King Codger

By R.Z. Sheppard

THE FOLKS THAT LIVE ON THE HILL

by Kingsley Amis

Summit; 246 pages; $18.95

We have finally got to that point where Kingsley Amis can be introduced as Martin Amis' father. For those who have forgotten, he was the most talented satirist among Britain's angry young men of the 1950s. He is also the novelist who has kept the sharpest edge through the '60s, '70s and '80s. Class and sex wars are his specialties, and he is a scarred veteran of both. Harry Caldecote, the retired librarian in Amis' 20th novel, The Folks That Live on the Hill, should be beyond all that fiddle. "He had taken an early retirement deal just ahead of the new technology," writes Amis. "The fate in store for him had seemed to be mild, relative penury relieved by idleness."

But this is the last lap of the 20th century. Old values are exhausted, and new styles are hitting their stride. This is true even in Primrose Hill, where Harry, an old-fashioned ladies' man and pub potato, is drawn into the messy lives of friends and family. Brother Freddie, "a poet of the '50s in the sense that his career was almost totally confined to the years 1958-59," has been sexually recharged by modern medicine. Son Piers is a wastrel and dodgy lodger at his father's house. Ex-stepdaughter Bunty is a lesbian, and niece ) Fiona an alcoholic.

Harry finds his normal pursuits curbed by responsibilities and affections. Family ties are the verity at the bottom of this expertly tossed social comedy. Amis again pits himself against the changing times: the nihilism of youth, the dullness of new architecture, the decibels of popular music, even the metallic gurgle of new telephones. This is a valuable text for this generation's angry young men and women, who will undoubtedly become the next generation's grumbling codgers.