The Old Devils

rdf:langString The Old Devils

rdf:langString The Old Devils is a novel by Kingsley Amis, first published in 1986. The novel won the Booker Prize. The plot centres on Alun Weaver, a writer of modest celebrity, who 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. While drinking daily in the pub with the men, he proceeds to cuckold most of them. As with many of his novels, Amis based characters and portions of the plot on real-life figures and experiences. The figure of Brydan a thinly-disguised parody of Dylan Thomas, whom Amis had once met. Amis had a low opinion of Thomas, describing him as 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. The novel incorporates this theme of perceptions of Wales in history and culture. It also touches on the subjects of old age, alcoholism, marital unhappiness, and unrequited love.