Waugh

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

StuckinaBook All , , , 12 Comments

My book group read Vile Bodies (1930) by Evelyn Waugh – his second novel, and the fifth one I’ve read by him. I have a mixed history with Waugh, and this one hasn’t helped clear things up much.

The novel focuses upon a young man called Adam – a journalist who is engaged to Nina – who is trying to make his way in the world, and to gather together the money to afford a wedding. Around him there are an astonishing number of characters, most of whom are aboard a sea voyage in the opening, confusing pages of the novel. There is Mrs Melrose Ape and her gaggle of ‘angels’ with wings, called Chastity, Charity, and the like. There’s a Jesuit priest we don’t hear much from afterwards. There is Agatha Runcible, a bizarre and mildly hysterical character. There’s all manner of other people who come and go, without much certainty.

Adam is an outsider in the world he tries to enter – sometimes as a gossip columnist, sometimes as a gentleman. His attempts to get money go disastrously wrong, miraculously right, and back again, over and over – with a drunken Major playing a significant role in all these moments. And the people Adam is observing are the Bright Young Things of the 1920s – ‘Bright Young Things’ was the original title of the novel, and the title of the film adaptation, and Waugh has good fun mocking their insouciance and inconsequentiality.

But inconsequence is a hallmark of Waugh’s novels in general, and it’s my sticking point with them. Actions never have moral consequences. People routinely ruin each other’s lives for no reason, and don’t give it a second thought – which is one of my least favourite things in fiction. I don’t mind dark humour, and if people’s hubris or sheer accident mean disaster happens, I can chuckle at it. But those who selfishly destroy other lives without reason – well, I don’t find it funny even when it’s satire, and that rather spoils the joke for me. One gets the sense that Waugh isn’t a terribly nice person.

Having said that, there are other moments I found very amusing (hence the conflict!) The on-again-off-again wedding was dealt with enjoyably. Nina’s father – Colonel Blount – never recognises Adam, and is always saying how much better his prospective son-in-law is than the other suitors he’s met (all of whom are Adam). And Waugh has a brilliant way with a turn of phrase – such as:

She wore a frock such as only duchesses can obtain for their elder daughters, a garment curiously puckered and puffed up and enriched with old lace at improbable places, from which her pale beauty emerged as though from a clumsily tied parcel.

Waugh’s style is recognisably his, but there is also a heck of a lot of Ronald Firbank in here. (I felt rather chuffed that I thought this, as I learned in the afterword that Waugh also thought this – though the sycophantic editor of my edition, Richard Jacobs, disputes it.) Firbank had jumpy narratives, lots of dialogue, and a lack of clarity about what was going on – and all this appears in Vile Bodies.

Of the five Waugh novels I’ve read (Put Out More Flags, The Loved One, Scoop, Decline and Fall, and Vile Bodies) I really like The Loved One, and very much enjoyed Scoop. And I really disliked Decline and Fall and Put Out More Flags, for their intense spitefulness. Vile Bodies is the Waugh novel that falls most in the middle of my spectrum – I relished the bits I found amusing, recoiled from those I didn’t, and spent most of the first 50 pages not having a clue what was going on.

Scoop – Evelyn Waugh

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A few bloggers seem to have been reading Evelyn Waugh at the same time as each other – Rachel wrote about Decline and Fall and Ali wrote about Vile Bodies – only my review is coming rather belatedly, as I finished Scoop (1938) about a month ago. Oops. But it’s great, and very funny, so better late than never, I’m getting my review specs on (they’re the same as my usual specs, by the way.)

This is my fourth Evelyn Waugh novel, and I still haven’t read Brideshead Revisited.  I found the first couple too cruel for my liking, then thought The Loved One had the perfect mix of barbed wit and affection.  Well, Scoop continues in this vein – ridiculous and farcical things happen, people are mean and selfish, but always with a covering of good-humour – helped, chiefly, by the incredibly loveable lead character.

