I couldn't disagree more either, David. But that is, certainly, what he is most remembered for and I think it's probably his funniest book. I feel fairly sure he might have agreed, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, with Jake (let's not forget that this comment is said through the periscope of a character; he didn't necessarily think of Mozart as 'filthy', either): most poets of the Movement in the 1950s (and Amis was a fine poet) would surely have had little time for workshopping - or the term itself which is, frankly, vile. But it is interesting that Lucky Jim was heavily influenced by Larkin, who wrote all over tss, demanded more of this and less of that, etc. The difference is that Larkin was one respected peer and friend with a considerable emerging literary talent of his own.
I don't workshop poems, even here, though I respect the decision to do so and I can see what the considered thoughts of John, Janet, Susan, Janice, Mike, Clive and a great many others can do for a poem and its author's inspiration. I do, occasionally, show my nearly finished poems to respected peers, and of course I submit poems to magazines, etc: there's no point in hiding them in a drawer like dirty postcards (who said that? About Housman?). Whenever I have been in a workshop environment in the real, non-internet, flesh-and-faces world I've found myself in a back-patting set. Eratosphere differs because there is no social awkwardness about not patting backs and it is much, much more than just a workshop.
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