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Corpi vili
"Corpi vili" è una storia piena di brio. Protagonisti, i cosiddetti "Bright Young Things", i giovani brillanti dell'upper class londinese, e anzi il titolo, da principio, doveva essere proprio quello. Naturalmente, le feste vi abbondano, lo champagne scorre copioso, e i protagonisti - oltre a inventare di continuo nomi originali per i loro party - parlano una lingua stravagante e sofisticata, veloce, informale. D'altro lato, gli effetti del crack del '29 non si erano ancora del tutto dispiegati nella vita quotidiana dei più, e Londra era nel pieno dell'euforia fra le due guerre. Anzi, si potrebbe dire che, se "Il grande Gatsby" di Fitzgerald fu il testo simbolo dell'età del jazz americana, "Corpi vili", con le sue inedite descrizioni di nightclub, party selvaggi e libertà sessuali, lo è stato di quella inglese. Spingendosi oltre, si potrebbe forse aggiungere che mentre Fitzgerald quell'età la immaginò, o meglio la sognò, Waugh non fece altro che fotografarla, ricorrendo a una lingua veloce e capricciosa, snob e insieme popolare, che rappresentò un'autentica innovazione. Prefazione di Mario Fortunato.
243 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1930
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About the author
Evelyn Waugh
347 books2,953 followersEvelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note. In fact, his book “The Loom of Youth” (1917) a novel about his old boarding school Sherborne caused Evelyn to be expelled from there and placed at Lancing College. He said of his time there, “…the whole of English education when I was brought up was to produce prose writers; it was all we were taught, really.” He went on to Hertford College, Oxford, where he read History. When asked if he took up any sports there he quipped, “I drank for Hertford.”
In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. After inglorious stints as a school teacher (he was dismissed for trying to seduce a school matron and/or inebriation), an apprentice cabinet maker and journalist, he wrote and had published his first novel, “Decline and Fall” in 1928.
In 1928 he married Evelyn Gardiner. She proved unfaithful, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1930. Waugh would derive parts of “A Handful of Dust” from this unhappy time. His second marriage to Audrey Herbert lasted the rest of his life and begat seven children. It was during this time that he converted to Catholicism.
During the thirties Waugh produced one gem after another. From this decade come: “Vile Bodies” (1930), “Black Mischief” (1932), the incomparable “A Handful of Dust” (1934) and “Scoop” (1938). After the Second World War he published what is for many his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited,” in which his Catholicism took centre stage. “The Loved One” a scathing satire of the American death industry followed in 1947. After publishing his “Sword of Honour Trilogy” about his experiences in World War II - “Men at Arms” (1952), “Officers and Gentlemen” (1955), “Unconditional Surrender" (1961) - his career was seen to be on the wane. In fact, “Basil Seal Rides Again” (1963) - his last published novel - received little critical or commercial attention.
Evelyn Waugh, considered by many to be the greatest satirical novelist of his day, died on 10 April 1966 at the age of 62.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_W...
In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. After inglorious stints as a school teacher (he was dismissed for trying to seduce a school matron and/or inebriation), an apprentice cabinet maker and journalist, he wrote and had published his first novel, “Decline and Fall” in 1928.
In 1928 he married Evelyn Gardiner. She proved unfaithful, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1930. Waugh would derive parts of “A Handful of Dust” from this unhappy time. His second marriage to Audrey Herbert lasted the rest of his life and begat seven children. It was during this time that he converted to Catholicism.
During the thirties Waugh produced one gem after another. From this decade come: “Vile Bodies” (1930), “Black Mischief” (1932), the incomparable “A Handful of Dust” (1934) and “Scoop” (1938). After the Second World War he published what is for many his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited,” in which his Catholicism took centre stage. “The Loved One” a scathing satire of the American death industry followed in 1947. After publishing his “Sword of Honour Trilogy” about his experiences in World War II - “Men at Arms” (1952), “Officers and Gentlemen” (1955), “Unconditional Surrender" (1961) - his career was seen to be on the wane. In fact, “Basil Seal Rides Again” (1963) - his last published novel - received little critical or commercial attention.
Evelyn Waugh, considered by many to be the greatest satirical novelist of his day, died on 10 April 1966 at the age of 62.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_W...
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August 9, 2024
PARTY GOING
The Roaring Twenties in London.
Vile Bodies - Corpi vili non è il Waugh che preferisco.
Trattasi del suo secondo romanzo, pubblicato nel 1930, e Waugh è ancora soprattutto satirico, non ha ancora raggiunto la chiave che io preferisco, l’ironia incrociata alla malinconia, la satira alla tragedia.
Comincia a farlo “una manciata” d’anni dopo, nel 1934, proprio con A Handful of Dust – Una manciata di polvere, da molti considerato il suo capolavoro (forse anche per me lo è: ma subito accanto colloco Brideshead Revisited – Ritorno a Brideshead e la trilogia “Spada d’onore”).
Quando il registro non è ancora pienamente maturo, è più facile percepire elementi di disturbo: e cioè, è più difficile dimenticare che Waugh era sostanzialmente un conservatore, non alieno da razzismo (e mica solo verso la pelle scura: parlerei di razzismo anche per quello che è il suo atteggiamento nei confronti dei bambini) – applausi per la colonizzazione fascista dell’Abissinia, Mussolini meglio del Negus, e amenità di questo genere.
Ma anche se non al meglio, è comunque Waugh, scrittore di classe.
Colloca la storia nell’Inghilterra pre Grande Guerra, anche se non è difficile percepire che miri piuttosto alla buona società inglese degli anni Venti, la british upper class non ancora toccata dai postumi del crollo della borsa di New York (ottobre 1929) che là, in US, portò alla Grande Depressione degli anni Trenta.
La satira è sfrenata a cominciare da nomi e soprannomi: Lady Circumference, Lady Metroland, l’ex primo ministro Mr Outrage.
Il trait d’union di questa ronde di personaggi e sketch è il cronista mondano Adam Fenwick-Symes e la di lui fidanzata Nina.
Cocktail e party, ricevimenti feste in maschera e champagne, scommesse insulse, bisticci puerili, noia e snobismo, droghe e sbronze, cinismo e tiepido decadentismo, edonismo e superficialità, sesso al trotto e stupidità al galoppo, l’upper class inglese è marcia, e Waugh si augura che una guerra la spazzi via (più tardi, proprio con la trilogia di guerra, capirà che nemmeno quella può bastare, è proprio finita un’epoca, e non si torna indietro pur se si vorrebbe).
Si potrebbe dire che, se "Il grande Gatsby" di Fitzgerald fu il testo simbolo dell'età del jazz americana, "Corpi vili", con le sue inedite descrizioni di nightclub, party selvaggi e libertà sessuali, lo è stato di quella inglese. Spingendosi oltre, si potrebbe forse aggiungere che mentre Fitzgerald quell'età la immaginò, o meglio la sognò, Waugh non fece altro che fotografarla, ricorrendo a una lingua veloce e capricciosa, snob e insieme popolare, che rappresentò un'autentica innovazione.
Dalla prefazione di Mario Fortunato.
Sorseggiò lo champagne e si rassegnò a non essere che polvere.
The Roaring Twenties in London.
Vile Bodies - Corpi vili non è il Waugh che preferisco.
Trattasi del suo secondo romanzo, pubblicato nel 1930, e Waugh è ancora soprattutto satirico, non ha ancora raggiunto la chiave che io preferisco, l’ironia incrociata alla malinconia, la satira alla tragedia.
Comincia a farlo “una manciata” d’anni dopo, nel 1934, proprio con A Handful of Dust – Una manciata di polvere, da molti considerato il suo capolavoro (forse anche per me lo è: ma subito accanto colloco Brideshead Revisited – Ritorno a Brideshead e la trilogia “Spada d’onore”).
Quando il registro non è ancora pienamente maturo, è più facile percepire elementi di disturbo: e cioè, è più difficile dimenticare che Waugh era sostanzialmente un conservatore, non alieno da razzismo (e mica solo verso la pelle scura: parlerei di razzismo anche per quello che è il suo atteggiamento nei confronti dei bambini) – applausi per la colonizzazione fascista dell’Abissinia, Mussolini meglio del Negus, e amenità di questo genere.
Ma anche se non al meglio, è comunque Waugh, scrittore di classe.
Colloca la storia nell’Inghilterra pre Grande Guerra, anche se non è difficile percepire che miri piuttosto alla buona società inglese degli anni Venti, la british upper class non ancora toccata dai postumi del crollo della borsa di New York (ottobre 1929) che là, in US, portò alla Grande Depressione degli anni Trenta.
La satira è sfrenata a cominciare da nomi e soprannomi: Lady Circumference, Lady Metroland, l’ex primo ministro Mr Outrage.
Il trait d’union di questa ronde di personaggi e sketch è il cronista mondano Adam Fenwick-Symes e la di lui fidanzata Nina.
