Archive of the Day

I'm finally reading Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, which has been near the top of my must-read list for a while. Two friends recently reiterated the necessity of my reading it, and each of them, independently, cited the same paragraph as evidence of that necessity. Having just reached the paragraph in question myself (it appears on page 61), I thought I would share. It concerns someone waking up with a hangover.

Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the morning. The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. 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.