That Uncertain Feeling by Kingsley Amis – my favorite author, more than twenty of his books are reviewed on my blog, along with hundreds of other magnum opera – the best thing though would be this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

That Uncertain Feeling by Kingsley Amis – my favorite author, more than twenty of his books are reviewed on my blog, along with hundreds of other magnum opera – the best thing though would be this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

10 out of 10

 

John Lewis is the main character of this mesmerizing novel, the second for Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis – the plan is to read the more than twenty again, but this time start chronologically – the hero is a librarian, twenty-six years old, married to Jean, they have two children and face serious financial challenges

 

They have to live in the same house with a peculiar woman and her family - Mrs. Davies is quite hostile, until the protagonist will have helped her son get out of a difficult situation – but that may soon change, due to the unexpected appearance of ‘one woman of thirty or thirty-five…attractive in a square-shouldered, taut-bloused way, with skin the color of the top of the milk and hair the color of tar’ and her name is Elizabeth Gruffydd-Williams

She is one o the elites, married to a rich, powerful man, who is a member – indeed, due to circumstances, he will chair – of a committee that will select the next sub-librarian (this is how I remember the title, but I could be wrong) a job that comes with advantages, and a considerably higher salary, John Lewis is a candidate

 

Nevertheless, another personage who wants the same position is Ieuan Jenkins, and he has a sick wife, and maybe a more valid claim to that spot, for some time, it feels like the two will compete, and Elizabeth ‘Thing-Williams’ might tip the scales in favor of the man she wants to have intimate relations with

When she comes to the library, she wants a book on Welsh costumes, because she is involved in the production of a play, when they do not find the proper material, they try and get something suitable from another place, nonetheless, this is the occasion for the married woman to try and seduce the main character

 

Not that he is not attracted to her, he is torn between the loyalty for his wife, and the temptation to have coitus – this makes me think of The Coolidge Effect, named after the American president of that name https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/02/felt-time-psychology-of-how-we-perceive.html you can google for it

The rich woman invites the Lewis couple for a party, but just as they prepare to attend, their designated baby sitter, Mrs. Jenkins, fails to materialize, and then the creative hostess sends a man to care for the children – one of her former lovers I think he was, she is quite mean to her past sexual partners, as we can see

 

Jean will be jealous, seeing that her husband prefers this rather strange woman, he has for some time the attenuating circumstance that he may get the new job through her, because the husband has that much influence, only eventually, this will create comical and some unhappy events, such as the soiree that fails

One night, Elizabeth takes John to her house, saying the spouse will be absent for a long time, only as they kiss and seem to get close to having sex, they hear the car nearby, and the would-be lover panics, looks for the way out, ends up in the kitchen, where he claims to be the plumber, when another guest comes there

 

It is all so amusing, the house is large, doors that could have offered a way out take him in unexpected places, in one room, he ends up within a Welsh woman’s traditional costume, and for lack of an alternative, our hero jumps out of a window, and has to take the bus home dressed in the most astounding attire

Eventually, they would consummate this outré relationship – this might have necessitated a spoiler alert, only I never think people read this far – although we have an unexpected ending, I would have taken another path

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’