Like Decline and Fall, Scoop opens with a series of coincidences and misunderstandings (unlikely, but not impossible) which propel the central plot.  Unlike Decline and Fall, these misunderstandings are not malicious – but they end up with the wrong Mr. Boot being sent to the Republic of Ishmaelia by the Daily Beast.  Instead of the pushy young John Boot who’s been badgering the absolutely wonderful character Mrs. Stitch (the novel opens with her multi-tasking – on the telephone, directing the painter, answering correspondence, doing a crossword, and helping her daughter with her homework at the same time) to get him sent out there, it is William Boot, writer of the rural matters column Lush Places, who is accidentally sent.  Boot is an affable, quiet, honest young man (supposedly in his 20s, but he never comes across as younger than 45) who wants to live out his life in rural peace.  Who better to mire in the world of sensationalist foreign reporting?

Before he sets sail, there are my favourite scenes in the novel – where William Boot is meeting with an editor of the newspaper, Mr. Salter.  William thinks that he is going to be reprimanded for his sister mischievously exchanging ‘badger’ and ‘great crested grebe’ in his copy – which leads to a brilliant cross-purposes conversation with Mr. Salter, who has never stepped a foot outside London, and has the impression (shared by so many Londoners today!) that people from the countryside do nothing but drink pear cider and lean on gates.  As a staunch countryside person at heart, I laughed heartily at the limited views of the town-dweller, and the horror he felt when the great crested grebe reared its great crested head…

But things are sorted out, of course, and off William goes to the Republic of Ishmaelia (when it is suggested to him that he might well be fired if he refuses to go.)  Before we get there, I want to share this wonderful snippet of the way Mr. Salter deals with the newspaper’s proprietor:

Mr. Salter’s side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent.  When Lord Copper was right he said, “Definitely, Lord Copper”; when he was wrong, “Up to a point.””Let me see, what’s the name of the place I mean? Capital of Japan? Yokohama, isn’t it?””Up to a point, Lord Copper.””And Hong Kong belongs to us, doesn’t it?””Definitely, Lord Copper.”
So practical! So wise! So deliciously funny on Waugh’s part.  It’s also a taste of his satirical tongue – for that is what the rest of Scoop essentially performs; a satire on journalism.

Boot and a dozen or so other journalists land in Ishmaelia, where nothing whatsoever seems to be happening, and have to send back copy in the form of telegrams.  While some journalists are fabricating spies and making the most out of the smallest incident, this is a telegram Boot sends back:

NO NEWS AT PRESENT THANKS WARNING ABOUT CABLING PRICES BUT IVE PLENTY MONEY LEFT AND ANYWAY WHEN I OFFERED TO PAY WIRELESS MAN SAID IT WAS ALL RIGHT PAID OTHER END RAINING HARD HOPE ALL WELL ENGLAND WILL CABLE AGAIN IF ANY NEWS.
Waugh has great fun crafting the telegrams from both sides, and it is here that his satire of journalism is both loudest and (I daresay) closest to the bone – with words like ‘ESSENTIALIST’ and ‘SOONLIEST’ abounding, not to mention ‘UNRECEIVED’ and ‘UPFOLLOW’.

The satire becomes rather a farce, as most of the journalists head off to a place which doesn’t exist, and the most famous reporter sends in his copy without even visiting the country.  It’s all very amusing and enjoyably broad, which makes the inclusion of a romantic interest (even one who is desperate for him to store rocks for her, and suggests that he marry her so that her extant husband can become British by extension) feels a little out of kilter, and I wouldn’t have been sad if Kätchen hadn’t been included.

Indeed, despite the focus of the novel being Ishmaelia – and Boot being adorable – I preferred the scenes set in England.  Perhaps that’s because I could understand a comedy on office politics, rural matters, and eccentric families (about a dozen bedridden relatives and servants fill his country pile) better than foreign reporting, or perhaps Waugh was on firmer footing himself.  Either way, I was always pleased when things turned back to Blighty.

