Rating: 
Summary: Keep it with you at all times.
Review: Fussell's book is like the Bible. In times of great doubt or confusion, open its pages and allow it to comfort you. He brings clarity to why we behave as we do in America. When you find yourself chasing after some nebulous dream or envying the shingles on your neighbors's roof, Fussell's book will tell you why, so that you might redirect your energies with more insight and integrity. Although not intended as a self-help book, its revelations about how we all fit in to the secret class system have the power to liberate.
Rating:
Summary: Hysterically funny, and right on target in every way
Review: This is on my required reading list. Readers who dislike this book do so because they see themselves in it, and it makes them uncomfortable.
Rating: 
Summary: Amusing, but dated
Review: As a curmudgeon myself and a card-carrying cynic I enjoyed Fussel's trenchant wit. He absolutely hits the mark in skewering social norms... as they were in the 1980s. But almost 20 years have passed since the book's 1983 publication, and the tirade has not aged so well. New trends have upended many of the traditional class relations Fussel took aim at, and at least 2 new social classes have developed since then (results of the technology and information booms of the last 15 years) while others have begun fading into irrelevence. Read this book if you remember how class lines were drawn in the 1980s -- especially if you were bothered by them -- but look elsewhere if you want humor or insight on contemporary society.
Rating: 
Summary: One simply doesn't know such people
Review: One question has preyed on me ever since I read Mr. F's book, Class. He wrote that people in Class X don't attend church - and, moreover, don't know anyone who does. Now, what happens if you've managed to ensconce yourself in this desirable X niche - but you meet someone who goes to church? I suppose if it's someone who works for you, or who is one of your students, that doesn't count? But suppose you meet someone by accident and get friendly, say at an art gallery reception for the opening of your new exhibit - or even find yourself in bed with someone (much younger, of course) - and learn that the person attends church? What to do? Instantly forget the person's name and face? Chuckle about it with your friends the next day? Does it make a difference if the person is Buddhist or Baptist? Does it rub off? What if the X person remains close to family members who attend church? In short, how does the freewheeling, egalitarian, classless, sophisticated X man or woman manage to safely avoid persons who may be deceptively X, and yet harbor secret religious leanings, perhaps as holdovers from upbringing in another class? I was up for hours worrying about it. I had naturally oozed into Class X by virtue of reading books and going to college, and yet from time to time I knew, and even became friends with, persons of religious persuasions not my own. All my natural fibers and amusing, ironic knick-knacks were scarcely enough to clear the taint. Please, Mr. Fussell, help me!
Rating:
Summary: Take a second look at yourself!
Review: This is a delicious sardonic read that you will not forget whether you find the book shallow and deprived of real "research" findings or not. Move up (or, as the author suggests more likely, move down) in the class ladder, but above all, remember to be yourself!
Rating:
Summary: Poseur self-exposed
Review: The text, originally published in 1983, has a dated feel to it. One is left with the question of why this should be the case. After all, some surface details and commonplaces have changed, but surely the fundamentals of culture and society have not changed much. The answer is, as in most situations like this, that there really isn't all that much more at hand to engage the reader. There is an underlying "backbone" guiding Fussell's observations, but here things get even worse: that underlying "fundamental" such as it is, involves in the almost endless indulgence in class/social stereotypes and cliche. It is a completely deserved irony that Fussell, whose tone is consistently and zestfully deprecatory--often in a mock "clinical" consideration of the hopelessly inferior--ends up mainly revealing himself as an individual apparently incapable of actual insight, completely second-rate in considering the topics he purports to analyze. Now there is an underlying "paradigm" of sorts, and that seems to be that classes conform deeply and faithfully to stereotypes and stereotypical anecdotes Fussell outlines. That's the problem: things, fortunately, are neither that simple nor that uninteresting. Another thing that has worn rather thin and badly over these years (at least I hope, for Fussell's sake, the book read more amusingly in 1983) is the tone Fussell consistently adopts: It's the nudge-in-the-ribs--hey, reader, it's only you and I struggling against the boredom and contamination of these ridiculous and pathetic lifeforms--arising from amused consideration of the hopelessly inferior. (Even the implementation in words of Fussell's intended tone rings false. It has to it a certain adopted Anglophilic quality. In apparent service to it, Fussell adopts and consistently uses terms like "prole" that are absolutely alien to American English usage. A usage like this is either another minor dishonesty or, perhaps, a disclosure not explicitly intended. At least it can be said for Fussell that his effort is not written illiterately.) It thus comes as no surprise that, after surveying the dismal classes, from top to bottom, Fussell produces the revelation that there is also a virtuous and meritorious "Class X", separated from and above all of the miserable stupidities, dishonesties, and repressions of the Classes of the Damned. Here the sense becomes almost rhapsodic. Could it be--could it just possibly be--that Fussell is one among them?? This part is almost hilarious, because, with his characteristic shallowness, Fussell proceeds to describe a "Class X" as absurdly stereotyped as the previously described dismal classes.
