Portrait of the artist as a young man?

Eric Jacobs

YOU CAN'T DO BOTH by Kingsley Amis Hutchinson, £15.99, pp. 306 Since the blurb of this novel reveals it to be 'strongly autobiographical', let me at once declare an interest as the author of a biography of its author, to be pub- lished next year. As such you will expect me to point out what those strong autobio- graphical links are between Kingsley Amis and his new novel. All right then, I shall.

The story of Robin Davies, hero of You Can't Do Both, closely follows that of Amis's own life for its first three decades and a bit. Both were brought up in pre-war South London, went to school in the City, proceeded from there to Oxford, thence to the wartime Army and back again to Oxford. There both impregnated their girl- friends, married them and found jobs as lecturers at provincial universities. In adult life, whether married or unmarried, both were ardent hammers of the ladies.

So far, so alike. But there are differences too, large and small. Robin is of Welsh ori- gin but Amis is not. Unlike Robin, Amis did not lose his virginity to a girl from the Oxford Classical Society. Nor did he take his wife-to-be on a wartime jaunt to Wales, if only because he did not meet her until 1946. Amis taught English at Swansea, Robin Classics at some unspecified institu- tion in the Midlands.

I could go on but I won't. Oh, very well, here's another little nugget. Robin's Mum is called Peggy. So was Amis's. But that really is enough. It isn't that I don't want to spoil my biographer's thunder by prema- turely disclosing my amazing discoveries about Amis — well, only a bit — but because the whole purpose of a review is to tell you whether a book is worth reading, not how much prurient information it dis- closes about its author.

One does not, surely, approach a new novel saying to oneself, I'd better read this to find out what old Pumpernickel has been getting up to. What astounding reve- lations is he going to make about his own dastardly behaviour? That urge that comes over him in his club, for instance, to submit the prettiest and most demure waitress to unspeakable humiliation — is the swine going to come clean about that, I wonder?

I put it in these ridiculous terms to underline the obvious fact that we pick up old Pumpernickel, or old Amis — or young Amis, come to that — because we have read or heard about him before, know something of his form and therefore have reason to hope that he will entertain us.

Amis himself would expect that a novel of his be judged on its merits, not on its contribution to his biography. All right then, Arnis, you've asked for it. This is what I think. No holds barred or punches pulled.

Actually, I find I can recommend You Can't Do Both very highly indeed. It is funny, touching, well-constructed, sharply evocative of time and place and written with what I shall call for the sake of sim- plicity, and because I can't think of a better short way of putting it, characteristic Amisian aplomb. It is a first-class addition to his oeuvre which I shall place up there alongside my favourites, Lucky Jim, Jake's Thing and The Old Devils.

But, I hear you say, he would say that, wouldn't he? As Amis's biographer, he's bound to do his best to keep the fellow's stock high. To which I can only reply, I hope not. If I had thought his new book was a genuine stinker I would have made my excuses to the Spectator's literary editor

and refrained from reviewing it.

Let us, though, take just one more look at the biographical question. Inasmuch as this novel follows or parallels the events of Amis's own life, those events are long ago, happening between the 1930s and the 1950s. But Amis wrote the novel in 1993. So that the Amis who wrote You Can't Do Both is not the Amis who lived through the things it roughly describes. If Amis disclos- es himself in this novel it is the Amis of today, not that of 60 or 40 years ago. And if he does so it is not, I think, in the many details that resemble his earlier life, but in the two incidents from which the book takes its title, neither of which to the best of my knowledge actually happened.

At the begining of the book, when the young Robin tries to fit two appointments into his school-free Saturday afternoon and evening, his bossy father tells him he can't do both, although Robin is perfectly cer- tain that he can. At the end of the book, when Robin's wife Nancy surprises him at the scene of an adulterous assignation, she says the same: Robin can have her and their two little girls or he can have all the women in the world, but not both.

These two incidents frame the book's plot and give it its moral framework too. And I divine from this framework, going by no more than what I think I know of Amis, that he was moved to write this novel in part at least to record his recognition that the strict discipline imposed by his father in youth had some value after all, however absurd it seemed at the time. And that rebelling against such discipline by ignoring the rules of marriage was a huge error, for which no excuse is to be found in intellec- tual or other fashion, however much fun having other women on the side may once have been. I sense, too, that You Can't Do Both is a kind of apology for his own short- comings in this department, offered with silent love and regret to Hilly, who now lives in Amis's remarkably tranquil house- hold in North London with her third hus- band, Lord Kilmarnock, and their son Jamie.

So much for hunch and surmise. To tell the truth I am more interested in the bio- graphical authenticity of Amis's next novel which is already delivered to his publisher, such is the frenetic pace Amis at 72 still sets himself. It is, I gather, about an elderly literary shag who is having his biography written by a younger shag who is a journal- ist. Which sounds rather like Amis and rather like me too. I greatly look forward to disentangling the truth from the fiction in that one.

I might just alert the libel lawyers first, though. Because if Amis's fictional biogra- pher is anything like me and at the same time less than perfect in every way, there just might be some rich pickings to be had from another 'strongly autobiographical' volume. Biographer sues biographec! Now that really would set some sort of all-time record for biographical confusion.