What Became of Jane Austen? And Other questions by Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis he has become my absolute favorite, it used to be Marcel Proust, Somerset Maugham and a few others in close proximity, but now that I have finished maybe the thirtieth of the magnum opera, it looks as if I have an undisputed Number One, although his first masterpiece on The Greatest Books of All Time sits at 387, while other chefs d’oeuvre are so far I may have to stop consulting this GOAT – however, you find more than five thousand reviews on books from this and other sites, together with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

What Became of Jane Austen? And Other questions by Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis he has become my absolute favorite, it used to be Marcel Proust, Somerset Maugham and a few others in close proximity, but now that I have finished maybe the thirtieth of the magnum opera, it looks as if I have an undisputed Number One, although his first masterpiece on The Greatest Books of All Time  sits at 387, while other chefs d’oeuvre are so far I may have to stop consulting this GOAT – however, you find more than five thousand reviews on books from this and other sites, together with notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

 

10 out of 10

 

I have mentioned above that I admire Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/lucky-jim-by-kingsley-amis-author-of.html and What Became of Jane Austen and Other Questions confirms his status as the magician of the Glasperlenspiel aka Glass Bead Game

 

Kingsley Amis is scathing on various subjects and individuals, about Jane Austen ‘I did teach Mansfield Park at Swansea, and very scathing about it I was. I had concluded that Jane Austen was a 2nd-rate pisser while still at school…’ then Dickens: ‘My own experience in reading Dickens, and I doubt whether it us an uncommon one, is to be bounced between violent admiration and violent distaste almost every couple of paragraphs…’

Needless to say, this will affect my perception of Austen – if I ever read her again, there is the high chance that there will be a few more new adaptations of her oeuvre (I would have said magnum opera, but not anymore) I have started the new Frankenstein last night, by the way – and the others mentioned in this collection of essays

 

There are authors that are praised, with gusto: ‘In Carr-cum-Dickson it does, perhaps two dozen times in all, and this author is a first-rate artist’ also – ‘That world is vividly atmospheric, thanks to Chesterton's wonderful gift for depicting the effects of light on landscape, so that the stories glow as well as tease and mystify. They are works of art’

As for Lolita https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/04/lolita-by-vladimir-nabokov-well-known.html we have Magister Ludi writing: ‘one of the troubles with Lolita is that, so far from being too pornographic, it is not pornographic enough. As well as 'moral' and 'beautiful', the book is also held to be ‘funny', often 'devastatingly' so, and 'satirical'. As for the 'funny' part, all that registered with me were a few passages where irritation caused Humbert to drop the old style-scrambler for a moment’ and I used to like this, even though other Nabokov works eluded me

 

“I have never understood the fame of the two Agatha Christie characters, both of whom seem straight out of stock- Poirot the excitable but shrewd little foreigner, Marple the innocent, helpless-looking old lady with the keen blue eyes.” This will be helpful, I have avoided crime stories, now Agatha Christie will be out too

It is so rewarding to see that my objections are shared by Kingsley Amis when he refers to Portnoy’s Complaint https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/portnoys-complaint.html evidently, I could not see this with the eyes of the Master of The Game, but the displeasure with the second part of the novel was there

 

The essays end with a superb analysis of Jesus, and religion, and I was surprised to find that Kingsley Amis respects Jesus, I knew he answered to the question what do you think about God with ‘it is more that I hate him’, so I expected the same attitude towards the ‘Son of God’, here indeed the luminary has things to say and I include passages from his magnum opera

 

“The habitual, undetailed, unanalysing view of Jesus taken by most people, whatever their attitude towards Christianity or the Church, is unlikely to fall below an admiring respect. Seen as the human manifestation of a mysterious or (it may be) impossibly remote Godhead, he appears by contrast accessible to personal sympathy, even affection. One so often portrayed as a baby- virtually the only aspect in which he cannot fail to reach the popular mind, once a year at least- will have a claim on our tenderness, whether or not we concern ourselves with the manner of his conception.

'The Son of Man is come eating and drinking'

(Luke vii 34- a passage embodying one of the most delightful jokes in the whole of ancient literature). It was a last supper, not a collective session of fasting and prayer, from which Jesus went to his final ordeal. And there is something which seems to sum up a great deal in that request of the risen Christ (Luke xxiv 41): 'Have ye here any meat?' At any rate, he moves me here more than anywhere else, and if I envied Christians anything I would envy them a God who could feel hungry.

Thus, we may agree that to love our enemies is both important and difficult, but few of us have many enemies or many chances to love the ones we have. Loving our friends, behaving with love towards those we love, is just as important, and sometimes just as difficult. Jesus took it for granted that 'the good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit'. We recognize every day that unfortunately the situation is more complicated than that.

I refer to such items as war, disease, starvation and madness, also to those subtler engines from Jehovah's armory of maleficence, the pains incidentally accruing from sexual love, marriage and the begetting of children. As a result, there is intermittently visible a rather absurd disparity between what Jesus says to us, tells us is necessary, gets us ready for, and the striking panorama of horror with which we are actually confronted. It is not surprising that so few of us should have taken him to our hearts in the way he wanted: ' . . . because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.'

To solve a riddle or a puzzle is an intellectual exercise that presupposes being able to recognize the solution when found. Just wondering for an indefinite period what somebody might have meant is an activity without relish of salvation in it : all of which, now I come to think of it, raises the question why, if God wanted human beings to have religion, he did not simply give it to them, instead of arranging the world in one way and then sending somebody along to explain that really the whole set-up was quite different. This oddly sidelong or possibly off-hand approach I find to be employed by all gods whatever.

The man's name is Ames," said the late Evelyn Waugh so pontifically that the discussion of Mr. Amis's work was broken off at that point. Probably Waugh was merely putting down an Angry Young Man. But, by an irony, today one notices their resemblances. Grumpy Old Men, the pair of them. (Mr. Amis somehow sounds older than his years.) Amis belongs to no church, and he avoids the self-pitying tone that marred the end of Waugh's career. But they share great concern for the imperiled decencies that should be on-going, in morals, politics, language. This latest book is made of disparate pieces with addenda and essays old and new; book reviews, discussions of cinema, especially horror films, of fictional detectives (so much better than real-life examples), reminiscences of angrier times, recovered with cheer and affection. It is light in tone but not intent. The right bright word is always in its right, striking place”

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.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 benefits 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…’

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