A nice comfortable (for the reader) traipse through 50s England, a picaresque quite similar to Waugh's Decline and Fall. Could see this also being read as unfocused and unplotted (especially in comparison to likes of Lucky Jim and Room at the Top) but the writing is quick and funny enough for it not to matter.

Some middle class prat graduates and wants to set himself outside of the class structure he was raised into, so takes up a series of odd jobs and adventures. Nicely shows the completely different worlds people inhabit separated only by small turns of luck. Our protagonist goes through the full wringer - at first I thought he was going to find some Daoist acceptance that would really let him float outside of society, but in the end he finds a role he can really settle into. Happens to everyone - you go full Bartleby or you get a job.

Notable point that this renunciation of society that these 50s writers were struggling with could have gone either way politically but seemed to turn into I'm-Alright-Jack Thatcherism as time went on. Maybe not dissimilar to the American hippies turning into free market boomers.