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Jake's Thing

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Jake's Thing

By: Kingsley Amis
Narrated by: Keith Allen
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Jake Richardson, an Oxford don nearing 60 with a lifetime's lechery behind him, is in pursuit of his lost libido and heads off to the consulting room of a miniature sex therapist.

Not one to disobey a doctor's orders, he runs the full humiliating gamut of sex labs and trendy 'workshops', where more than souls are bared. He decks himself with cunning gadgetry, dreams up a weekly fantasy, pets diligently with his overweight wife and browses listlessly through porn magazines behind locked doors.

Is sex really worth it? As liberationists abuse him, a campus hostess bores him into bed - and even his own wife starts acting oddly - Jake seriously begins to wonder.

©1978 Kingsley Amis (P)2020 Penguin Audio Classics Literature & Fiction Satire Comedy

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All stars
Most relevant  
One of the few readers of these novels to get all of it right. Lovely evocation of pre-'80s London.

Lovely

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Amis is at his waspish best in this autobiographical tale of an Oxford don who’s lost his sex drive. Eponymous Jake Richardson is a curmudgeonly type. Just about every aspect of modern life annoys him. In this respect, he’s quite close to Amis in real life, or what we know of him. The irascible academic seeks help for his diminishing libido. The novel is a biting satire of the sexual therapy industry, and perhaps therapy of any kind. It’s laced with attitudes which now would be deemed ‘problematic’, on race and gender. But Jake, once priapic, comes alive as the casualty of a classic midlife crisis. Experts are revealed as quacks. Jake’s odyssey takes him to a hilarious therapy group which descends into near-anarchy, in one of the most memorable scenes in the novel. It’s hilarious, though often the humour is caustic and even callous. I read it several years ago - and laughed throughout. Keith Allen does a brilliant job of narration. Jake’s Thing deserves to be better-known. There’s a good case for saying men of a certain age (Jake is homing in on 60) are more likely to find the novel funnier than women will. Ultimately, it’s impossible to avoid an element of misogyny, particularly in the ending. But at its core Jake’s Thing remains relevant for its exploration of the therapy ‘industry’, which still seems topical. And it’s funny, though the humour can be black. A divisive novel, then - but many of Amis’s are, and became more so as he aged, though he did win the Booker Prize for The Old Devils in a late-career triumph. Jake’s Thing is my favourite of his, barring Lucky Jim. Amis thought of it as a kind of loose sequel to Lucky Jim - contrasting middle age with the optimism (and sexual energy) of youth. Trigger warnings apply, sure. But this deserves to be seen as one of Amis’s best.

Diary of a Mid-Life Crisis

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