Many are the artist's rendering of Roger Micheldene, one of the most despicable characters in all of literature. By my eye, the above illustration captures the odious, lecherous louse in all his inglorious glory. Dastardly, dreadful, disgraceful - upon reading Kingsley Amis's novel, you will surely grow to love hating this bulbous Brit in his role as publisher on a business trip to America, visiting a land and people he simply can’t stomach.

To highlight just how despicable, we are given glimpses of Roger’s bigotry and racism: he views a young Jewish novelist as a Yid scribbler with lobeless ears flapping, a young Asian lady as attractive if she only had eye-sockets as well as eyes, a Black woman having skin as jet-black as it can get. And when it comes to Americans, Roger is at his scathing snobbish best. On his car ride through suburbia he observes: "The distance of the houses from one another, their wooden construction, the absence of horticulture and fences or walls, the woodland setting, all combined to give the area the look of a semi-temporary encampment for a battalion of parvenus."

And here’s Roger’s reflection on first meeting a fellow publisher, an American, by the name of Joe: “Of the seven deadly sins, Roger considered himself qualified in gluttony, sloth and lust but distinguished himself anger. The first time the two men met, an incident with a brief-case lock had suggested to him that here was a formidable rival in the last-named field.”

Kingsley Amis doesn't hold back in Roger’s critical self-assessment but also provides vintage British understatement about Joe the American being a hothead capable of exploding at the slightest provocation. This one sentence provides a quick preview of the range of humor to follow, from broad slap and tickle slapstick to, again, understatement and irony.

Roger’s responsibilities for a publishing house bring him into contact with men he abhors, but in addition to his desire to eat, drink and screw everything in sight, the core of the story is Roger’s infatuation and lust for Helene, beautiful blonde wife of Danish philologist Ernst Bang who is on a teaching fellowship at Budweiser College in Pennsylvania and, yes, that’s Budweiser as in the beer where Budweiser’s big football rival is Rheingold (Kingsley obviously couldn’t resist the temptation of naming American colleges after beer companies).

This is a short novel where the men and women and Helene’s six-year-old boy are little more than character sketches but such rough outlines are pitch-perfect since in Roger’s worldview people barely exist; rather each one is a mere butt and foil for his sneers and jibes, his calculation and manipulation. The literary aesthetic is cartoonish in that if the novel were ever turned into a movie, animated cartoon would work best.

The pace is brisk, capturing different episodes in Roger’s American adventures, such as Roger having mechanical Clockwork Orange-style sex out in nature with a woman who uses men the same way Roger uses most women – as mere sex objects. Actually, this scene is so revealing: without affection and intimacy, the old in-and-out is empty and unfulfilling, thus both Roger and his partner resort to their time-tested remedy, liquor, to fill the void. On some level Roger realizes all this but his monumental ego prevents him from really doing anything about it.

In another scene Roger refuses to deliver a much attended evening lecture on publishing at the college when he discovers someone has stolen his prepared outline. An event organizer pleads with Roger to speak informally on a topic he knows inside out and not disappoint the nearly one hundred and fifty people waiting patiently in the auditorium. Roger tells him flatly even if there were one hundred and fifty thousand people, he still would refuse. Again most revealing: all of Roger’s fancy British upper class education counts for nothing; such insolence and inflexibility is the behavior of a spoiled child.

At one point, after dropping Roger back at the house where he is staying, the driver rolls down the window and says: “Your basic objection to Jack Kennedy appears to be that he’s an American. Don’t think I don’t sympathize, but unfortunately we have this law here that says the President of the United States has to be a citizen of the Republic. Unreasonable, I grant you, but there it is. Dura lex sed lex, old man, which is Iroquois for Why don’t you go back to your island and stay there. Good night.” Thanks, Kingsley! Such a fabulous way to bare Roger’s uppity soul to a reader.

