Rating: 
Summary: very very funny
Review: a little short, very irrelevant that sometimes its hard to find the context, but very funny as middle class man meets upper class eccentricity, good introduction to Waugh's feelings on the rigid English class system
Rating: 
Summary: Still Very Good
Review: Although this isn't Waugh's best (try DECLINE AND FALL or A HANDFUL OF DUST, or even the underappreciated THE ORDEAL OF GILBERT PINFOLD) it is still very good. A note: from one comment I'm guessing the horde of Calif. reveiewers were schoolkids reading this for an assignment, and aged around 15. Probably NOT the best audience for the book--they need to grow a little older and closer to death... The fact that some appreciated it is actually heartening.
Rating: 
Summary: Heavy-handed.
Review: I loved Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, and I have enjoyed some of his satires in the past. I didn't finish this book, and I am writing this only because I couldn't find a negative review to agree with. It is heavy handed satire with dull characters.
Rating:
Summary: Heavy-handed.
Review: I loved Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, and I have enjoyed some of his satires in the past. I didn't finish this book, and I am writing this only because I couldn't find a negative review to agree with. It is heavy handed satire with dull characters.
Rating:
Summary: The perfect first novel
Review: I must have bought a dozen copies of this book. I give it to the young and university-bound, lend it to friends who need help in understanding the English character, and make sure I always have a copy around to re-read at regular intervals. The story of Paul Pennyfeather's parabola - or perhaps ellipse -through English 1920s society is told with a deadpan acid wit, through fantastic recurring characters that recur both in the story and later in your life as you encounter those like them. I'm not going to tell you that you must read this book, but I'm going to invite you to enjoy as I did and still do, each time I re-read it.
Rating: 
Summary: A must-read, but the product itself?
Review: I think the cover of this book is very well drawn - the look of all the Waugh books put out by "Back Bay," actually, is interesting, with those funny-looking illustrations and garish orange color. Still, I'm not sure about the quality of the binding. My copy has held up well, but I was in a bookstore, reading a copy of "Scoop" (also by Waugh, also put out by Back Bay, also a paperback) and the glue that bound the pages and the cover didn't do its job properly, and you can guess the rest.So it might be worth your while to get a brand new copy of this book, or find a hardcover. I should make clear that if you don't own a copy of this book, you are missing out on a potential reference for how to create an effective writing style. Waugh's style is magnificent, especially for a satire like this. His sometimes pretentious prose fits the ironic occassion perfectly. But usually his style is more restrained, and the book, as a consequence, reads quickly and is remembered easily. The novel concerns one Paul Pennyfeather, a former Oxford student kicked out (of Oxford) shortly after the First World War for "indecent behavior." As the story goes on, he becomes a schoolmaster in Wales, engaged to a noblewoman who may have murdered her husband, and thrown into prison. The series of misadventures Paul undergoes is purposeful: at every level of '20's English society some group of people or some set of mores is castigated. Now you might be asking yourself whether or not you want to read this book. I think it is safe to say that no matter who you are, you should read it. It reads too quickly to be dismissed as "not worth my time," but it is too important in terms of those large questions like "Why is life so rotten? Could it be particular attitudes we have inherited from our ancestors?" to be left alone.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read, but the product itself?
Review: I think the cover of this book is very well drawn - the look of all the Waugh books put out by "Back Bay," actually, is interesting, with those funny-looking illustrations and garish orange color. Still, I'm not sure about the quality of the binding. My copy has held up well, but I was in a bookstore, reading a copy of "Scoop" (also by Waugh, also put out by Back Bay, also a paperback) and the glue that bound the pages and the cover didn't do its job properly, and you can guess the rest. So it might be worth your while to get a brand new copy of this book, or find a hardcover. I should make clear that if you don't own a copy of this book, you are missing out on a potential reference for how to create an effective writing style. Waugh's style is magnificent, especially for a satire like this. His sometimes pretentious prose fits the ironic occassion perfectly. But usually his style is more restrained, and the book, as a consequence, reads quickly and is remembered easily. The novel concerns one Paul Pennyfeather, a former Oxford student kicked out (of Oxford) shortly after the First World War for "indecent behavior." As the story goes on, he becomes a schoolmaster in Wales, engaged to a noblewoman who may have murdered her husband, and thrown into prison. The series of misadventures Paul undergoes is purposeful: at every level of '20's English society some group of people or some set of mores is castigated. Now you might be asking yourself whether or not you want to read this book. I think it is safe to say that no matter who you are, you should read it. It reads too quickly to be dismissed as "not worth my time," but it is too important in terms of those large questions like "Why is life so rotten? Could it be particular attitudes we have inherited from our ancestors?" to be left alone.
Rating:
Summary: Waugh the Master
Review: In this story of Paul Pennyfather's disaster of a life Waugh takes his first satirical shots at just about every establishment and class in England at the time. Pennyfather suffers almost every possible misfortune though his life, from being sent down from university for indecent behaviour to imprisonment for white slave trading. Despite being innocent of all crime Paul allows misfortune and punishment to visit him almost unprotesting. It is as though Waugh punishes him for his insignificance and his lack of substance and that is his true crime. I am a huge fan of Waugh and find the satire and cutting wit outrageously funny, but beyond the humor there are more relevant messages for the society of his time and it's establishment figures. I cannot recommend any of Waugh's novels highly enough and this, his first, is no exception.
Rating:
Summary: Waugh the Master
Review: In this story of Paul Pennyfather's disaster of a life Waugh takes his first satirical shots at just about every establishment and class in England at the time. Pennyfather suffers almost every possible misfortune though his life, from being sent down from university for indecent behaviour to imprisonment for white slave trading. Despite being innocent of all crime Paul allows misfortune and punishment to visit him almost unprotesting. It is as though Waugh punishes him for his insignificance and his lack of substance and that is his true crime. I am a huge fan of Waugh and find the satire and cutting wit outrageously funny, but beyond the humor there are more relevant messages for the society of his time and it's establishment figures. I cannot recommend any of Waugh's novels highly enough and this, his first, is no exception.
Rating:
Summary: Social satire in which few are spared
Review: More deadpan than hilarious, "Decline and Fall" is the story of Paul Pennyfeather, who seems not only to attract misfortune but to embrace it as his due. While depicting Pennyfeather's downward trajectory, Waugh skewers the pretensions and mocks the hypocrisy of every class of British society. Although I trust Waugh did not mean for the reader to sympathize with Pennyfeather, who is truly an apathetic oaf, I (ironically) found him surprisingly likable. Blameless throughout, Pennyweather resignedly and almost eagerly accepts punishment for crimes committed by others. (In prison, he positively enjoys solitary confinement for its regimen and its lack of stress.) Some of Waugh's commentary is a bit pedestrian, especially to modern readers, but he occasionally and fearlessly tackles weighty and "scandalous" themes: the apostasy of the clergy ("modern churchmen who drew their pay without the necessity of the commitment to any religious belief"), the excesses of the prison reform movement ("So far as possible, I like the prisoners to carry on with their avocations in civilized life. What's this man's profession, officer?" "White Slave traffic, sir."), and societal attitudes towards an aristocratic lady who takes a black American lover (and her own patronizing posture). This last subplot, it must be said, makes uncomfortable reading, because the black character barely rises above stereotype, because Waugh unflinchingly uses racial epithet, and because ultimately the reader is not quite sure where Waugh is coming from. Much of Waugh's satire is dated, but (like Candide) Paul Pennyweather is a virtuous nobody whose misadventures transcend time. The edition from Everyman Library also includes an astute introduction from the critic Frank Kermode, who provides useful background for the book instead of assuming you've already read it.
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