June 22, 2007

Kingsley Amis's Troublesome Fun

By MICHAEL DIRDA

Say "Kingsley Amis" (1922-95) and most American readers will probably give you a blank look. Twenty-five years ago, the man himself called The Washington Post's Book World, where I was then an editor, and our copy aide announced, "There's someone named, uh, Kinslow Ames on the phone." Later, when told the real name, it still meant nothing to the former English major from a good university.

At that time, I was working on an essay about the postwar British school of poets and novelists

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