Customer Reviews

The Old Devils

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is about everything-- How can you sum up life near the end? Is it possible to change, and if so, is it worth the bother? etc. It left me with shivers. It seemed an innocent, comic enough read at first, with devestating insights tossed casually in among descriptions of curmudgeonly drunkenness and inter-sexual miscommunication. By the end, it has turned into something else, a book about death and love imbued with humor. I found it much more meaningful and poignant in the end than Martin's postmodern gimmickry and suspect it will stay with me for some time.

Rare is the book that leaves one red-eyed with laughter. Rarer still the book that turns the same embarrassing trick (I try to avoid reading this book in public), after a dozen dog-eared readings. The aging Weavers, also-ran poet Alun and trophy-wife Rhiannon, return to a small Welsh hornet's nest after fair-to-middling success in London. Rakish Alun, with enough of his hair left to engender envy, but lacking the stature that would safely have hoisted him above the slings and arrows of envy's snipery, is asking for it. Kingsley Amis (the millionaire's father), apparently as cynical a wit as ever there was, masters his prose as well as he shepherds his readers' use of it, wise to the fact that no fool is half so funny as a loved one. The reader is made to love the titular devils, logy duffers all, of "The Old Devils", giving the lie to the very concept of so-called "identity fiction" (i.e.: WASPS prefer reading about WASPS; Gay Blacks about Gay Blacks). These doddering Welsh cranks could hardly be less like this particular reader, but Amis fits their false teeth in my mouth and wedges their swollen ankles into my shoes with clubby, back-patting authority. Peer through his microscope into this acre or two of Wales and you will be jarred with a salutary sight: life as we know it. He was an old enough devil himself to pull the trick off. (That there also seem present autiographical clues to Amis' own less-than-placid second marriage is beneath our concern, correct?)

Kingsley famously is said to have never finished any of his son Martin's novels and even to have thrown one against the wall in exasperation. As a fan of both father and son, I have always thought that the reason was because Martin's prose is more colloquial and has more spontaneous energy than his father's, i.e. is more modern. Well, Old Devils shows me that Kingsley can be extremely colloquial, even rambling, while showing off his customary wit and rancor. You will grin and reread moments as you trek across Wales, learning what is it like to be old and full of regret. If you love Lucky Jim, try this. Otherwise, go to Lucky Jim first.

It took some time, but the characters in The Old Devils--elderly friends in South Wales who spend most of their time discussing the condition of being Welsh--grew on me as I worked my way through the chapters. Amis is a master of dry wit. I'm sure I would have a deeper appreciation of the humor in The Old Devils if I knew more about Wales or the Welsh. Fortunately, Amis found a number of other targets for his wit that transcend nationality: lecherous old men, the women who encourage them, gossips, hypocrites, drinkers, academics and poets among them. He also teases wonderfully comic moments from malfunctioning bowels, adulterous desires, social posturing, road trips, and inebriation.

Most of the central characters in the ensemble cast have full and distinct personalities and unique sets of behaviors. Some of the personalities are quirky, some introspective. Most are repressed but some manage to experience and display emotions. Some are funny and some are a little sad and most are sometimes a little annoying--but who isn't? That seems to be one of the points Amis explicitly attempted to make. It took me awhile to start caring about these people but by the middle of the novel I was hooked on them. They became kind of like the relative you care about but don't want to visit very often. I give Amis props for making them so convincing.

This isn't a plot-driven novel. The story unfolds at a leisurely pace, following slow-moving people with aging minds and bodies. Other than a couple of big events, both near the end of the book, nothing much happens. I wouldn't call it plodding but I wouldn't say the writing is lively either. If you are in a mood to be patient, the characters and the fun Amis has with them make the novel worth reading.

THE OLD DEVILS won the Booker Prize for Kingsley Amis in 1986. The title refers to an ensemble of six couples, all of whom are in their sixties (as was Amis when he wrote the novel). It is set in South Wales, where five of the couples have lived their adult lives. (One motif of the novel is a gentle spoofing of Wales and the Welsh.) The action kicks off with the return to Wales of the sixth couple, the Weavers, from London. Alun Weaver is an inveterate womanizer and, off and on, he has been the paramour of two of the other wives, while Rhiannon Weaver had been the youthful heartthrob of two of the husbands. Their return releases a certain frisson amongst the old devils - making for something resembling a John Updike novel, only British, more genteel, and less sexually explicit.

