The Old Devils

The Old Devils is a novel by Kingsley Amis, first published in 1986.[1] The novel won the Booker Prize.[2]

First-edition cover

The plot centres around Alun Weaver, a writer of modest celebrity, who returns to his native Wales with his wife, Rhiannon, sometime girlfriend of Weaver's old acquaintance Peter Thomas. Alun begins associating with a group of former friends, including Peter, all of whom have continued to live locally while he was away. While drinking in the house of another acquaintance, Alun drops dead, leaving the rest of the group to pick up the pieces of their brief reunion.

As with many of his novels, Amis based characters and portions of the plot on real-life figures and experiences. According to his Memoirs, published in 1991, Alun's sudden death was based on that of a relative, who in Amis's youth had collapsed and died at a baseball game of a 'nervous heart'.[3] So too is the figure of Brydan a thinly-disguised parody of Dylan Thomas, whom Amis had once met. Amis had a low opinion of Thomas, describing him as a "pernicious figure, one who has helped to get Wales and Welsh poetry a bad name and generally done lasting harm to both... the general picture he draws of the place and the people [in his work] is false, sentimentalising, melodramatising, sensationalising, and ingratiating.[4]

The novel incorporates this theme of perceptions of Wales in history and culture. It also touches on the subjects of old age, alcoholism, marital unhappiness, and unrequited love.

Television adaptation

It was adapted for television by Andrew Davies for the BBC in 1992, starring John Stride, Bernard Hepton, James Grout and Ray Smith (it was the latter's last screen appearance before his death).[5][6]

Reception

Reviewing the book for The Guardian in 2010, Sam Jordison wrote that "[Amis's] comic genius relies so much upon build-up, context and impeccable timing that it can only be fully appreciated in its correct setting... get hold of the book yourself. It's that rare and precious thing – a novel that is a delight from start to finish."[1]

The Los Angeles Times wrote that: "For long time admirers of the Amis of Lucky Jim and after, The Old Devils is welcomed evidence that the master remains masterful, able now to conjoin the mischievous with the mellow. As always, he is an insightful guide through the terrain where what is said is not meant and what is felt is not said, but where much of life is lived."[7]

The Old Devils is considered to be Amis's masterpiece by his son, Martin Amis, who wrote that "it stands comparison with any English novel of the century."[8]

References
  1. Jordison, Sam (16 February 2010). "Booker club: The Old Devils". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  2. Zachary Leader (12 March 2009). The Life of Kingsley Amis. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 737. ISBN 978-0-307-49645-4.
  3. Amis, Kingsley, Memoirs, 1991, p. 3
  4. Amis, Kingsley, Memoirs, 1991, p. 133
  5. "The Old Devils: Love, Lust and Litre Bottles". BBC. BBC. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
  6. The New Criterion. Foundation for Cultural Review. 2007. p. 9.
  7. https://www.nyrb.com/products/the-old-devils?variant=1094932325
  8. Amis, Martin. Experience: A Memoir, 2000, p. 258
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