The book's themes are nostalgia, the folly of trying to go back and recapture past glories, and the easy way the dreams and aspirations of one's youth can be smothered by the humdrum routine of work, marriage, and getting old. It is written in the first person, with George Bowling, the forty-five-year-old protagonist, who reveals his life and experiences while undertaking a trip back to his boyhood home as an adult.
At the book's opening, Bowling has a day off work to go to London to collect a new set of false teeth. A news poster about the contemporary King Zog of Albania sets off thoughts of a biblical character Og, King of Bashan, whom he recalls from Sunday church as a child. Along with 'some sound in the traffic or the smell of horse dung or something,' these thoughts trigger Bowling's memory of his childhood as the son of an unambitious seed merchant in "Lower Binfield" near the River Thames. Bowling relates his life history, dwelling on how a lucky break during the First World War landed him a comfortable job away from any action and provided contacts that helped him become a successful salesman.
Bowling is wondering what to do with a modest sum of money that he has won on a horserace and which he has concealed from his wife and family. Much later (part III), he and his wife attend a Left Book Club meeting where he is horrified by the hate shown by the anti-fascist speaker and bemused by the Marxist ramblings of the communists who have participated in the meeting. Fed up with this, he seeks his friend Old Porteous, the retired schoolmaster. He usually enjoys Porteous' company, but on this occasion, his dry, dead classics make Bowling even more depressed.
Bowling decides to use the money on a 'trip down memory lane' to revisit the places of his childhood. He recalls a pond with giant fish, which he had missed the chance to try and catch thirty years previously. He, therefore, plans to return to Lower Binfield, but when he arrives, he finds the place unrecognizable. Eventually, he locates the old pub where he is to stay, finding it much changed. His home has become a tea shop. Only the church and vicar appear the same, but he is shocked when he discovers an old girlfriend, for she has been so ravaged by the time that she is almost unrecognizable and utterly devoid of the qualities he once had adored. She fails to recognize him at all. Bowling remembers the slow and painful decline of his father's seed business – resulting from the nearby establishment of corporate competition. This painful memory seems to have sensitized him to – and given him a repugnance for – what he sees as the marching ravages of "Progress." The final disappointment is that the estate where he used to fish has been built over, and the secluded and once-hidden pond that contained the huge carp he constantly intended to take on with his fishing rod but never got around to has become a rubbish dump. The social and material changes experienced by Bowling since childhood make his past seem distant. The concept of "you can't go home again" hangs heavily over Bowling's journey as he realizes that many of his old haunts are gone or considerably changed from his younger years.
Throughout the adventure, he receives reminders of impending war, and the threat of bombs becomes real when one lands accidentally on the town.
