Name: Comfortable read and not much else
Item: Scenes from provincial life
Author: jackcommon

Scenes from provincial life →

by Cooper, William

Comfortable read and not much else

jackcommon

Oct 31, 2025

I picked up this one as it sits in the cluster of 1950s/60s British middle class young men whingeing about how they don't like their girlfriends books I've been enjoying over the past few months. This has been the most OK of the bunch, and also sits as a precursor to the likes of Lucky Jim, Room at the Top, etc. In turn I think you can see these books as successors to Evelyn Waugh's earlier books - detached comedies about the mundane and profane, but these later books are amongst the non-London middle classes, rather than society people.

On the eve of the Second World War, Joe Lunn shares a cottage with friend Tom, swapping weekends there with his girlfriend, and Tom with his young boyfriend. He juggles his life as a school teacher in The North, dodging marrying girlfriend Myrtle, escaping to USA, and trying to get his third book published. Hilarity ensues, or at least a couple of laughs.

Unfortunately this one felt like one of those books notable for its features than its core - it's known for being an Angry Young Men precursor, its frank-for-the-time writing on a gay relationship, and the skiving everyman narrator. At the end of it, though, you're better off spending your time reading Lucky Jim.

On thing that does stick and rings true though, is the time setting. Through the whole story the breakout of WW2 looms. The characters know so too, but are much more preoccupied of their romances and little lives that this takes the backseat. So often I ask older people what they remember of the big events of their time - they often don't remember, but could tell me who won the football that year.