Cocktail e party, ricevimenti feste in maschera e champagne, scommesse insulse, bisticci puerili, noia e snobismo, droghe e sbronze, cinismo e tiepido decadentismo, edonismo e superficialità, sesso al trotto e stupidità al galoppo, l’upper class inglese è marcia, e Waugh si augura che una guerra la spazzi via (più tardi, proprio con la trilogia di guerra, capirà che nemmeno quella può bastare, è proprio finita un’epoca, e non si torna indietro pur se si vorrebbe).
Si potrebbe dire che, se "Il grande Gatsby" di Fitzgerald fu il testo simbolo dell'età del jazz americana, "Corpi vili", con le sue inedite descrizioni di nightclub, party selvaggi e libertà sessuali, lo è stato di quella inglese. Spingendosi oltre, si potrebbe forse aggiungere che mentre Fitzgerald quell'età la immaginò, o meglio la sognò, Waugh non fece altro che fotografarla, ricorrendo a una lingua veloce e capricciosa, snob e insieme popolare, che rappresentò un'autentica innovazione.
Dalla prefazione di Mario Fortunato.
Sorseggiò lo champagne e si rassegnò a non essere che polvere.
June 8, 2024
Evelyn Waugh was in his mid-20s when he wrote Vile Bodies (1930), but he had already seen enough of the foibles of the ruling class to provide ammunition for a lifetime of storytelling. Although he hailed from a solidly middle class family, Waugh associated at Oxford with a circle known as the 'Hypocrites Club', and thereafter mingled with the rich and fatuous before marrying Evelyn Gardner, the daughter of a Lord and Lady. Waugh writes with a comical touch, precisely using the sort of characters he more than likely would have associated with in his own life. This novel I would say is somewhere along the lines of a raw satire, which features seemingly farcical and madcap goings-on in London's lavish high society. There are some of the most ridiculously silly character names I have come across, with the likes of Miles Malpractice, Fanny Throbbing, Lottie Crump and Melrose Ape, to name a few.
While there are many happening throughout Vile Bodies, involving gossip columns, parties, and even the Prime Minister, it's recurring theme is one of the 'Bright Young Things', Adam Fenwick Symes, and the hunt for his £1,000, or even £35,000 based on the elusive drunk Major who may have placed a bet on a horse. Adam, a struggling writer, badly wants to wed his lover, Nina, but for that to go ahead he needs the cash, and pays a visit to Nina's forgetful father Colonel Blount, who isn't very good at remembering faces, or much else to be honest. This sets the scene for some dazzling and humorous moments, using a dialogue that utilises the difference in the upper crust set of characters.
The presentation of the Bright Young People is shot through with paradox. Those who populate Vile Bodies drink too much, party too late, sleep too little, and borrow today what they can't pay back tomorrow. But just who are they in the novels own terms? The centre of interest, Adam & Nina are identified from the start as only half-included as a source of money. Well, Nina anyway. And there is nothing particularly remarkable about Adam. In the crowd, he doesn't really stand out, yet somehow hangs out with the wealthy, when he barely had a penny to his name, whereas the supporting cast, even if only briefly spent in the company of, for me, made the novel what it is. A few characters in Vile Bodies find a way to make a decent living off of indecency, mainly as gossip columnists for the London press. The public has an insatiable appetite for garish titbits and
insulting innuendos, and Fleet Street does its best to accommodate their curiosity. But the job of tattle-teller has its drawbacks, and before the midway point of the novel one of the gossip writers takes his own life. Not that Waugh ever draws a set of dark curtains on the reader, even death doesn't change his comical approach.
Often admired for his dark humour, but rarely recognised for the structural innovations of his novels. Waugh writes a titillating tale. From the very start of Vile Bodies he employs a kaleidoscopic technique in which the perspective and personages constantly change. More than twenty characters are introduced in the first round of pages, and although some of them are soon abandoned, he simply has others to take their place in the long run. I found the novel far more humorous than first imagined, where the comedy seemed all the fresher since it embodies a type of attitude that is rarely encountered today. Will need to read more of him though, before completely singing his praises. But a promising start.
September 19, 2025
Satire of British society, as illustrated in Vile Bodies, presents literary vignettes that, almost like humorous sketches, portray a puppet theatre that represents the best of civilized humanity. The hotel lounge, social evenings, balls and receptions, newsroom, and motor racing are just a few of the settings that the author uses to implement his humorous and burlesque prose. You will meet a prime minister unhappy in love, a bunch of young people on the page, a stupid young writer, a lady evangelist of high caliber accompanied, like a magazine leader, by her winged troop of angels and virtues, a hostess without annoyance to the curiously biased hearing, an evil aristocrat scout, a devilish leech drunk commander and so on.
The author is particularly clever in his humorous take on social media's futilities, fond of scandal, slander, and the latest fashion vanities and other sartorial quibbles. It is a bit outdated, but quite funny and entertaining; using British humor comes across wonderfully.
The author is particularly clever in his humorous take on social media's futilities, fond of scandal, slander, and the latest fashion vanities and other sartorial quibbles. It is a bit outdated, but quite funny and entertaining; using British humor comes across wonderfully.
August 2, 2019
Vile bodies, vile people, vile attitudes, only they could have named themselves 'bright young things'. Good book, Evelyn Waugh knows his own kind but also knows how to send them up.
April 2, 2019
A book in which every character is equally detestable. The 'Bright Young People' are superficial, snobbish, ostentatious and vulgar, and yet - much like the tabloids - you cannot look away. Such a pertinent read for todays age of digital influencers. I'd love to see a film made about this in a modern day setting.
March 26, 2017
Unputdownable; both excitingly modern & original, a novel about manners & society and all that jazz.
I have seriously not read something this comical and smart and sad since (my all-time fave) “A Confederacy of Dunces.” The sharp dialogue is more than clever: it constructs a full little universe in which bright young creatures can party it up like there’s no tomorrow. Love everything about it: the tone, the pace, the interaction of so many personalities. Fantastic: I read all 321 pages in one sitting! This is a book to look up to, a towering achievement indeed. Inspiring, whimsical, hella original, and as witty as any play of manners by Oscar Wilde.
I have seriously not read something this comical and smart and sad since (my all-time fave) “A Confederacy of Dunces.” The sharp dialogue is more than clever: it constructs a full little universe in which bright young creatures can party it up like there’s no tomorrow. Love everything about it: the tone, the pace, the interaction of so many personalities. Fantastic: I read all 321 pages in one sitting! This is a book to look up to, a towering achievement indeed. Inspiring, whimsical, hella original, and as witty as any play of manners by Oscar Wilde.
February 2, 2022
'Here's something terribly funny', she said, by way of making conversation. 'Shall I read it to you?'
"'Midnight Orgies at Nº 10." My dear, isn't that divine? Listen, "What must be the most extraordinary party of the little season took place in the small hours of this morning at Nº 10 Downing Street. At about 4 a.m. the policemen who are always posted outside the Prime Minister's residence were surprised to witness" - isn't this too amusing -- "the arrival of a fleet of taxis, from which emerged a gay throng in exotic fancy dress" - How I should have loved to have seen it. Can't you imagine what they were like? - "the hostess of what was described by one of the guests as the brightest party the Bright Young People have yet given, was no other than Miss Jane Brown, the youngest of the Prime Minister's four lovely daughters. The Honourable Agatha..." Why, what an extraordinary thing... Oh, my God!'
August 6, 2016
2.5 stars
Waugh’s second novel is a rather bleak comic satire on the “Bright Young Things” of the 1920s. It is a witty series of anecdotes, often rather disjointed. The title is from the funeral service and the style mimics Eliot and modernism. The pace is breathless and there is a line in a Disney song which runs “busy going nowhere”. Indeed there is an inscription from Carroll at the beginning “it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place”.
The plot is fairly thin. It revolves around Adam Fenwick-Symes and his chaotic attempts to marry Nina Blount; or to be more precise, to get enough money to marry Nina. Most of the book follows a series of parties and happenings in the tradition of the real life Waugh is satirising. There are lots of ridiculously named people (the prime minister is Mr Outrage). Adam is a writer/journalist and writes (makes up) a gossip column following the suicide of the previous occupant of the role. There is a distinct change of tone in the second half of the book and this coincides with Waugh’s first wife leaving him; the comic bleakness becomes more marked and the ending is almost apocalyptic.
Now, it must be said that Waugh can write and some of this is funny. He has been called the best prose writer of the twentieth century; that I don’t accept, not at all. He is inventive; remember the end of A Handful of Dust where the hero of the book is forced to read Dickens aloud for the rest of his life in a jungle prison. Now that is funny and inventive! The characters are shallow, transitory and throw-away and there is an obsession with the English upper classes. There is a brief section of entirely unnecessary racism; again not unusual for Waugh. What strikes me most about Waugh is his complete rejection of modern society with a nostalgia for time past, a world long lost. His conversion to Catholicism seems to me to be a part of this.
I seem to be surrounded by reviews and reviewers who think Waugh is wonderful and I’m just not getting it. If you want to read about the English upper classes in a satirical and comic way in a world populated by ridiculous and shallow characters then read Wodehouse; he’s better. The “Bright Young Things” did not really need to be satirised; they managed to satirise themselves, consciously or not.
