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GIRL, 20 <i> by Kingsley Amis (Summit Books: $8.95) </i>

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Originally published in 1970, this satirical novel reflects 1960s England through the perverse prism of two classical musicians. The narrator, Doug, is the music critic for a London daily; his chum, Roy, is a composer, conductor and violinist knighted for solidly second-rate contributions to England’s cultural Establishment. Sir Roy, propelled by a voracious appetite for ever-younger girls--his wife has worked out a mathematical equation that describes the increasing age differential--drags Doug along as abettor to his middle-aged lechery.

An undercurrent of “incoherent yelling” is carried on throughout the story by a series of secondary characters: the toddler son of Roy’s latest marriage; his daughter’s boyfriend, who, when not screaming wordlessly in the background, goes about hurling accusations of “fascist” at anyone within earshot; unnamed caterwaulers in dimly lit nightclubs. In the course of his forced exposure to the pop culture he’d rather deplore from afar, Doug begins to see “the possible virtues of Bruckner’s 8th Symphony” and to feel “sorry for having too hastily rejected those musical works which consist of a stated period of silence under concert conditions.” As always, Amis’ aim at the modern world, not to mention eternal human foibles, is dead on.

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