As a round-peg-in-a-square-hole story, Waugh could scarcely choose a man less fitted for the role he is forced into – and that, of course, is the intended crux of Scoop‘s humour.  It’s just a bonus that he does everything else so well on top of this – otherwise the joke would probably have worn thin.  And, as I say, there is enough good-humour and camaraderie in Scoop to prevent Waugh’s mean streak from dominating, and so gentle souls like me are left entirely free to revel in the farcical hilarity, and not get anxious about the victims!

Piece of Waugh

StuckinaBook All , 13 Comments

And now for the second novella choice recommended by Simon S… (and various other people, I think, but I can’t remember who) – The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh. I don’t remember buying this, but I’ve had it on my shelves for years, back from the days when I routinely mixed up E.M. Forster and Evelyn Waugh (though two 20th century writers with more variant styles would be hard to imagine) and before I’d read either of ’em.

As with The Driver’s Seat, this is the third novel I’ve read by the author, and easily my favourite of those three. (That gives me an idea for a blog post… come back tomorrow, friends). You can see my thoughts on Put Out More Flags here, and apparently I never got around to writing about Decline and Fall. Whilst I thought both of those novels were very good, and often very funny too, there was a cruel and selfish streak running through them that affected my wee sensitive soul. I couldn’t laugh when I was that appalled and upset for the innocent bystanders being tricked or left devastated. In The Loved One (subtitled An Anglo-American Tragedy) the humour is rather gentler – perhaps because Waugh is laughing at an institution rather than individuals. The lack of cruelty may not satisfy the ardent Waughite, I’d be intrigued to know, but it left me able to love the novella without any reservations.

Which probably isn’t immediately apparent from the novella’s setting – an undertakers/funeral home/cemetery in Los Angeles. Called ‘Whispering Glades’. Oh, and next door (where our English hero Dennis works) is the ‘Happier Hunting Ground’, providing similar services for pets. Now, I haven’t read Jessica Mitford’s The American Way of Death, exposing the American funeral system with all its (at that time, in 1963) over-the-topness, abuses and exploitation – but I can only imagine it makes a great companion read to Waugh’s 1947 novella. (According to LibraryThing, I don’t even own the Mitford book… can this be true?? On my Amazon wishlist it goes…)

So – where Jessica Mitford went, Waugh had gone before. Through the eyes of Dennis, who aspires to raise the standards – and the prices – of the Happier Hunting Ground, we are taken around an overblown and ridiculous funeral home and invited to laugh at all its ludicrousness. You can be buried according to temperament – and pay more for proximity to, say, a statue of Goethe. You can give description of how you want your loved one (for they would never be called ‘the deceased’ or anything like that) to look:
“Have you brought any photographs of your Loved One? They are the greatest help in re-creating personality. Was he a very cheerful old gentleman?”

“No, rather the reverse.”

“Shall I put him down as serene and philosophical or judicial and determined?”

“I think the former.”

“It is the hardest of all expressions to fix, but Mr. Joyboy makes it his speciality – that and the joyful smile for children. Did the Loved One wear his own hair? And the normal complexion? We usually classify them as rural, athletic, and scholarly – that is to say red, brown, or white.”
If that line didn’t make you crack at least a smile, then perhaps you need to book yourself into Whispering Glades. For you can book ahead, as it were, as exemplified by this lovely line (the words Simon S quoted which made me determined to read The Loved One):
“Can I help you in any way?”

“I came to arrange about a funeral.”

