that Man needed a religion in order to live well. At times Wilson seems to argue himself right up to the very edge of theism, especially when analysing the demotivation and despair which overwhelmed so many of his friends, colleagues and acquaintances.

But to return to the theme of sex - and there is a lot about it; my conviction was again reinforced that sex has always been the nemesis of the recurrent romanticism revivals since 1800 - and that is what the Angry Young Men were. They were the British equivalent of the US Beat Generation, or the French Existentialists; and therefore in origin an 'attempted' or embryonic spiritual revival.

Whatever high ideals and ambitions were harboured by the best of these writers was wrecked on the writers unrepentant embrace and celebration of the sexual revolution. This took away much of the energy, created an atmosphere of exploitation and dishonesty, and blocked-off the only answer they could ever have found: Christianity. Consequently, they largely wasted their time and lives, running round in circles, showing off, and making excuses.

 One of Kingsley Amis's real-life "faces" - some kind of 'upper class twit' like a retired Colonel, I guess?

In one of the best of comic novels - Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis (1954) - the eponymous hero is described as having a repertoire of 'faces' which he adopts in response to the vicissitudes of his constrained life. These are sufficiently elaborate and effortful that they grant Jim some degree of satisfaction: they seem a valid response to adverse phenomena. 

I have a rather similar thing, which is to sing the words "Mental Person" to the tune of Handel's Hallelujah chorus; whenever I see some characteristically "2020" bit of human behaviour - such as wearing a 'face covering' outdoors, or alone in a car. 

What actually happens is that I hum the tune audibly, while inserting the repeated Mental Person lyrics* internally.

I would not go so far as to recommend this tactic to anyone; but I have found that it converts a situation that would normally make me angry and frustrated, into a smile - or even a laugh.

 

Note: It is to Ron Weasley of the Harry Potter stories that I owe this usage of the term 'Mental'. This reminded me of the way that we used the same word for the same range of phenomena when I was a primary school kid in rural Somerset... which is, after all, just nextdoor to Gloucestershire, where JK Rowling spent her childhood only half a decade later.

*My exact © lyrics are Men-tal Person, Mental Person, Mental Person/ Men-tal Person - Oh Person that is Ment. 

I first noticed this book when it was published in 2012, simply because of the classic artwork on the cover - and after browsing a little, bought a copy. I later watched the movie, and listened to the Audiobook version. 

Look Who's Back has emerged, over the subsequent years and several readings/ listenings, as one of my favourite high-comic novels (at the level of such as Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, Changing Places by David Lodge, or Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn); and the only one which is a translation; although one would never for a moment suspect it - demonstrating the superb job done by Jamie Bulloch. 

(I usually find translations of novels, even by prestigious translators, to be leaden - and need to 'make allowances'. Not here. It is as well done as William Weaver's version of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose)  

The subtlety and twining-complexity of the humour, as well as the frequent belly-laughs, is first rate; and the whole is beautifully shaped and paced; and (that rare thing) has a satisfying ending. 

The set-up is that (for never-explained reasons) the real Hitler appears in modern Germany, near to the remains of the Fuhrer bunker; and sets about to explore contemporary Germany and rebuild his power. This leads to a lot of very amusing satire, but a great deal more; although it is easier to say what it is not, than what it is. Indeed, the novel is (like all the best books) unique and unclassifiable. 

Julian Rhind-Tutt does a tremendous job of narrating the book. Hitler is given a distinctive but slight, clipped German accent; while the other characters are allocated Received Pronunciation/ Estuary English or Cockney-'Mockney' voices according to social class and position (the Mockney - faked-Cockey - accent is very common in British mass media circles). In other words, with the exception of Hitler's narrative voice, the setting is by implication 'translated' into English, as well as the words. 

Therefore, unless you dislike audiobooks, I would recommend this version above the written text; since Rhind-Tutt is able to guide the listener to the most apt 'tone' by which the novel can be appreciated. 

 

I re-read this old favourite comic novel over the past couple of days. I had lost my original copy from 1978, and so I needed to buy another. 

This is one of those things about the embarrassments and foibles among the upper middle classes (apparently all Cambridge University graduates) - in this case, mostly "Fleet Street" (i.e. London) journalists and their wives and girlfriends. 

This sounds utterly unpromising (and ultimately it is), but there are some very good life-observations of the kind that stay with you permanently; and some laugh-out-loud funny set pieces that are the equal of anything. 

The main character's experience doing a television talk-show is so funny that I can recall sitting somewhere like an airport lounge or a place waiting for a ferry, and laughing literally uncontrollably, so that dozens of other passengers were turning and staring at me as if I was insane or having a seizure - but I just couldn't stop myself. 

So, TTEOTM is worth reading. 