Ok, this is amusing in places and the satire is sharp, but does not really better the real lives of the people being satirised and unfortunately Waugh’s contempt for the “lower orders” is also obvious. However there are some critics who are on my side here. Orwell wrote;
“Waugh is about as good a novelist as one can be (i.e. as novelists go today) while holding untenable opinions.”
Orwell’s further comments about not being able to be Catholic and grown up chime with Cyril Connolly idea of
"Theory of Permanent Adolescence," whereby Englishmen of a certain caste are doomed to re-enact their school days.
So I’m not alone in finding Waugh unconvincing.
Waugh’s second novel is a rather bleak comic satire on the “Bright Young Things” of the 1920s. It is a witty series of anecdotes, often rather disjointed. The title is from the funeral service and the style mimics Eliot and modernism. The pace is breathless and there is a line in a Disney song which runs “busy going nowhere”. Indeed there is an inscription from Carroll at the beginning “it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place”.
The plot is fairly thin. It revolves around Adam Fenwick-Symes and his chaotic attempts to marry Nina Blount; or to be more precise, to get enough money to marry Nina. Most of the book follows a series of parties and happenings in the tradition of the real life Waugh is satirising. There are lots of ridiculously named people (the prime minister is Mr Outrage). Adam is a writer/journalist and writes (makes up) a gossip column following the suicide of the previous occupant of the role. There is a distinct change of tone in the second half of the book and this coincides with Waugh’s first wife leaving him; the comic bleakness becomes more marked and the ending is almost apocalyptic.
Now, it must be said that Waugh can write and some of this is funny. He has been called the best prose writer of the twentieth century; that I don’t accept, not at all. He is inventive; remember the end of A Handful of Dust where the hero of the book is forced to read Dickens aloud for the rest of his life in a jungle prison. Now that is funny and inventive! The characters are shallow, transitory and throw-away and there is an obsession with the English upper classes. There is a brief section of entirely unnecessary racism; again not unusual for Waugh. What strikes me most about Waugh is his complete rejection of modern society with a nostalgia for time past, a world long lost. His conversion to Catholicism seems to me to be a part of this.
I seem to be surrounded by reviews and reviewers who think Waugh is wonderful and I’m just not getting it. If you want to read about the English upper classes in a satirical and comic way in a world populated by ridiculous and shallow characters then read Wodehouse; he’s better. The “Bright Young Things” did not really need to be satirised; they managed to satirise themselves, consciously or not.
Ok, this is amusing in places and the satire is sharp, but does not really better the real lives of the people being satirised and unfortunately Waugh’s contempt for the “lower orders” is also obvious. However there are some critics who are on my side here. Orwell wrote;
“Waugh is about as good a novelist as one can be (i.e. as novelists go today) while holding untenable opinions.”
Orwell’s further comments about not being able to be Catholic and grown up chime with Cyril Connolly idea of
"Theory of Permanent Adolescence," whereby Englishmen of a certain caste are doomed to re-enact their school days.
So I’m not alone in finding Waugh unconvincing.
April 18, 2022
Updated thoughts can be found here - http://youtu.be/msKfCg6fUzo
I just finished reading the gorgeous 1930 novel, Vile Bodies by the old genius of a boy, Evelyn Waugh.
I feel it's not too soon to admit to this already being one of my favorite books of all time. Just lovely in every way.
I'd already seen the hilarious 2003 film adaptation by my hero, Stephen Fry but I actually think I like the book even more.
So rich with wit and humor. so full of characters that one would love to share a bottle (or 40) of fizz with.
My perfect little paperback edition of this novel literally fills me with joy every time I glance it's way.
When this book was written I imagine it was non to popular with the well behaved masses.
This charming volume is filled with every kind of debauchery you could partake of during the 20's, 30's and 40's.
- Drugs, alcohol, sex. Not to mention females wearing trousers! Simply too too shy-making.
Vile Bodies is the kind of novel that at once consumes you. Takes over all but your simplest of faculties. I want to be Agatha Runcible. I want to be friends with Adam Fenwick-Symes. I want to have adventures with Miles Malpractice. I want to be one of the Bright Young People who so corrupt 'modern' society.
Everything about this story is decadence, and in being so makes the perfect escapist volume I've ever had the joy of coming across. I'd recommend this to just about any literary creature out there. Do not, please, be put off by the fact that it was written way back when. I promise it's as fresh today as it ever was. Maybe even more so in our days of corruption(oh my!).
I just finished reading the gorgeous 1930 novel, Vile Bodies by the old genius of a boy, Evelyn Waugh.
I feel it's not too soon to admit to this already being one of my favorite books of all time. Just lovely in every way.
I'd already seen the hilarious 2003 film adaptation by my hero, Stephen Fry but I actually think I like the book even more.
So rich with wit and humor. so full of characters that one would love to share a bottle (or 40) of fizz with.
My perfect little paperback edition of this novel literally fills me with joy every time I glance it's way.
When this book was written I imagine it was non to popular with the well behaved masses.
This charming volume is filled with every kind of debauchery you could partake of during the 20's, 30's and 40's.
- Drugs, alcohol, sex. Not to mention females wearing trousers! Simply too too shy-making.
Vile Bodies is the kind of novel that at once consumes you. Takes over all but your simplest of faculties. I want to be Agatha Runcible. I want to be friends with Adam Fenwick-Symes. I want to have adventures with Miles Malpractice. I want to be one of the Bright Young People who so corrupt 'modern' society.
Everything about this story is decadence, and in being so makes the perfect escapist volume I've ever had the joy of coming across. I'd recommend this to just about any literary creature out there. Do not, please, be put off by the fact that it was written way back when. I promise it's as fresh today as it ever was. Maybe even more so in our days of corruption(oh my!).
January 30, 2023
Observant, witty, clever and at times, laugh out loud funny, Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies captures the type of people labelled as the Bright Young Things (BYT) who in 1920's/early 1930s Britain were fashionably young and known for hedonistic and outrageous behaviours (for the time).
Here we see their [BYTs'] pursuit of hedonism, attraction and fun with technology [airships and racing cars], whilst parties, gossip, gambling, match-making and marriage breaking, riches and money - or for some a lack of, and, the standards and expected behaviours by older generations are all experienced by our ensemble.
Waugh's delivery in Vile Bodies is dry, pointed, wry, absurd, at times sympathetic and often funny.
Overall, a fun and enjoyable read about an age that left a legacy through fashion, art, books and news coverage, and created some legends and sadly was disastrous for a few too.
Chin, chin old girl and tally ho! old man.
Here we see their [BYTs'] pursuit of hedonism, attraction and fun with technology [airships and racing cars], whilst parties, gossip, gambling, match-making and marriage breaking, riches and money - or for some a lack of, and, the standards and expected behaviours by older generations are all experienced by our ensemble.
Waugh's delivery in Vile Bodies is dry, pointed, wry, absurd, at times sympathetic and often funny.
Overall, a fun and enjoyable read about an age that left a legacy through fashion, art, books and news coverage, and created some legends and sadly was disastrous for a few too.
Chin, chin old girl and tally ho! old man.
November 1, 2019
За пръв път чета Ивлин Уо и стилът доста ми напомни на Фицджералд. Така де, Бурните двадесет, Златните двадесет and all that jazz. Всъщност действието се развива малко преди Първата световна война, но духът на идещата епоха на джаза витае във въздуха. Определено вакханалията никога не е имала по-стилен образ.
Пробуди съжаление у мен, тази Златна младеж на Уо. Едно такова опушено, матово, смътно съжаление. Защото си припомних, че вече съм я виждала някъде. Виждала съм същата процесия от унизени тела, същия панаир на суетата. Срещам ги всеки ден. Някой път са дори в огледалото. Златната младеж твърде ми напомня на собственото ми поколение, т.нар. поколение Y. Поредната неизвестна в безкрайните уравнения на историята. Ние сме същата онази Златна младеж, обаче на 21-ви век – залутани, объркани, неспокойни, постоянно търсещи. Всички възможности на света няма да са ни достатъчни. Способни сме да пропилеем целия потенциал, който успеем да намерим в себе си. Гордо развяваме привилегията, запазена сякаш единствено за младите – винаги всичко да ни е ясно и да умеем нещата по-добре от останалите. Бабите и дядовците ни са живели безсмислено, постъпките на родителите ни са глупави. Ние същия живот щяхме да го изживеем къде по-добре. Носим… Но за Златната младеж в романа ми беше думата, разсеях се.
Огледайте се около себе си. Ивлин Уо е описал сегашните млади хора преди век. Дори Сократ ги е описал преди… абе, отдавна ги е описал. Както току се случва в някое поколение, Златната младеж е на кръстопът и се колебае накъде да поеме, и е вцепенена от собствената си нерешителност.
