"He resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again"

Kingsley Amis’s sentence, “He resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again,” depicts more than a simple resolution, it encapsulates an entire psychological and physical state. The notion of consciously choosing not to move one’s eyeballs after a single movement transforms a mundane bodily action into a moment of acute existential discomfort or absurdity. It subtly underscores how the smallest acts, often relegated to the unconscious realm, can suddenly and jarringly enter the arena of self-awareness, causing disproportionate anxiety or reluctance.

By focusing on a movement as minute as shifting the eyeballs, the protagonist in Amis’s narrative exposes a deeper aversion or even a comic paralysis in the face of an otherwise trivial aspect of being alive. The phrase “having done it once” indicates that the mere awareness of the act was so unsettling, so unexpectedly vivid or distressing, that the decision not to repeat it arises reflexively, an attempt to retreat into a simpler, less self-aware state. Amis plays with the idea of overthinking bodily functions, transforming the familiar into something foreign and vaguely forbidding.

Furthermore, there is an undercurrent of absurdity and dry humor. The character’s exaggerated determination to avoid moving his eyes, a fundamental human action, hints at themes of social awkwardness, anxiety, or a futile desire to control one’s own natural impulses. It casts the body itself as both agent and adversary, the unwelcome focus of scrutiny. This paradox, presented in Amis’s typically understated yet sharply observant prose, invites readers to reflect on their own relationship with the mundane details of existence, and how consciousness can complicate the comfort of routine. The humor emerges from the character’s hyperbolic reaction, marked by solemnity disproportionate to the cause, illuminating the comic potential lurking within the everyday.