But I also found it a profoundly nihilistic book; at times (when it gets serious) the narrative actually expresses this explicitly - that Life is purposeless and meaningless; and overall and especially as Life unfolds: it is a pretty miserable and hope-less business.  

In this respect, the author Michael Frayn epitomizes (for evidence: read his Wiki entry) the trajectory of Western Culture since WWII. He was one of the first generation of upper middle class atheist-leftists who took over the Mass Media in those decades; and by the time this novel was published (1967) this takeover was all-but complete.  

Journalism had been a mostly lower/middle class job, done by grammar school boys who left at about 16 and served an apprenticeship; as depicted in Michael Green's (excellent) autobiographies The boy who shot down an airship, and Nobody hurt in small earthquake. 

But by the 1960s print media was dominated by upper class boys and girls arriving straight from university, especially Oxford and Cambridge. Newspapers (and broadcast media) shifted from being about news; to being "opinion" concerning all aspects of society, politics and culture (i.e. leftist propaganda).  

And the new generation of upper class, public school, and university media people; brought with them the New Leftism - focused on promoting the sexual revolution, antiracism, feminism - and the rest of it. 

Michael Frayn is a good example, because he was (unlike modern Leftists) genuinely very intelligent, very talented - and able to be very funny. 

He was successful as a journalist, novelist and playwright - and was generally supposed to be, not just clever, but a deep thinker; because he had studied philosophy, and even published an academic book on the subject!

Frayn is one of the reasons why the mainstream modern culture of hedonic nihilism happened - he was talented, trendy, admired; he made the new ideology seem cool, fun, exciting... 

And by contrast Frayn, subtly and by insinuation mainly, made all-that-stuff about God, creation, the world of spirit, existence beyond death etc. seem... childish, silly, obsolete, low status^. 

 

In retrospect; it is obvious that Frayn was not a creative thinker - but was instead a highly-able exponent of standard-mainstream ideology; a founder-member of the "chattering classes"; one who took all his primary assumptions from his niche social milieu, and was unable (or uninterested) to seek or understand beyond this. 

And this is manifested in Towards the End of the Morning because - well, it doesn't really end. There is no sense of satisfaction or closure, it just stops*. 

The simple reason for this, is that it is an honest account of how Frayn saw Life: for Frayn (and his numerous ilk) Life is something that goes on for a while; one tries to get as much amusement from living as possible; one works to attain an interesting, enjoyable and well-regarded existence... For a while. 

And, then... Life Just Stops.    

^. The given-rationale for getting rid of that religion stuff, was that it stood in the way of a life devoted to optimizing the emotions. This was especially necessary if life in reality was nothing-but these emotions (as "science" had apparently proved).  

*Note added: It is significant that a novel of broadly the same genre as TTEOTM from about a decade earlier was Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim; has a traditional kind of ending - with the hero getting the girl and - in effect - striding off into the sunrise of a glorious future. Amis was born earlier enough to have been conscripted into the Second World War, and (although firmly of the materialist-atheist generation) was more of a transitional figure into modernism than Frayn.  

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A comic classic must be re-readable, must be read spontaneously (and not prescribed in courses), and must be not only enjoyable but also funny on re-reading.

The best comic work generates a kind of 'depth' from the world it creates - this world must be delightful.

Farce is not comic - because it is heartless.

But in the lists below this category excludes 'great' literature which is also comic - to get onto the list the work must primarily be comic (although almost never exclusively comic).

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Best comic novel: Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis.

Best comic travelogue: Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

Best comic novelist: PG Wodehouse, especially Jeeves stories

Best writer of comic verse: Lewis Carroll

Best writer of comic poetry: John Betjeman

Best comic playwright: Tom Stoppard (early)

Best comic 'diary': Diary of a Nobody by George and Wheedon Grossmith

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From Lucky Jim (1954) - by Kingsley Amis:

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Dixon looked out of the window at the fields wheeling past, bright green after a wet April.

It wasn't the double-exposure effect of the last half-minute's talk that had dumbfounded him, for such incidents formed the staple material of [Professor] Welch colloquies; it was the prospect of reciting the title of the article he'd written.

It was a perfect title, in that it crystallized the article's niggling mindlessness, its funereal parade of yawn-enforcing facts, the pseudo-light it threw upon non-problems.

Dixon had read, or begun to read, dozens like it, but his own seemed worse than most in its air of being convinced of its own usefulness and significance.

"In considering this strangely neglected topic," it began. This what neglected topic? This strangely what topic? This strangely neglected what?

His thinking all this without having defiled and set fire to the typescript only made him appear to himself more of a hypocrite and fool.


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One of my favourite passages from the funniest comic novel I have ever read. 

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