„Познавам много малко младежи, но ми се струва, че всички те са обзети почти изцяло от една фатална жажда за непреходни ценности. Хората днес не се задоволяват просто да живуркат. И думата „фалш“, която толкова често използват… В днешно време те не могат да се примирят с лошо свършена работа. Някога моят наставник казваше: „Ако нещо си струва да се направи, струва се да се направи добре“. Днешните млади хора подхождат различно и, знам ли, може и да са прави. Те казват: „Ако нещо не си струва да се направи добре, не си струва да се прави въобще“.
Историята е печално известна със склонността си да се повтаря. Мизансценът се променя, но все си се раждаме, живеем и умираме. Ако имаме късмет и помечтаваме малко някъде помежду. Мислим си, че сме най-добрата карта, която еволюцията е изтеглила от предишните епохи досега, и донякъде сме прави. Перлената ни самоувереност не е изцяло лустро. Ние сме подобрена версия на своите предци. Какво да правим с цялата тази отговорност, с цялата вложена в нас надежда обаче, ей този хлъзгав момент понякога ни спъва.
„– Бих дал всичко на света за нещо различно.
– Различно от мен или различно от всичко?
– Различно от всичко… само че нямам нищо… Каква полза от говоренето?“
Пробуди съжаление у мен, тази Златна младеж на Уо. Едно такова опушено, матово, смътно съжаление. Защото си припомних, че вече съм я виждала някъде. Виждала съм същата процесия от унизени тела, същия панаир на суетата. Срещам ги всеки ден. Някой път са дори в огледалото. Златната младеж твърде ми напомня на собственото ми поколение, т.нар. поколение Y. Поредната неизвестна в безкрайните уравнения на историята. Ние сме същата онази Златна младеж, обаче на 21-ви век – залутани, объркани, неспокойни, постоянно търсещи. Всички възможности на света няма да са ни достатъчни. Способни сме да пропилеем целия потенциал, който успеем да намерим в себе си. Гордо развяваме привилегията, запазена сякаш единствено за младите – винаги всичко да ни е ясно и да умеем нещата по-добре от останалите. Бабите и дядовците ни са живели безсмислено, постъпките на родителите ни са глупави. Ние същия живот щяхме да го изживеем къде по-добре. Носим… Но за Златната младеж в романа ми беше думата, разсеях се.
Огледайте се около себе си. Ивлин Уо е описал сегашните млади хора преди век. Дори Сократ ги е описал преди… абе, отдавна ги е описал. Както току се случва в някое поколение, Златната младеж е на кръстопът и се колебае накъде да поеме, и е вцепенена от собствената си нерешителност.
„Познавам много малко младежи, но ми се струва, че всички те са обзети почти изцяло от една фатална жажда за непреходни ценности. Хората днес не се задоволяват просто да живуркат. И думата „фалш“, която толкова често използват… В днешно време те не могат да се примирят с лошо свършена работа. Някога моят наставник казваше: „Ако нещо си струва да се направи, струва се да се направи добре“. Днешните млади хора подхождат различно и, знам ли, може и да са прави. Те казват: „Ако нещо не си струва да се направи добре, не си струва да се прави въобще“.
Историята е печално известна със склонността си да се повтаря. Мизансценът се променя, но все си се раждаме, живеем и умираме. Ако имаме късмет и помечтаваме малко някъде помежду. Мислим си, че сме най-добрата карта, която еволюцията е изтеглила от предишните епохи досега, и донякъде сме прави. Перлената ни самоувереност не е изцяло лустро. Ние сме подобрена версия на своите предци. Какво да правим с цялата тази отговорност, с цялата вложена в нас надежда обаче, ей този хлъзгав момент понякога ни спъва.
„– Бих дал всичко на света за нещо различно.
– Различно от мен или различно от всичко?
– Различно от всичко… само че нямам нищо… Каква полза от говоренето?“
July 26, 2011
"Ooooh what's that shiny thing, it's hurting my eyes."
"Sorry, that'd be me, I'm a bright young thing. Avert your eyes lest they be burned from their sockets."
"Wow, so what is a bright young thing then? Forgive my ignorance but I'm just not that cultured."
"Don't worry, its an easy premise to grasp - here, let me explain... we bright young things are an erudite group of social laaah-de-dahs who favour a bohemian life style. We like the finer things in life and indulge our love of drinking, dancing and outlandish behaviour much to the joy of the press who like to follow us around documenting our frivolous and moderately hedonistic acts. We're also frightfully upper class and a tiny bit prone to navel gazing but some of us are quite arty. We can also be a little bit flaky and a wee bit emotionally sterile. Sometimes we talk a bit like the cast of Dawson's Creek would if they were transposed to 1920's London. If you'd like to put us in a modern context, we're like the cast of The Hills but we've got culture, money and talent on our side. Does that answer your question?"
"Yup, that seems like a fair summary to me. Thanks."
"Sorry, that'd be me, I'm a bright young thing. Avert your eyes lest they be burned from their sockets."
"Wow, so what is a bright young thing then? Forgive my ignorance but I'm just not that cultured."
"Don't worry, its an easy premise to grasp - here, let me explain... we bright young things are an erudite group of social laaah-de-dahs who favour a bohemian life style. We like the finer things in life and indulge our love of drinking, dancing and outlandish behaviour much to the joy of the press who like to follow us around documenting our frivolous and moderately hedonistic acts. We're also frightfully upper class and a tiny bit prone to navel gazing but some of us are quite arty. We can also be a little bit flaky and a wee bit emotionally sterile. Sometimes we talk a bit like the cast of Dawson's Creek would if they were transposed to 1920's London. If you'd like to put us in a modern context, we're like the cast of The Hills but we've got culture, money and talent on our side. Does that answer your question?"
"Yup, that seems like a fair summary to me. Thanks."
March 21, 2022
The British Prime Minister, having successfully stripped away any amusement I might find in the tics and affectations of upper class ninnies, using his bumbling Terry-Thomas routine as a means to operate the most cynical and morally bankrupt regime in British history, responsible for a Covid snuff-rate in the tens of thousands, for fascistically vile policies against people fleeing wars and despots, and on and on and on (see: The News), meant I was primed to launch this classic across the room in an arc of frothing impatience. But this satirical comedy of the Roaring Twenties was strong enough to overpower my loathing of the kind of twinkly-toed nitwittery that is superbly lampooned in this novel. Absolutely nothing has changed in the “upper” echelons of British society, except the total nitwits have triumphed over the semi-intelligent ones. O, Bright Young Things, where have you gone?
July 27, 2019
Vat of Vapid Rubbish Devolving into a Void
Each time I picked up this "novel," the question vexed me: how could it be that the same author who wrote the brilliant Brideshead Revisited also composed this doggerel volcano of vice and vileness, devoid of characters, dialogue and plot of any substance, value, or virtue?
This short novel comes across as either a manic pervert's puerile idea of high-brow humor, or a savant's crusade for the sake of literary sadism.
Ending this was much like slipping free from a vat of vapid drivel that devolved into nothingness.
Each time I picked up this "novel," the question vexed me: how could it be that the same author who wrote the brilliant Brideshead Revisited also composed this doggerel volcano of vice and vileness, devoid of characters, dialogue and plot of any substance, value, or virtue?
This short novel comes across as either a manic pervert's puerile idea of high-brow humor, or a savant's crusade for the sake of literary sadism.
Ending this was much like slipping free from a vat of vapid drivel that devolved into nothingness.
February 15, 2023
4.5, rounded down.
I read this as another book in which one of the characters is based on Stephen Tennant, whose biography I read recently. His character - here called Miles Malpractice - is really rather minor, but the book as a whole is quite droll, and a witty expose of the 'Bright Young Things' of the '20's - '30's. In fact, that was supposed to be the original title for this, but by the time it came out, that epithet had already seen its day.
Still, Stephen Fry used it when he did the inevitable film adaptation 20 years ago - which is equally delightful and is jam-packed with the creme-de-la-creme of British acting talent (see trailer below). The film is quite faithful to the book, although, oddly, it does omit both the first and last chapters.
One only wishes the nonchalant use of the 'n' word, and one anti-Semitic slur had been omitted, but considering its date of composition, I suppose one must overlook those.
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi79429913...
I read this as another book in which one of the characters is based on Stephen Tennant, whose biography I read recently. His character - here called Miles Malpractice - is really rather minor, but the book as a whole is quite droll, and a witty expose of the 'Bright Young Things' of the '20's - '30's. In fact, that was supposed to be the original title for this, but by the time it came out, that epithet had already seen its day.
Still, Stephen Fry used it when he did the inevitable film adaptation 20 years ago - which is equally delightful and is jam-packed with the creme-de-la-creme of British acting talent (see trailer below). The film is quite faithful to the book, although, oddly, it does omit both the first and last chapters.
One only wishes the nonchalant use of the 'n' word, and one anti-Semitic slur had been omitted, but considering its date of composition, I suppose one must overlook those.
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi79429913...
April 2, 2025
Yesterday, my neighbour Les, a good friend and confidant, dropped by when my better half was out. He carried with him a framed photo of our earlier salad days - before cancer had dampened his enthusiasm.
It was a photo which I had emailed to him. He had enlarged it and framed it. He grinned, as back in pre-COVID days he did when I let loose with a subtle bon mot as the old shot suggests.
