I WANT IT NOW

Kingsley Amis, like John Braine, has been the subject of a good deal of retrospective critical lament—the golden boys of the '50's who turned out to be merely brassy commentators of the '60's. A scene equivalent to Braine's last novel (The Crying Game-p. 922) is set here—the tony, "trendy," "pricey" world of the super-rich. Moving through it with an unflappable cool is one Ronnie Appleyard, television moderator for Insight who is particularly interested in his own self-advancement and the gratifications of the bed. At a party he meets one Simon Quick, the unmanageable daughter of overpowering Lady Baldock, a frigid nymph who is more of a handful than an armful in bed. Ronnie, determined to teach Simon about love in every sense of the word, eventually finds that her reclamation is the same as his own. The scene shifts from Onassian opulence on the Greek islands to the deep South (U.S.A.) If none of this cuts very deeply, it does nick a great many surfaces and provides facile, flashing observations. Mr. Amis' noticing eye takes in everything and you'll like his ingenuously appealing Simon Quick.