Thus, a second motif has to do with the return to (or remembrance of) the flings and flames of youth. For most, this turns out to be a variation in the never-ending state of war - or, at best, state of misunderstanding and confusion - between the sexes. But the dominant theme of the novel is the slackening of age - such things as bowel movements, disintegrating teeth, increasing mass, the ordeal of dressing, and a haphazard memory. And virtually everyone - male or female - anesthetizes the onset of old age and its aches and pains with liberal, daily doses of alcohol.

None of the characters is heroic, but all are human. Amis exposes their foibles, follies, and infirmities, but he does so gently, compassionately, with wisdom and, always, with understated humor. Almost every page is marked with dry wit, such as this random example: "His second large Scotch and dry ginger was beginning to get to him and already he could turn his head without thinking it over first. Soon it might cease to be one of those days that made you sorry to be alive."

When I first read THE OLD DEVILS in 1987, I enjoyed it. Now I hesitate to use the word "enjoy". It hits a little too close to home, and I ruefully see myself a little more frequently than I would like. Thus, I think it safe to say that the novel will be most appreciated by those in the autumn of their lives. Unfortunately, as of this posting, the novel appears to be out of print. It may itself be middle-aged as a work of literature (it is not one of the immortal classics), but it doesn't deserve the fate of such an early demise. 4-1/2 stars.

Kingsley Amis was into his 60's when this book appeared, I am almost out of mine by now so I thought it was time I read it, and I am very pleased that I have. If you know Amis's style you will find this novel very typical of it. If you don't know his style it is still very typical of it. It is ironic without being too heavy or tendentious, it is beautifully easy to read, its outlook is individual and there is real human sympathy behind the show of being unsentimental.

I greatly liked the setting, a rural community in South Wales harbouring a small colony of cod-Welsh literary poseurs. How `authentic' the scenario may be I have really no idea, but that is not a problem for the reader I wouldn't say. The narrative hardly looks outside the little group of sexagenarians (those male these feminine), and even their part-time-Welshness is not laboured unduly. It all makes an original and entertaining backdrop to what the story is really about, namely how life is for this particular group at their age. To such extent as the book has a `hero' it is the prodigal literary pundit son back from England with his name changed from Alan to Alun, but even if he provides a focal point for the little caucus to come closer again, I had the impression that they had always been a fairly cohesive group, with or without Alun. Even when they get thrown out of not one pub but two, this happens to them en bloc, and presumably the thing had happened before.

Plenty of the action takes place in pubs, the amount of boozing that goes on generally had me daunted not to say plain scared, but only one person dies and there is no real hint that he died of that. Only two of the characters put the sex in sexagenarian, and that theme does not amount to a lot. The book is almost non-stop talking, the network of communication that holds the group together as a group, something one senses is vital to their existence now that not much vitality remains in their relationships as couples. Amis has an eye for the absurd and a gift for describing absurdity in an entertaining way without outright hostility. These are his own folk at least in the matter of age, he can take a look at them and see himself, and he can see the ridiculous side of the whole scene without outright cynicism.

What age you have to be to get the best value out of this book I would not be knowing. Even ten years ago I strongly suspect I would have missed some of the best things about it, but that only speaks to my own limitations. In any case, as I said already the book is extremely easy to read. Perhaps it is just a trifle too easy and too accomplished to be quite Amis's best effort. Some of his zanier productions like The Green Man or The Anti-Death League are not so evenly good as is The Old Devils, but I will happily trade some evenness for the wilder imaginative elements that I find in those. However that is a matter of going through the ritual of assessment after finally closing the book. When reading this novel I was not disturbed or even visited by thoughts of any other novel whether by Amis or by anyone. I enjoyed it thoroughly, I recommend it to my and its characters' age-bracket, and I should be surprised if it does not appeal to many younger readers, especially if they have come to appreciate this author from some of his best-sellers.

There is a secret humor within the confines of this book which I feel to be left out of - for instance how much different are the Welsh from the British and in what way? And, that premise, let alone others, is the thrust of this British satire dealing with four couples who pre-marital (and one post-marital) relationships make them at ease and ill at ease when they congregate long after their trysts, when their own children are the age they were when they sowed their wild oats.

Pub crawling, and honoring poets of Welsh ancestry, deliver dialogue between the husbands which Amis so artfully conjures, Over and over again, this book reminded me of McCall Smith's "44 Scotland Street" series in which people - like this book - meet and discuss topics of interest and occasionally run into folly or irony, and occasionally run into a scant argument. I must think that McCall Smith is influenced by this writer whose works predate his by decades.

Sometimes it feels trifling to be hanging out with the same people in a small town on all occasions. Amis cleverly distills this feeling with "You wonder why on earth you go, especially when you've got there and find it's exactly like it always is, and then you realize that's why you went." In small or large environs, we always know that your true good friends can be counted on the right hand's digits.