Dry Brit humour, he called it. Which Waugh glories in here.
Waugh, like Les, appreciated wry humour - his own brand.
I know of no one else (with the exception of Chesterton) who can rag the Roman Catholic faith with no harm done. And only with harmless zingers!
All part of the game, you see.
I learned in this book, as well, that Waugh didn't give the Bright Young Things of the Roaring Twenties the short shrift of aversion I thought he did when I started it.
No, for he was friends with so many of them, like his own lifelong confidante Nancy Mitford, and was only giving them, too, a not impolite ragging.
His barbs are truly part of playing the game.
No day is too tough for his dry humour not to break through the clouds!
And you should relish his mordant wit as well as I do, friends, if you have always tried, like Les and me, to do right by your neighbours, your circle of friends and your family.
It was a photo which I had emailed to him. He had enlarged it and framed it. He grinned, as back in pre-COVID days he did when I let loose with a subtle bon mot as the old shot suggests.
Dry Brit humour, he called it. Which Waugh glories in here.
Waugh, like Les, appreciated wry humour - his own brand.
I know of no one else (with the exception of Chesterton) who can rag the Roman Catholic faith with no harm done. And only with harmless zingers!
All part of the game, you see.
I learned in this book, as well, that Waugh didn't give the Bright Young Things of the Roaring Twenties the short shrift of aversion I thought he did when I started it.
No, for he was friends with so many of them, like his own lifelong confidante Nancy Mitford, and was only giving them, too, a not impolite ragging.
His barbs are truly part of playing the game.
No day is too tough for his dry humour not to break through the clouds!
And you should relish his mordant wit as well as I do, friends, if you have always tried, like Les and me, to do right by your neighbours, your circle of friends and your family.
January 29, 2019
“I can't bare you when you're not amusing.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies
"Fiat experimentum in corpore vili"
***
"Let the experiment be done upon a worthless body"
Set in the 20s and published in 1930, Waugh's sophmore novel (after 1928's Decline and Fall) follows Adam Fenwick-Symes the anti-hero journalist/writer as he lightly persues his fortune, his fiance, and his career among an ever declining group that mirrors London's bohemian "Bright Young Things" of the 20s. According to Waugh himself, "There was between the wars a society, cosmopolitan, sympathetic to the arts, well-mannered, above all ornamental even in rather bizarre ways, which for want of a better description the newspapers called 'High Bohemia.'" Vile Bodies is funny, raw, and still relevant almost 90 years later.
Reading it felt like reading some weird mash-up of T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hunter S. Thompson, and Bret Easton Ellis (see <0). Its ending is not expected, but not surprising either. It isn't my favorite Waugh, but it is worth a read on a Monday in a month with too few holidays. Just don't forget the gin, and please darling, don't drive.
― Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies
"Fiat experimentum in corpore vili"
***
"Let the experiment be done upon a worthless body"
Set in the 20s and published in 1930, Waugh's sophmore novel (after 1928's Decline and Fall) follows Adam Fenwick-Symes the anti-hero journalist/writer as he lightly persues his fortune, his fiance, and his career among an ever declining group that mirrors London's bohemian "Bright Young Things" of the 20s. According to Waugh himself, "There was between the wars a society, cosmopolitan, sympathetic to the arts, well-mannered, above all ornamental even in rather bizarre ways, which for want of a better description the newspapers called 'High Bohemia.'" Vile Bodies is funny, raw, and still relevant almost 90 years later.
Reading it felt like reading some weird mash-up of T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hunter S. Thompson, and Bret Easton Ellis (see <0). Its ending is not expected, but not surprising either. It isn't my favorite Waugh, but it is worth a read on a Monday in a month with too few holidays. Just don't forget the gin, and please darling, don't drive.
March 23, 2022
Vile Bodies was the only major novel by Evelyn Waugh I had yet to read, so I was very happy to finally put that right.
Vile Bodies captures the world of the "Bright Young Things", a privileged and wealthy elite in the 1920s, and their associated misspent youth, self indulgence, anarchic behaviour, and easy attitudes to sex and drugs. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Bright Young Things's were a staple of newspaper gossip columns, who seized upon their adventures and reported them with a mixture of reverence and glee. There was plenty to report: practical jokes, treasure hunts, fancy dress parties, stealing policemen's helmets, dancing all night at the Ritz and so on. In a sense this is what the 1920s is best remembered for, and for some it must have felt right, after the trauma of World War One, and with Victorian values in decline, for young people to enjoy themselves.
There is much to admire and enjoy in Vile Bodies, however this is one of Evelyn Waugh's less successful novels (measured against his exceptionally high standards). It's probably of most interest to Waugh completists (of whom I am definitely one) or anyone interested in gaining eye witness insights into the world of the Bright Young Things.
The narrative is conveyed through short, quickly changing scenes which mirror the frivolous and unpredictable behaviour of the book's characters. It seems much closer to Decline and Fall than any of Waugh other books. The farcical and deeply satirical portrait of the 1920s and the Bright Young Things can feel a bit silly and superficial despite giving a credible insight into their modes of speech, behaviour and attitudes.
I was amazed that Esquire magazine included Vile Bodies in a list of what it considers the “24 Funniest Books Ever Written”. It makes for an interesting satirical farce and, whilst I got a few smiles and the odd chuckle, I demand hearty belly laughs and, ideally, sufficient mirth to prompt tears to roll down my cherubic cheeks, for a book to qualify as one of "the funniest books ever written".
Evelyn Waugh's key works remain, for me, Brideshead Revisited, Sword of Honour, and A Handful of Dust.
3/5
Here's the blurb....
The Bright Young Things of 1920s Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade, whether it is promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. A vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the hedonistic fulfilment of their desires. Evelyn Waugh’s acidly funny and experimental satire shows a new generation emerging in the years after the First World War, revealing the darkness and vulnerability beneath the glittering surface of the high life.
Vile Bodies captures the world of the "Bright Young Things", a privileged and wealthy elite in the 1920s, and their associated misspent youth, self indulgence, anarchic behaviour, and easy attitudes to sex and drugs. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Bright Young Things's were a staple of newspaper gossip columns, who seized upon their adventures and reported them with a mixture of reverence and glee. There was plenty to report: practical jokes, treasure hunts, fancy dress parties, stealing policemen's helmets, dancing all night at the Ritz and so on. In a sense this is what the 1920s is best remembered for, and for some it must have felt right, after the trauma of World War One, and with Victorian values in decline, for young people to enjoy themselves.
There is much to admire and enjoy in Vile Bodies, however this is one of Evelyn Waugh's less successful novels (measured against his exceptionally high standards). It's probably of most interest to Waugh completists (of whom I am definitely one) or anyone interested in gaining eye witness insights into the world of the Bright Young Things.
The narrative is conveyed through short, quickly changing scenes which mirror the frivolous and unpredictable behaviour of the book's characters. It seems much closer to Decline and Fall than any of Waugh other books. The farcical and deeply satirical portrait of the 1920s and the Bright Young Things can feel a bit silly and superficial despite giving a credible insight into their modes of speech, behaviour and attitudes.
I was amazed that Esquire magazine included Vile Bodies in a list of what it considers the “24 Funniest Books Ever Written”. It makes for an interesting satirical farce and, whilst I got a few smiles and the odd chuckle, I demand hearty belly laughs and, ideally, sufficient mirth to prompt tears to roll down my cherubic cheeks, for a book to qualify as one of "the funniest books ever written".
Evelyn Waugh's key works remain, for me, Brideshead Revisited, Sword of Honour, and A Handful of Dust.
3/5
Here's the blurb....
The Bright Young Things of 1920s Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade, whether it is promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. A vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the hedonistic fulfilment of their desires. Evelyn Waugh’s acidly funny and experimental satire shows a new generation emerging in the years after the First World War, revealing the darkness and vulnerability beneath the glittering surface of the high life.
Read
February 1, 2021DNF
O humor britânico é sem dúvida o meu preferido, mas depois de me ter decepcionado com “O Ente Querido”, confirmo com “Corpos Vis” que o de Evelyn Waugh é demasiado disparatado para mim. Como sátira, tem comentários geniais, mas, no geral, é um livro cansativo pelo número de personagens e pelas situações absurdas em que se envolvem.
O humor britânico é sem dúvida o meu preferido, mas depois de me ter decepcionado com “O Ente Querido”, confirmo com “Corpos Vis” que o de Evelyn Waugh é demasiado disparatado para mim. Como sátira, tem comentários geniais, mas, no geral, é um livro cansativo pelo número de personagens e pelas situações absurdas em que se envolvem.
November 17, 2018
“What a lot of parties!”
Published in 1930, this is Evelyn Waugh’s second novel, following the comic, “Decline and Fall.” Although this has some of the same humour, it becomes considerably darker in parts, which possibly mirrors the fact that Waugh’s first marriage (‘He-Evelyn’ and ‘She-Evelyn’) was falling apart during the writing of this.
