1954 novel by Kingsley Amis, his most well-known. Dixon, a hopeless academic, struggles to secure his position at an obscure English college, maintain a distance from the emotionally needy Margaret, disguise the aftermath of a smoking accident, and above all, get the girl.
Hilarity (sort of), results, along with the observation: 'he really /is/ lucky.'
Similar in subject matter and style to Nabokov's Pnin (almost same year).