“Is it for yourself?” In amongst all this there is, of course, romance. Dennis catches the eye of a corpse beautician – and has competition from the aforementioned Mr. Joyboy. That all adds a fun subplot – it’s fairly astonishing, the amount Waugh manages to pack into a slim book. Nothing is wasted, there is no extraneous matter – and it’s rather a lesson to those novels which ramble on for chapters and chapters unnecessarily. Oh, just one more line I wanted to share, which demonstrates Waugh’s delicious humour: “Here is the strangulated Loved One for the Orchid Room.”Of course, beneath the layers of humour there is a far more serious heart to the novel – the concerns Jessica Mitford raised, which Waugh leaves the reader to recognise unaided. Which is sensible – his is a work of fiction; Mitford’s was non-fiction. I have no problem with a bit of didacticism in literature – it is a very modern bewailing, and seems to me to betray some insecurity – but Waugh lets comedy do the job, and thus gets through to an audience which might never pick up a copy of The American Way of Death. Not, of course, that this was an option when The Loved One was published.

Do go and see Simon S’s review of The Loved One, which persuaded me to (eventually!) pick up my own copy.

Put Out More Flags

StuckinaBook All , 8 Comments
I’ve always vaguely connected Evelyn Waugh and E.M. Forster in my mind – not sure why, other than that ‘E’, since they didn’t really overlap in their writing periods. Having quite liked A Passage to India (which would have been better as a short story, I think) and A Room With A View, but failed to be overwhelmed by them, I’d also placed Mr. Waugh on the backburner. Which, I discovered as I read Put Out More Flags on the train journey down to Somerset, was a mistake. The writers have more or less nothing in common, and whilst I could read Forster for months without any danger of laughter lines, Waugh is really rather funny.

 

 

I don’t really know how popular Put Out More Flags is – certainly not one of Waugh’s more famous novels, and I hadn’t heard of it until someone mentioned it a few months ago. I found the title irresistible. It just sums up the earnest patriotism with no outlet for full venting – how shall we solve it? Put out more flags. Reminds me of a car Colin and I saw during the last World Cup, where someone had stuck seven British flags on their car. You could just imagine looking critically at their car festooned with six flags, and thinking “But will people realise that I love Britain?” Mentioning Colin gives me opportunity to shame him – when he found out I was reading Evelyn Waugh, his faux-intellectual response was “Evelyn Waugh? I love all her books.”

 

Put Out More Flags was published in 1942 and is about the phoney war which preceded the war proper. The central character is Basil Seal – and, through him, his mother, mistress and sister. We see the interior, informal and jokily malevolent workings of the war offices (who continually send all the volunteers and insane visitors to other departments), the recruitment and training of soldiers, responses of the rich and elderly, the bohemian socialists, the unfit, unlikely soldiers. Basically the upper-middle and upper-classes dealing with a strange situation. Barbara (Basil’s sister) features in my favourite part of the novel, and a central focus, placing evacuees:

 

Evacuation to Malfrey had followed much the same course as it had in other parts of the country and had not only kept Barbara, as billeting officer, constantly busy, but had transformed her, in four months, from one of the most popular women in the countryside into a figure of fear. When her car was seen approaching people fled through covered lines of retreat, through side doors and stable yards, into the snow, anywhere to avoid her persuasive, ‘But surely you could manage one more. He’s a boy this time and a very well-behaved little fellow.’

 

There are touches of EM Delafield – especially, unsurprisingly, The Provincial Lady in Wartime, which also features the War Office and its internal ‘workings’ – but where Waugh diverges from Delafield territory is where I had problem with Put Out More Flags. I found Basil Seal one of the most repugnant, malicious and dislikeable characters I’ve encountered since Heathcliff. Throughout the novel there were punches of nasty, unkind humour which laughed at ruining the treasured home of an elderly couple, sending an innocent man in exile to Ireland for Basil’s own ends, betraying friends for the sake of promotion. Whilst we probably aren’t supposed to see Basil Seal as a moral guide, it did seem that we were supposed to be fond of him, look on the character as something of an amusing rascal – whilst in fact he is selfish, vicious and cruel. Give me the self-deprecating humour of EM Delafield, or the affectionate, harmless fun-poking in Mapp and Lucia – Waugh’s idea of humour is mostly on the mark, and he uses comic language superbly (I laughed out loud several times) but too often the undercurrent was too nasty for me. I need to read a Wodehouse or two as an antidote.