Following a fling in the sack, Roger tells Helene he loves her. But how deep is his love, really? Considering how Roger’s life is a constant lusting and indulging his appetites to reinforce his own physical identity, one wonders. Added to the equation is the fact Roger is married to his second wife. If this isn’t enough, Roger reflects on how he only hit women in the past when he was either very angry or very drunk. Ahhhh! As if those are legitimate excuses, you loathsome fat pig! Actually, Helene is given a real taste of Roger’s feelings – he could spend more time with her but bounds out of bed to field what he considers an urgent phone call, urgent, that is, since it pertains to the young man, that damn Yid scribbler, who made off with his lecture outline.

Roger muses, “Outside every fat man there was an even fatter man trying to close in.” No doubt. After reading this novel we might admit: Inside every reasonable man there is Roger Micheldene trying to get out. Sure, Roger is a culturally condescending racist and bigot but how free are we from our inner Roger? Do we find racism and bigotry acceptable in any form? Are we in our own way culturally condescending or racist or bigoted, even in our private thoughts? Such are the larger philosophic questions raised by this fine Kingsley Amis novel. ( )

Many are the book covers with an artist's rendering of Roger Micheldene, one of the most despicable characters in all of literature. By my eye, this illustration captures the odious, lecherous louse in all his inglorious glory. Dastardly, dreadful, disgraceful - upon reading Kingsley Amis's novel, you will surely grow to love hating this bulbous Brit in his role as publisher on a business trip to America, visiting a land and people he simply can’t stomach.

To highlight just how despicable, we are given glimpses of Roger’s bigotry and racism: he views a young Jewish novelist as a Yid scribbler with lobeless ears flapping, a young Asian lady as attractive if she only had eye-sockets as well as eyes, a Black woman having skin as jet-black as it can get. And when it comes to Americans, Roger is at his scathing snobbish best. On his car ride through suburbia he observes: "The distance of the houses from one another, their wooden construction, the absence of horticulture and fences or walls, the woodland setting, all combined to give the area the look of a semi-temporary encampment for a battalion of parvenus."

And here’s Roger’s reflection on first meeting a fellow publisher, an American, by the name of Joe: “Of the seven deadly sins, Roger considered himself qualified in gluttony, sloth and lust but distinguished himself anger. The first time the two men met, an incident with a brief-case lock had suggested to him that here was a formidable rival in the last-named field.” Kingsley Amis doesn't hold back in Roger’s critical self-assessment but also provides vintage British understatement about Joe the American being a hothead capable of exploding at the slightest provocation. This one sentence provides a quick preview of the range of humor to follow, from broad slap and tickle slapstick to, again, understatement and irony.

Roger’s responsibilities for a publishing house bring him into contact with men he abhors, but in addition to his desire to eat, drink and screw everything in site, the core of the story is Roger’s infatuation and lust for Helene, beautiful blonde wife of Danish philologist Ernst Bang who is on a teaching fellowship at Budweiser College in Pennsylvania and, yes, that’s Budweiser as in the beer where Budweiser’s big football rival is Rheingold (Kingsley obviously couldn’t resist the temptation of naming American colleges after beer companies). This is a short novel where the men and women and Helene’s six-year-old boy are little more than character sketches but such rough outlines are pitch-perfect since in Roger’s worldview people barely exist; rather each one is a mere butt and foil for his sneers and jibes, his calculation and manipulation. The literary aesthetic is cartoonish in that if the novel were ever turned into a movie, animated cartoon would work best.

The pace is brisk, capturing different episodes in Roger’s American adventures, such as Roger having mechanical Clockwork Orange-style sex out in nature with a woman who uses men the same way Roger uses most women – as mere sex objects. Actually, this scene is so revealing: without affection and intimacy, the old in-and-out is empty and unfulfilling, thus both Roger and his partner resort to their time-tested remedy, liquor, to fill the void. On some level Roger realizes all this but his monumental ego prevents him from really doing anything about it.