The main character is Adam Fenwick-Symes, who returns to England on a ship, aboard many of the other characters who feature in the novel. For this is about the ‘Bright Young Things,’ a small, select group of people who party constantly and are always running into each other. Their desire for constant amusement leads them into all sorts of scrapes, as does Adam’s attempts to earn enough money to marry Nina Blount. For this is a love story which seems destined to fail, as Adam no sooner arrives on dry land to find that luck, and money, are extremely elusive.
As with so many of Waugh’s novels, the humour is satirical, sly and sharp. Much of the humour comes from Nina’s wonderfully batty father – whose ancestral home is full of movie magazines – and the drunken major who Adam, equally drunkenly, trusts with all his money. Nobody is really who they seem, but Waugh has great fun with gossip columnists, the endless parties, which seem slightly seedy in daylight, and with the woes of romance. Having finally spent the night with Adam, Nina declares that, “for physical pleasure she would rather go to her dentist any day,” while Adam (or Waugh himself) plaintively pleads that, “marriage ought to go on for quite a long time I mean, do you feel that too, at all?”
I found this took a little while to get going, but, eventually, I was unable to put it down. It was also very modern for the time, which much of the dialogue taking place over the telephone. Waugh never disappoints and remains one of my very favourite authors.
Published in 1930, this is Evelyn Waugh’s second novel, following the comic, “Decline and Fall.” Although this has some of the same humour, it becomes considerably darker in parts, which possibly mirrors the fact that Waugh’s first marriage (‘He-Evelyn’ and ‘She-Evelyn’) was falling apart during the writing of this.
The main character is Adam Fenwick-Symes, who returns to England on a ship, aboard many of the other characters who feature in the novel. For this is about the ‘Bright Young Things,’ a small, select group of people who party constantly and are always running into each other. Their desire for constant amusement leads them into all sorts of scrapes, as does Adam’s attempts to earn enough money to marry Nina Blount. For this is a love story which seems destined to fail, as Adam no sooner arrives on dry land to find that luck, and money, are extremely elusive.
As with so many of Waugh’s novels, the humour is satirical, sly and sharp. Much of the humour comes from Nina’s wonderfully batty father – whose ancestral home is full of movie magazines – and the drunken major who Adam, equally drunkenly, trusts with all his money. Nobody is really who they seem, but Waugh has great fun with gossip columnists, the endless parties, which seem slightly seedy in daylight, and with the woes of romance. Having finally spent the night with Adam, Nina declares that, “for physical pleasure she would rather go to her dentist any day,” while Adam (or Waugh himself) plaintively pleads that, “marriage ought to go on for quite a long time I mean, do you feel that too, at all?”
I found this took a little while to get going, but, eventually, I was unable to put it down. It was also very modern for the time, which much of the dialogue taking place over the telephone. Waugh never disappoints and remains one of my very favourite authors.
December 28, 2020
Reading Evelyn Waugh is like watching an elaborate, adult cartoon. His writing is beyond the usual satire, black humour, cynicism and all other attributes it was gratified with. Its extraordinary visual quality is supported by few epic features, and it is called a novel only in the absence of a better term, as justly observed Alan Dale in his review on Blogcritics. Therefore, if you look for a cleverly deployed plot, strong characters and coherent actions, or balanced oppositions and moral battlegrounds, Evelyn Waugh is definitely not for you.
Indeed, his field is a sort of very intricate satire, which seems to use some tools usually encountered in playwriting, such as comedy of manners, of names, of situations without really mimicking classic comedy, however, for he blends many other eclectic techniques, “stolen” not only from theatre but also from cinema and other visual arts (it will be interesting to study, for example, some skills he borrowed from drawing, like random hatching, scribbling, or blending).
The result? Absurd scenes scroll in front of our eyes, presenting a gathering of characters – inspired by those “bright young things” who made the gossip columns' delight of interwar London – caught in a frenetic attempt to fill their boring lives with outrageous actions. David Lodge said that Waugh creates comedy simply by using indiscriminately logic and surprise, familiar and incongruous and you certainly can see how, chapter after chapter, party after party, any possible rising action is replaced by rising laughable absurdity. Look at the following scene, in the first chapter of the book:
Here you have an orgy of images and figures that recreate the impression of the ship movement in a most realistic tradition. Here you have the herculean effort of an angel choir to perform on this rimbaudesque drunken boat, in a modernist, suspiciously ironic crescendo. And, finally, here you have the performance, mocking the previous stylistic demureness.
Vile Bodies is full of such memorable scenes: a customs officer who finds a book on Economics subversive and Purgatorio objectionable, a judge who has a prostitute swinging on a chandelier in a hotel room and sees that police cover her accidental death, a journalist who commits suicide after being banned from high society, a charlatan drunken major who becomes general when war is declared, and so on, and so forth.
Even the names are so obvious that instead of completing the characters' portraits, become the characters: a heavily smoking priest is called Bishop Philpotts, a silly but valiant lesbian is called Agatha Runcible, calling a journalist – even a homosexual one – Malpractice isn’t enough if his first name is not Miles and what better name for a prime minister other than Outrageous?
There is no much difference between this world Adam Fenwick-Symes inhabits and the world he invents for his gossip column. The characters freely circulate from fiction to reality and vice versa – they are nothing more than embodiments of their society and their papers’ stereotypes, vile bodies with no chance to turn someday into glorious.
It is not pretty, Evelyn Waugh’s image of the world. Unfortunately, nor is it false. Thank God it’s funny enough to forget its truthfulness. At least for a while.
Indeed, his field is a sort of very intricate satire, which seems to use some tools usually encountered in playwriting, such as comedy of manners, of names, of situations without really mimicking classic comedy, however, for he blends many other eclectic techniques, “stolen” not only from theatre but also from cinema and other visual arts (it will be interesting to study, for example, some skills he borrowed from drawing, like random hatching, scribbling, or blending).
The result? Absurd scenes scroll in front of our eyes, presenting a gathering of characters – inspired by those “bright young things” who made the gossip columns' delight of interwar London – caught in a frenetic attempt to fill their boring lives with outrageous actions. David Lodge said that Waugh creates comedy simply by using indiscriminately logic and surprise, familiar and incongruous and you certainly can see how, chapter after chapter, party after party, any possible rising action is replaced by rising laughable absurdity. Look at the following scene, in the first chapter of the book:
The ship creaked in every plate, doors slammed, trunks fell about, the wind howled; the screw, now out of the water, now in, raced and churned, shaking down hat-boxes like ripe apples; but above all the roar and the clatter there rose from the second class ladies’ saloon the despairing voices of Mrs Ape’s angels, in frequently broken unison, singing, singing, wildly, desperately, as though their hearts would break in the effort and their minds lose their reason, Mrs. Ape’s famous hymn, “There ain’t no flies on the Lamb of God”.
Here you have an orgy of images and figures that recreate the impression of the ship movement in a most realistic tradition. Here you have the herculean effort of an angel choir to perform on this rimbaudesque drunken boat, in a modernist, suspiciously ironic crescendo. And, finally, here you have the performance, mocking the previous stylistic demureness.
Vile Bodies is full of such memorable scenes: a customs officer who finds a book on Economics subversive and Purgatorio objectionable, a judge who has a prostitute swinging on a chandelier in a hotel room and sees that police cover her accidental death, a journalist who commits suicide after being banned from high society, a charlatan drunken major who becomes general when war is declared, and so on, and so forth.
Even the names are so obvious that instead of completing the characters' portraits, become the characters: a heavily smoking priest is called Bishop Philpotts, a silly but valiant lesbian is called Agatha Runcible, calling a journalist – even a homosexual one – Malpractice isn’t enough if his first name is not Miles and what better name for a prime minister other than Outrageous?
There is no much difference between this world Adam Fenwick-Symes inhabits and the world he invents for his gossip column. The characters freely circulate from fiction to reality and vice versa – they are nothing more than embodiments of their society and their papers’ stereotypes, vile bodies with no chance to turn someday into glorious.
It is not pretty, Evelyn Waugh’s image of the world. Unfortunately, nor is it false. Thank God it’s funny enough to forget its truthfulness. At least for a while.
December 20, 2018
(1-2) Mit seinem Roman „Wiedersehen mit Brideshead“ liegt die Messlatte für Waughs „Lust und Laster“ extrem hoch. Doch dieser Text hält dem Vergleich nicht ansatzweise stand. Um es kurz zu machen: das Buch ist Dünnschiss.
April 28, 2017
"Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the saviour...Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."
Philipians 3:17-21
This book, the best-titled book by one of literature's great titlers, snuck up on me. It's really fun and quick to read - satirical and absurdist - and suddenly toward the end I started to think that maybe it's not a little but quite a bit deeper than it looks. I'm going to have to put some thought into it - and I'm loaning it to Diane at work, maybe she'll help me sort it all out. It's at least very good; it might be wicked good.
That ending is quite an "Oh shit!" moment. Very nicely done.