As the past lives entangle with the present, good and bad arises. Each character seems to be highly affected by the return of noted local poet Alun and temptress (in an ivory girl way) wife of local lore, Rhiannon. Their strolls down memory lane uncover memories which had been buried or not discussed for decades, and the resurrection often is invigorating. But, the invigorating event often prescribes other concepts - such as realization of age and mortal infirmities

Just for the dialogue, this book remarkably allows you to be the "fly on the wall" as the common and uncommon Welsh speak to one another in pubs, homes and elsewhere. You sense you know so much more about that little known land, even though little of that land is discussed or revealed. Instead, you witness their responses to daily events, and admire how they differently treat the same and seem less . . . less. . . belabored by "it all." This relaxed spirit is something which McCall Smith seems to deliver equally well.

If you like McCall Smith, you will like this book. If you like witty dialogue which humorously displays elders in the sunset years, again this is your book. It is fun on many accounts.

A great book it may not quite be, but the character of Alun Weaver is worth the price of admission. He's the "professional Welshman" with the mane of snow-white hair who gets paid to wax nostalgic on TV and radio about Wales and its famous poet, Brydan -- Brydan being a deceased lout clearly modeled on Dylan Thomas.

Alun's a phony and a womanizer and yet still the irresistable alpha male in his little group of friends. Everything is more fun (and less predictable) when he's around, even if he might try to get your wife alone in the back room when you aren't looking.

The great comic scenes in the book all involve Alun, his line of smooth, practiced public patter about Wales and about Brydan, and his private contempt for Wales, for Brydan, and possibly himself.

Here he is brushing off an overeager fan of Brydan's from Bethgelert, Pennsylvania:

"Dear, dear, there are Welshmen all over the world, aren't there? Saxons, give up hope of finding a pie under the sun that we harmless folk don't contrive to slide our sly fingers into. Carry my warmest cousinly greetings to the Celts of Bethgelert, Mr. Pugh."

Later, when the fan proves too persistent, Weaver drops the persona just long enough to see him off for good with a harsh, funny expletive and an obscene gesture.

Other reviewers mention not being familiar with Wales, but I'm not sure that's such a handicap here. The wisecracks about Wales and Welshmen are from characters who love and hate their provincial home turf, as many people do for reasons of their own no matter what the town or country. Don't let that stop you from reading this book.

I was attracted to this novel by the name of the author and the mention on the front cover of the Booker Prize.

However, it took an effort of will to stay with the novel all the way through to the end. This was because the balance of action seems wrong, with 80 percent of the book building up to the critical event that speeds along the rest of the novel. I would have preferred to see the critical event arrive after about 60 percent of the novel. As it is, it demands a lot of patience to wait for the "other shoe to drop." After finishing the book, I had to re-read the first chapter in order to track down the small clues that explain much of the action in the closing part of the novel which ends with a predictable denouement.

On the positive side, I liked the very under-stated irony of Welsh / British humor that is unique and sorely missed by expatriates. The many aspersions cast on the Welsh character are very funny. These were new to me as an English person with no prior knowledge of Wales beyond a one-day visit to Anglesey!

I also was moved by the quiet desperation of older people who have retired, lost their purpose in life, and grown weary of marital routine and fragile friendships. After finishing the novel, I was struck by the misery that underlies so much of middle-class life.... Probably it is this searing look into old age and its loneliness that won Amis the Prize. Certainly I can't bring to mind any other work that deals with these topics and this type of older population.

I first read this book when it came out and I didn't like it all that much. I liked his brighter kind of shinier books like 'Lucky Jim' and 'Stanley and the Women' better. However nearing the age of Amis's characters in this book I am having a right Amis binge (I am talking senior) now and I found this much more compelling.

As usual with Amis the male characters are really what the book is about, the women are a bit thin. These men are mostly fat, colossally unfit drunkards with heroic endurability and considerable tolerance for their lives, and a willingness to stick together. They are also at times very intelligent and funny. They shoulder life's difficulties with massive doses of super-bitchy humour.

The Welsh thing is interesting. Amis is of all men the most English, of all writers I should say. He has even written novels about how much he hates abroad. Wales is very definitely not England, but it is not abroad either. But in England you have to have a ticket to do Wales.

Amis seems to me to have put more into this than most of his books and the humour is as distilled as the whisky all the men seem to take their morning bath in. I would say it does for old age what 'Take a Girl Like You' does for courting. Now there's an old word for you.