Read October 2013. Reviewed June 2014.
I had to take myself to this review from The Guardian to even remotely remember what this book was about. It jogged memories of conversations, torrid affairs, and drunken dinners, but I do not recall a lot of substance from this title. I remember a few chuckles, but the main plot did not stick with me at all!

To borrow a phrase from Marie Condo, this novel did not bring me joy.

My only previous experience of Kingsley Amis was his first novel, Lucky Jim, written some 32 years earlier. It makes for an interesting comparison. Amis was arguably no less acerbic and biting as a young author, but there's something funnier about a young man (Jim Dixon in Lucky Jim) blundering his way through a series of faux pas and awkward encounters - foolhardiness of youth and so forth - than a group of old men STILL blundering around in their 60s. Their eternal hopelessness curdles the humour into something depressing and pathetic - and perhaps that's the point.

But it did not bring me joy.

Old Devils is certainly more ambitious than Lucky Jim. Instead of just one angry young man there's a whole dyspeptic gaggle of aged 'friends', who spend their time glugging copious amounts of alcohol, making snide 'jokes' about one another and moaning about Welshness (for context, they are ambivalent about their status as Welshmen in Wales, as it's the 80s and there's lots of talk about preserving local language and culture that gets right up the noses of these miserable gits). There are plenty of cruelly funny (and funnily cruel) scenes, all very naturalistic and unforced, gradually revealing the (absurdly incestuous) relationships between the characters.

But it did not bring me joy.

It takes a while to settle into the long-established rhythms of these old friends and to pick out the serious concerns about ageing that are stitched into the comedy set pieces. Syntactically stilted, the sentences seem to emulate the blocked up bowels of its characters, making for a constipated reading experience.

One might argue that a novel has no requirement to bring you joy, dammit! But when you finish a book and, looming everything else you thought about it, is the fact that it was a miserable, meant-spirited affair, it seems to me that there's something to be said about the lack of enjoyment.

I've been eagerly awaiting reading this book, slowly watching it inch up my bookshelf until it was at the end. But it was a huge disappointment. Every character in the book is despicable. They're supposed to be, that's kind of the point. But I think, given the current government situation in the UK, it just cut too close to the bone. Sure, all this lot did was drink a lot and occasionally sleep with someone who wasn't their spouse. But there's a bunch just like this, running the country right now, and thus my ability to appreciate the comedy was pretty much eliminated. Maybe in twenty years time I'll look back on The Old Devils and laugh, but this time it just made me want to cry.

3.5 but it's hard to rate.

Read October 2013. Reviewed June 2014.
I had to take myself to this review from The Guardian to even remotely remember what this book was about. It jogged memories of conversations, torrid affairs, and drunken dinners, but I do not recall a lot of substance from this title. I remember a few chuckles, but the main plot did not stick with me at all!

I'm not sure what makes this book so special. It's basically a bunch of alcoholic old couples drinking, gossiping, drinking, philandering and drinking some more. The definition of 2 stars sums this up perfectly - "it was OK".