Other random notes:
- A quote that comes up a lot in discussion of this book, from Waugh: "Psychology - there isn't such a thing. I regard writing not as investigation of character but as an exercise in the use of language, and with this I am obsessed. I have no technical psychological interest. It is drama, speech and events that interest me." That seems accurate. There isn't any overt psychological description. I did find the central romance between Adam and Nina interesting: for all their blaséness, they seem to be legitimately in love. And I think they're quite aware of it; while they never say a thing to each other that isn't drenched in detached irony, I think they know they're really sincere. It's not as clear to us, through most of the book.
Waugh was staunchly against psychological investigation of characters: "All characters are flat. All a writer can do is give more or less information about a character, not information of a different order." Which is a bewilderingly assheaded thing to say; he was apparently bitching about modern writers like Woolf and Joyce, but hadn't he read Eliot or Tolstoy? Jeez.
- This terrific (although long and somewhat stuffy) essay argues for Vile Bodies as a parody of a traditional romance novel. The traditional plot involves a young man in love but deemed unworthy of the woman, often for economic or social reasons; he acquires a fortune or suddenly discovers he's actually the son of a baron or something and the plot ends in marriage. (You know, like a Shakespeare comedy or Tom Jones.) Here, Adam is constantly in pursuit of that fortune - represented by the drunk Major - but
- I love Waugh's use of -making, as in, "This cab ride is terribly sober-making." Totally gonna start using that.
- Apparently many of these characters were thinly-veiled portraits of Waugh's actual acquaintances, and it was a big thing to rush out and get his books and try to figure out who was who. And when some of the satires got a little too pointed, Waugh got invited to fewer parties. (Somewhat like the Chatterbox series of incidents.)
- To what extent is Waugh indebted to Wilde?
- Let's try to get through this without making any Paris Hilton references, shall we? It would be ever so bored-making.
Philipians 3:17-21
This book, the best-titled book by one of literature's great titlers, snuck up on me. It's really fun and quick to read - satirical and absurdist - and suddenly toward the end I started to think that maybe it's not a little but quite a bit deeper than it looks. I'm going to have to put some thought into it - and I'm loaning it to Diane at work, maybe she'll help me sort it all out. It's at least very good; it might be wicked good.
That ending is quite an "Oh shit!" moment. Very nicely done.
Other random notes:
- A quote that comes up a lot in discussion of this book, from Waugh: "Psychology - there isn't such a thing. I regard writing not as investigation of character but as an exercise in the use of language, and with this I am obsessed. I have no technical psychological interest. It is drama, speech and events that interest me." That seems accurate. There isn't any overt psychological description. I did find the central romance between Adam and Nina interesting: for all their blaséness, they seem to be legitimately in love. And I think they're quite aware of it; while they never say a thing to each other that isn't drenched in detached irony, I think they know they're really sincere. It's not as clear to us, through most of the book.
Waugh was staunchly against psychological investigation of characters: "All characters are flat. All a writer can do is give more or less information about a character, not information of a different order." Which is a bewilderingly assheaded thing to say; he was apparently bitching about modern writers like Woolf and Joyce, but hadn't he read Eliot or Tolstoy? Jeez.
- This terrific (although long and somewhat stuffy) essay argues for Vile Bodies as a parody of a traditional romance novel. The traditional plot involves a young man in love but deemed unworthy of the woman, often for economic or social reasons; he acquires a fortune or suddenly discovers he's actually the son of a baron or something and the plot ends in marriage. (You know, like a Shakespeare comedy or Tom Jones.) Here, Adam is constantly in pursuit of that fortune - represented by the drunk Major - but
- I love Waugh's use of -making, as in, "This cab ride is terribly sober-making." Totally gonna start using that.
- Apparently many of these characters were thinly-veiled portraits of Waugh's actual acquaintances, and it was a big thing to rush out and get his books and try to figure out who was who. And when some of the satires got a little too pointed, Waugh got invited to fewer parties. (Somewhat like the Chatterbox series of incidents.)
- To what extent is Waugh indebted to Wilde?
- Let's try to get through this without making any Paris Hilton references, shall we? It would be ever so bored-making.
September 28, 2016
"Who's that awful looking woman?"
"She's no one. Mrs. Panrast she's called now."
"She seems to know you."
"Yes. I've known her all my life. As a matter of fact, she's my mother."
"My dear, how too shaming."
If you’ve got a taste for Ronald Firbank’s prose and you enjoy seeing Thomas Hardy getting skewered, I think you’ll gleefully sink your teeth into Waugh’s Vile Bodies (1930). The book’s a nice slab of satire that hasn’t lost its humor, though now its bite may resemble more a vicious gumming than a threatening snap and snarl. At its heart there’s only a whiff of a plot: Adam and Nina may want to get married to one another, though neither has the money to pull it off. Adam’s fortunes rise and fall through a madcap series of comic episodes that read best as a miscellany of Dickensian character sketches drawn from London’s high society during the waning years of 1920s. You’ll meet the American evangelist, Mrs. Ape and her choir of trampish "angels"; the absentminded and well lubricated Edwardian hostess, Lottie Crump; the scatterbrained but ever so sly Col. Blount; and a host of Bright Young Things partying around the clock, led by one of Waugh’s most precious creations, the dithering, drunken, dissipated Agatha Runcible.
Vile Bodies is the British version of Hemingway’s lost generation eulogy, but told, thankfully, with wit and flawless timing. You won’t burst out laughing too often, but it’s hard to read many pages without snickering or smirking with that luscious feeling of self-righteous condescension that really good satire gives you. My only grievance is that the book carries on far too long. Keeping a dark joke going for over 300 pages calls for a little more skill than Waugh had at this point in his long career.
If you ever think of reading Waugh’s best known book Brideshead Revisted, you may want to set the table for it first by reading some of his satires. Their vast casts, wispy plots, and period jokes will take a little patience, but in the end you may better enjoy Waugh’s style and essentially moral outlook by first playing with him while he’s young and nipping. I think you’ll find that the flash and fizz of these early books will deepen the nostalgia, poignancy, and somber tones that color his later work.
"She's no one. Mrs. Panrast she's called now."
"She seems to know you."
"Yes. I've known her all my life. As a matter of fact, she's my mother."
"My dear, how too shaming."
If you’ve got a taste for Ronald Firbank’s prose and you enjoy seeing Thomas Hardy getting skewered, I think you’ll gleefully sink your teeth into Waugh’s Vile Bodies (1930). The book’s a nice slab of satire that hasn’t lost its humor, though now its bite may resemble more a vicious gumming than a threatening snap and snarl. At its heart there’s only a whiff of a plot: Adam and Nina may want to get married to one another, though neither has the money to pull it off. Adam’s fortunes rise and fall through a madcap series of comic episodes that read best as a miscellany of Dickensian character sketches drawn from London’s high society during the waning years of 1920s. You’ll meet the American evangelist, Mrs. Ape and her choir of trampish "angels"; the absentminded and well lubricated Edwardian hostess, Lottie Crump; the scatterbrained but ever so sly Col. Blount; and a host of Bright Young Things partying around the clock, led by one of Waugh’s most precious creations, the dithering, drunken, dissipated Agatha Runcible.
Vile Bodies is the British version of Hemingway’s lost generation eulogy, but told, thankfully, with wit and flawless timing. You won’t burst out laughing too often, but it’s hard to read many pages without snickering or smirking with that luscious feeling of self-righteous condescension that really good satire gives you. My only grievance is that the book carries on far too long. Keeping a dark joke going for over 300 pages calls for a little more skill than Waugh had at this point in his long career.
If you ever think of reading Waugh’s best known book Brideshead Revisted, you may want to set the table for it first by reading some of his satires. Their vast casts, wispy plots, and period jokes will take a little patience, but in the end you may better enjoy Waugh’s style and essentially moral outlook by first playing with him while he’s young and nipping. I think you’ll find that the flash and fizz of these early books will deepen the nostalgia, poignancy, and somber tones that color his later work.
September 2, 2014
An odd, fun read, more broadly humorous than I expected. Set among the out of control bright young things of London who are quite crazily sent up by Waugh, Vile Bodies is enjoyable and crazy yet also shows some of the pathos of the time lurking in the background. I think I prefer Waugh's more subtle work but would have to read more to be sure.
Then there are some great passages that I really did love such as the following.
The truth is that motor cars offer a very happy
illustration of the metaphysical distinction between
"being" and "becoming." Some cars, mere vehicles with
no purpose above bare locomotion, mechanical drudges
such as Lady Metroland's Hispan-Suiza, or Mrs. Mouse's
Rolls Royce, or Lady Circumference's 1912 Daimler, or
the "general reader's" Austin Seven, these have definite
"being" just as much as their occupants....
Not so the REAL cars, that become masters of men; those
those vital creations of metal who exist solely for their
own propulsion through space.... (p 227)
Certainly Waugh reveals a strong, developing talent in this novel.
Then there are some great passages that I really did love such as the following.
The truth is that motor cars offer a very happy
illustration of the metaphysical distinction between
"being" and "becoming." Some cars, mere vehicles with
no purpose above bare locomotion, mechanical drudges
such as Lady Metroland's Hispan-Suiza, or Mrs. Mouse's
Rolls Royce, or Lady Circumference's 1912 Daimler, or
the "general reader's" Austin Seven, these have definite
"being" just as much as their occupants....