As I read this book, the thought came to me recurringly: I really need to read de Toqueville again. Fussell notes, certainly correctly, that de Toqueville made some observations that ultimately didn't pan out. (Of course certain fundamental and famous ones, such as projections of future racial problems, did.) The answer as to why, after more than 150 years, de Toqueville retains interest and vitality bears on the reasons why Fussell doesn't after less than twenty (or, I would suspect, one). It's the obvious one--that the intelligence and insight of de Toqueville is still interesting and captivating, just as the lack of these qualities in Fussell's book fails to evoke these feelings. In summary, Fussell comes off here as a would-be Gore Vidal who in fact more closely resembles Eddie Haskell.
Rating:
Summary: Let's just say I read it in 3 hours!
Review: This book is great if class and the dynamics of society interest you. I laughed out loud several times and even questioned my own behavior. The author, Paul Fussell, is someone whom I would consult on any variety of matters as he is obviously well educated. This book is not to be taken quite literally but nonetheless it is educational. I only wish more people would strive to be at least upper-middles.
Rating:
Summary: Bridges gap between pop culture and "serious" scholarship
Review: If you count entertainment value along with insight, this is one of the best books I've read. Yes, it does come from a northeastern, Ivy, upper-class, point of view, but where else do scholars and writers come from? Fussel's book is bitchy, acerbic, etc..., but that doesn't mean he's wrong. Hell, I'm an redneck ( an educated upper-middle class cowboy from a university that Fussell takes to task, and from a town he makes fun of) but I still loved the book.
Rating: 
Summary: good
Review: This is a very interesting book. I took the test at the end, scoring points as I walked through my living room, pleased my living room held all the elements of an upperclass one. If I'd scored lower, I might have thought this book a worthless piece of tripe! It is caustic and arrogant at times (how could it not be, really.) Mostly entertaining, though, and often eye-opening.
Rating:
Summary: Still current, still very funny
Review: I read this book some ten years ago, and it struck me as most humourous and overall correct.Although I was born in South America, I have lived and studied in the US, and I have studied and worked in France and the UK. My experience in all these geographies supports Fussell's conclusions. It is true that the higher the social class, the taller and slimmer people tend to be. It is true that the traditional lower (rather than the underclass) and the higher classes have many things in common, among them a deeply ingrained conservatism and a fierce pride in their way of being. In the UK, working class men's clubs are fighting the same fight which was lost a few year's ago by the gentlemen's clubs: the right to keep women away from at least some parts of their premises. Many working class people all over the world deride attempts by others of a similar origin to "pass themselves out" as middle class, and regard middle class dress, speech patterns and social habits as feminine and unsound. There is probably no significant difference in the prejudiced, deeply uncurious mindset of Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh
and that of a pensioner his age living in Yorkshire. It is true that strident religious opinions, big hair of unnatural colour and painted nails, or toupees and poorly-fitting jackets are usually the predictor of lower-to lower middle class background, or that high professional qualifications, gym memberships, affiliation with environmental organizations and career ambitions normaly denote urban middle class. It might be seen as cruel, even evil, to remark on it, but don't the following terms clearly conjure a mental image of a particular order of things? (a) barcalounger, (b) trailer park, (c) WWJD, (d) community college, (e) Tom Jones, (f) spam, (g) gin and tonic, (h) dinner jacket, (i) pesto, (j) 100% polyester, (k) white supremacy, (l) homemaker, (m) National Enquirer, (n) The New Yorker, (o) Nantucket, (p) Detroit, (q) credit card debt, (r) bodice-ripper, (s) short-sleeved dress shirt, (t) pocket protector, (u) hunting dog, (v) dinner jacket, (w) Armani, (x) Ivy League, (y) inner city, (z) Dairy Queen. Think of words like individual (pronounced "individjal") or expressions like people of colour. Those who disbelieve Fussell's arguments to identify social classes just haven't been paying attention, for there are signs everywhere that they are still alive and well. Fussell is very