Comedy becomes a way of pursuing offence without offence, and to this day we are capable of producing and thinking very British, authors whose manner is both spikey and clubbable us while generally refusing to be our leaders of thought, our makers of political judgment, our constructors of philosophy, our severe critics, our metaphysical explorers (Bradbury: 1987; 202) The novel Take a Girl Like You demonstrates all the qualities of a good British comedy. It begins in the summer of 1959 with the main female character, Jenny Bunn taking a new job as a primary school teacher. She is gorgeous and everybody is in awe of her. It is not long before the main male character; Patrick Standish is after her. From the moment he lays eyes on her he swears to himself that he must have her. Thus giving the novel strong direction of where the story is heading. Patrick’s strategy is to try and convince Jenny that her belief in premarital chastity is an outmoded concept from which the moral and social content has long been hollowed out (Lodge: 1984: 257)

Like many other postwar British novelist Amis was writing into his contract with the novel sense of tradition and its con

Throughout Take a Girl Like You the comedy has a bitter, destructive quality, dissipating Patrick’s commitment to the physical life (Lodge: 1984; 258). The novel has twist and turns which Amis does to keep the reader compelled to read on. The flow of this novel is very amusing often showing Patrick as the sleazy gentleman who manages to woe all the ladies. He gets himself into predicaments by using smart alec comments that he tries to use as charming yet comes of as amusing to the reader ‘Julian and I are doing a little bit of business together. ‘Oh, so that what you’re doing?’ Patrick said. ‘Well I never. I wondered what could have brought you here, right in the middle of expense-account subtopia. And what about you, Graham? Are you doing some business too? You know I do love this. It sounds a welcome note of novelty.’ You are almost made to wonder why he is friends with Graham. He seems to be the mockery of many of Patrick’s jokes and Graham seems to put up with it, he has no luck with women and he must feel like if he is friends with Patrick, women will find him just as appealing as they find Patrick.

Jenny begins to doubt her beliefs when she hears other women talking about sex and virginity at Julian’s party ‘Patrick wants her to give him hers and she isn’t sure whether she ought to let him have it’ ‘Well an old hand like me, it’s not easy for me to say. But I don’t know, I should have thought if you like someone enough, then all that solves itself, doesn’t it? I don’t think you ought to make a fuss about it, anyway. As far as I can see that always makes things worse, making a fu

Some topics in this essay:
Girl You…seems, Patrick McEwan, Patrick Standish, Throughout Girl, COMEDY Comedy, Jenny Bunn, Amis Fiction, bradbury 1987, Girl Lodge, bradbury 1987 211, 1987 211, lodge 1984, patrick standish, postwar british, novel comic, 211 throughout, 1987 211 throughout, jenny sex, course comedy,