Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The ten best fictional hangovers

For the Guardian Sean O'Hagan named the ten best fictional hangovers in print, film and song.

One novel on the list:
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

The best hangover scene ever written, from a master of both writing and hangovers. “[Jim] Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way… He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning… His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, he’d somehow been on a cross-country run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad”
Read about another book on the list.

Lucky Jim also appears on Roger Rosenblatt's list of the five best satires of academic life and John Mullan's list of ten of the best professors in literature.

--Marshal Zeringue