Not so the REAL cars, that become masters of men; those
those vital creations of metal who exist solely for their
own propulsion through space.... (p 227)
Certainly Waugh reveals a strong, developing talent in this novel.
May 17, 2018
This is the second book I've read by Evelyn Waugh. The first book I read was The Loved One which I thought was fabulous, a five star read all the way. With this book he was attempting to be humorous and for me it fell flat. Don't get me wrong, there were some really cute parts but having just read The Loved One, I was expecting more. 😕
May 3, 2011
First impression? Hilarious. Total spot-on satire of 1930s, pseudo/wannabe posh society in Britain - and I can say that with such confidence because I was there and all. Well, no, not quite, not by about 53 years and an ocean, but I do live in New York, where desperate social climbers - the "see and be seen-ers" - and tacky people with a bit of money proliferate against my wishes.
The difference is that somewhere along the road, we stopped satirizing these people and took to glorifying them instead. Case in point: the person who wrote the 2000s version of this story - pretty young things with too much money, too few brains and too strong a sex drive - had it serialized in print and brought to life on TV, now known and idolized by millions as Gossip Girl.
I love a good satire; perhaps it's the scathing cynic in me, but I so enjoy when sharp, observant authors can cut into a ridiculous population or philosophy with a pen. Waugh clearly does this well, but I just wonder if Vile Bodies is a bit too long. The point of a satire is the satire itself - the plot is secondary at best, and since one isn't supposed to care about the characters, satire that's gone on for too long gets tedious. The brilliance starts to fade, the dark humor fizzles, and the reader is left trying to get through a book that, tiresomely, has turned into an overwrought joke.
The difference is that somewhere along the road, we stopped satirizing these people and took to glorifying them instead. Case in point: the person who wrote the 2000s version of this story - pretty young things with too much money, too few brains and too strong a sex drive - had it serialized in print and brought to life on TV, now known and idolized by millions as Gossip Girl.
I love a good satire; perhaps it's the scathing cynic in me, but I so enjoy when sharp, observant authors can cut into a ridiculous population or philosophy with a pen. Waugh clearly does this well, but I just wonder if Vile Bodies is a bit too long. The point of a satire is the satire itself - the plot is secondary at best, and since one isn't supposed to care about the characters, satire that's gone on for too long gets tedious. The brilliance starts to fade, the dark humor fizzles, and the reader is left trying to get through a book that, tiresomely, has turned into an overwrought joke.
August 1, 2008
Stephen Fry filmed it under the title Bright Young Things. Implausible aristos and hangers on, and often written in brief banal sentences that are more reminiscent of Janet and John reading primers than good literature and perhaps shows how shallow and ephemeral these people were. Nevertheless, very readable.
April 5, 2024
Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh’s satire on the so called Bright Young Things who emerged in England in the 1920s, was published in 1930 and became an immediate topical success. The Bright Young Things were a bunch of hedonistic aristocrats who partied their way around the grander houses of London. The gossip columnists loved them and although some of them did go on to actually do something (Cecil Beaton and Waugh himself were both associated with the group) most of them were famous for being famous, so they were arguably the first flowering of the celebrity culture.
Plot? Almost non-existent: Adam Fenwick-Symes, an impecunious member of the BYG and a would-be writer, is trying to raise enough money to marry his girlfriend Nina Blount. He is also searching for a drunken Major who disappeared with £1000 of Adam’s money. On this slenderest of threads Waugh hangs a succession of comic set pieces. One of the funniest chapters is an extended send up of gossip columnists which, with a bit of tweaking, could have been published as a stand-alone piece in a magazine like Punch.
Much of the book’s charm is supplied by the narrative voice which is pleasingly arch, slightly intoxicated and cleverer than thou. There are lashings of dialogue as smart people have smart conversations, often on that ultramodern device, the telephone. The whole thing reads like a collaboration between Noel Coward and a PG Wodehouse grown cynical with a sprinkling of T. S. Eliot. The senile cineaste Colonel Blunt, for me the funniest character in the book, is straight out of Wodehouse.
This is the first time I’ve read Waugh, having previously been put off him by his self-inflicted reputation as über bigot, über snob, über reactionary. Perhaps it’s a case of having to separate the art from the artist as Vile Bodies is certainly entertaining, stylish, brimming with darkly comic energy and, ultimately, unsettling.
Since the days of the Bright Young Things the celebrity culture has been transformed into a massive and lucrative industry. The cast of characters has also been broadened and downscaled socially in a way that Waugh would doubtless not have approved of.
Plot? Almost non-existent: Adam Fenwick-Symes, an impecunious member of the BYG and a would-be writer, is trying to raise enough money to marry his girlfriend Nina Blount. He is also searching for a drunken Major who disappeared with £1000 of Adam’s money. On this slenderest of threads Waugh hangs a succession of comic set pieces. One of the funniest chapters is an extended send up of gossip columnists which, with a bit of tweaking, could have been published as a stand-alone piece in a magazine like Punch.
Much of the book’s charm is supplied by the narrative voice which is pleasingly arch, slightly intoxicated and cleverer than thou. There are lashings of dialogue as smart people have smart conversations, often on that ultramodern device, the telephone. The whole thing reads like a collaboration between Noel Coward and a PG Wodehouse grown cynical with a sprinkling of T. S. Eliot. The senile cineaste Colonel Blunt, for me the funniest character in the book, is straight out of Wodehouse.
This is the first time I’ve read Waugh, having previously been put off him by his self-inflicted reputation as über bigot, über snob, über reactionary. Perhaps it’s a case of having to separate the art from the artist as Vile Bodies is certainly entertaining, stylish, brimming with darkly comic energy and, ultimately, unsettling.
Since the days of the Bright Young Things the celebrity culture has been transformed into a massive and lucrative industry. The cast of characters has also been broadened and downscaled socially in a way that Waugh would doubtless not have approved of.
January 31, 2019
Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St John’s wood, parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and night clubs, in windmills and swimming-baths, tea parties at school where one ate muffins and meringues and tinned crab, parties at Oxford where one drank brown sherry and smoked Turkish cigarettes, dull dances in London and comic dances in Scotland and disgusting dances in Paris – all that succession and repetition of massed humanity … Those vile bodies …
Describing the dissolute life of the "Bright Young Things", the posh Mayfair crowd of London between the wars, Vile Bodies is a fast-paced, disjointed and delirious affair which perfectly captures the spirit of the times. From the first, we're thrown in with a bunch of characters with risible names (Miles Malpractice, "last weeks prime-minister" Mr Outrage, Lady Throbbing and so on) who are running around from party to party, getting stinking drunk, being promiscuous and losing themselves in one empty thrill after another. The only things holding the novel together are the unflappable narrator and the ongoing travails of the protagonist, Adam Fenwick-Symes, a down on his luck writer whose memoirs are burned in the opening scenes, which puts him under obligation to deliver twelve books—which he imagines he'll be able to write within a year—to make up for the publisher's advance payment (with cumulated interest). He is engaged to be married to the beautiful and rich Nina Blount, one of the figureheads of the Bright Young Things, and throughout the novel there is the ongoing farce of his talking to Nina over the phone and from moment to moment telling her he's secured enough money to finally marry her, and in the next (after repeatedly failing to come into the fortune which eludes him) telling her they can't get married after all. At one point, Adam finds a job that brings him a regular income after Lord Simon Balcairn, who writes a gossip column under the name "Mr Chatterbox", commits suicide when he finds himself shut out of all the important parties which he relies upon to write his juicy stories. The narrator, in his detached and unflappable style tells us of his death:
"He shut the door and the window and opened the door of the gas-oven. Inside it was very black and dirty and smelled of meat. He spread a sheet of newspaper on the lowest tray and lay down, resting his head on it. Then he noticed that by some mischance he had chosen Vanburgh’s gossip-page in the Morning Despatch. He put in another sheet. At first he held his breath. Then he thought that was silly and gave a sniff. The sniff made him cough, and coughing made him breathe, and breathing made him feel very ill; but soon he fell into a coma and presently died...Then Adam became Mr Chatterbox."
Adam proceeds to invent various fads in the column, such as black suede shoes and green bowler hats which are sometimes picked up by his readers and meets with great approval when he makes up people with fictional accounts of their tragic life stories. (possible spoiler ahead) The novel was published in 1930, but Waugh seems to have predicted WWII, since at the end of the book, we find Adam as a solider lost in no man's land, but even here, in what seems a bleak ending, Waugh throws in a last twist of irony, when the young protagonist gets picked up by an old drunk General who's lost his division, and they drive off drinking champagne in a Daimler Limousine. (end of spoiler)
There were lots of absurd and laugh out loud moments in this story, but beyond the mirth and silliness is a powerful commentary about the tragedy that underscores the empty lives of these bright young things in the light of the calamity they've escaped and the one that lays ahead. The audiobook version features an English narrator who enacts the various scenes and brings the characters to life very convincingly. —April 2011
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