In another scene Roger refuses to deliver a much attended evening lecture on publishing at the college when he discovers someone has stolen his prepared outline. An event organizer pleads with Roger to speak informally on a topic he knows inside out and not disappoint the nearly one hundred and fifty people waiting patiently in the auditorium. Roger tells him flatly even if there were one hundred and fifty thousand people, he still would refuse. Again most revealing: all of Roger’s fancy British upper class education counts for nothing; such insolence and inflexibility is the behavior of a spoiled child.

At one point, after dropping Roger back at the house where he is staying, the driver rolls down the window and says: “Your basic objection to Jack Kennedy appears to be that he’s an American. Don’t think I don’t sympathize, but unfortunately we have this law here that says the President of the United States has to be a citizen of the Republic. Unreasonable, I grant you, but there it is. Dura lex sed lex, old man, which is Iroquois for Why don’t you go back to your island and stay there. Good night.” Thanks, Kingsley! Such a fabulous way to bare Roger’s uppity soul to a reader.

Following a fling in the sack, Roger tells Helene he loves her. But how deep is his love, really? Considering how Roger’s life is a constant lusting and indulging his appetites to reinforce his own physical identity, one wonders. Added to the equation is the fact Roger is married to his second wife. If this isn’t enough, Roger reflects on how he only hit women in the past when he was either very angry or very drunk. Ahhhh! As if those are legitimate excuses, you loathsome fat pig! Actually, Helene is given a real taste of Roger’s feelings – he could spend more time with her but bounds out of bed to field what he considers an urgent phone call, urgent, that is, since it pertains to the young man, that damn Yid scribbler, who made off with his lecture outline.

Roger muses, “Outside every fat man there was an even fatter man trying to close in.” No doubt. After reading this novel we might admit: Inside every reasonable man there is Roger Micheldene trying to get out. Sure, Roger is a culturally condescending racist and bigot but how free are we from our inner Roger? Do we find racism and bigotry acceptable in any form? Are we in our own way culturally condescending or racist or bigoted, even in our private thoughts? Such are the larger philosophic questions raised by this fine Kingsley Amis novel. ( )

Roger Micheldene is fat, gross (in several senses of the word), and into the ladies. He meets his arch nemesis, Irving Macher, in the US while competing with other publishers to secure the rights to Macher's first novel. Hilarity of Amis's unique brand of misogynistic, even sociopathic, humor ensues. Roger is completely lacking in redeeming qualities and thinks everyone in America is out to get him because he is English. Though, as he is told at the end of the novel, people mainly dislike him because he's an irritating sod, not because he's an Englishman.

If you already like Amis, go to town. If you haven't tried him before, start with Lucky Jim. ( )

My first Amis novel and it was hard to really decide how I felt about it. I think the biting and witty satire was great, and the book shone a spotlight on that 'one fat Englishman's' horrible misanthropy, but overall I was a little repelled. Perhaps the point... ( )

Roger Micheldene is One Fat Englishman. An obese publisher on an extended business trip to America, Micheldene (or Mitch Dean as one gauche American insists on calling him) spends his time eating and drinking prodigiously, attempting to bed every woman he meets, and pompously mocking Americans’ intellectual pretentions and taste in cigars.

There is very little in the way of plot. Lots of things happen, but to not much purpose. The point seems to be to compare and contrast American and British sensibilities, as displayed in a mid-60’s, second-tier academic culture. The pleasure lies in Kingsley Amis’s curmudgeonly wit, in passages such as:

To be sure about nonsense he had to be able to classify it, assign it to a family tree of liberal nonsense, humanist-humanitarian nonsense, academic nonsense, Protestant nonsense, Freudian nonsense and so on. Macher’s nonsense stopped before he could get deep enough into it.

Or his dipsomaniacal observations, such as:

Not caring what one drank unfortunately did not guarantee not caring what one had drunk.

Fans will eat it up. Amis neophytes should start with Lucky Jim.

Also posted on Rose City Reader. ( )