The Old Devils is a novel by Kingsley Amis, published in 1986.[1] It won the Booker Prize.[2] Alun Weaver, a writer of modest celebrity, returns to his native Wales with his wife, Rhiannon, sometime girlfriend of Weaver's old acquaintance Peter Thomas. Alun begins associating with a group of former friends, including Peter, all of whom have continued to live locally while he was away. Drinking daily in the pub with the men, he cuckolds most of them.
As in others of Amis's novels, the characters and parts of the plot are based on real people and experiences. A poet, Brydan, is a thinly disguised parody of Dylan Thomas, whom Amis once met. Amis had a low opinion of Thomas, calling him a "pernicious figure, one who has helped to get Wales and Welsh poetry a bad name and generally done lasting harm to both... the general picture he draws of the place and the people [in his work] is false, sentimentalising, melodramatising, sensationalising, and ingratiating".[3] The novel incorporates a theme of perceptions of Wales in history and culture. It touches on the subjects of old age, alcoholism, marital unhappiness and unrequited love.
- ^ Jordison, Sam (16 February 2010). "Booker club: The Old Devils". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
- ^ Zachary Leader (12 March 2009). The Life of Kingsley Amis. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 737. ISBN 978-0-307-49645-4.
- ^ Amis, Kingsley, Memoirs, 1991, p. 133