perceptive on many points. He notices that English spelling and mock-old-English words (parlour, kippers, jolly good) are short-hand for the higher social orders, and that this is used by real estate developers to get homebuyers to pay more just to live in a posher sounding address. He sees that many people seem to believe that college education irrespective of the actual college places them on a par with Ivy League graduates, and he sees it as a cruel ruse on the gullible and insecure (this is true everywhere: in the UK, many years after the polytechnics and teachers colleges were turned into universities Cambridge and Oxford still top the lists and "a group of fewer than 20 universities attract 90 per cent of the resources available for research and take the lion's share of money for teaching", according to The Times; in France virtually the entire business, political and intellectual elite comes from a handful of institutes, notably ENA, HEC, Insead and the X), in spite of the fact that truly desirable employers, such as consulting firms only hire people out of a handful of institutions (for example, Accenture, with 70,000 employees, only recruits MBA graduates at 5 schools in the US and 3 in Europe). He notices that most people confuse the more visible upper middle class (called in the US the Preppies, in the UK the Sloane Rangers, in France les BCBG, in Latin America la gente bien, o la gente fresa) with the much more reclusive upper class, which one rarely sees, perhaps luckily, for they tend to be troublesome and violent (cfr., "The House of Hervey", by Michael de-la-noy: party girl Lady Victoria Hervey has had a high profile dalliance with gangster rapper P. Diddy). He sees the clear difference between the upper middle class "Patrician" mindset, and the upper class "Aristocratic" one (in order to tell them apart, when you think of the upper middle class, think XIX century, Victorian, prudish, earnest, hard-working, dark, and when you think of the upper classes, think XVIII century, Augustan, idle, colourful, cynical: it's Dickens, Balzac and Jane Austen versus Lord Chesterfield, Boswell and Saint-Simon, or the Novel versus the Diary). This is indeed a key difference between the American North and South. The North's upper class (Saltonstalls, Cabots, Lodges, Ameses, Eliots, Adamses, Biddles) is distinctly Patrician, due to its deep Calvinist influence, whereas the South's (traditional California Land-owners or Alabama cotton-growers) is clearly Aristocratic (which is why only the South could produce William Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom", and only the North could give forth "The Education of Henry Adams"). The US Civil War, seen in this fashion, is a re-play of the English Civil War between roundheads (Patricians)and cavaliers (Aristocrats). Fussell also sees that economic development will not swell the ranks of the upper classes, but just create richer proles and lower-middle class people. While some people may think that because they are rich they are upper class, virtually no one else is fooled. Raul Gardini, formerly one of the richest men in Italy (who killed himself a few years ago) once said that he and Silvio Berlusconi were just very rich stiffs, whereas Gianni Agnelli was a prince. If we look at the people who benefitted the most from the bubble economy of the 90s (such as software experts, web designers, telemarketers, singers and dancers and sport idols), we will see that most of them don't even try to appear upper class by wearing Armani or Ralh Lauren clothes, driving Bentleys, taking up polo or hunting or buying a yacht. They are just happy to live it up, and don't much care to be seen as upwardly mobile. Fussell was right when he wrote that Class was a very contentious subject in the US, that many more people thought of themselves as middle-class than was actually the case, and that simply discussing this matter was thought of as offensive. Reading some of the ratings for this book I have no doubt that this is the case. Some of the commentators appear personally offended by Fussell's opinions and think that "he's just a guy setting himself up as the standard for class, so we'll bring him down a peg or two". He does nothing of the sort. The only class with which he seeks to align itself is Class X, which is a bit like David Brooks' BoBos (Bourgeouis Bohemians), and he argues that only by stepping away from the class structure can we be totally free. Some people may think that the social class structure is so undermined as to be nonexistent. That's not the case. Social classes are very robust, and, in way or another, manage to survive all economic or political upheavals (remember Milovan Djilas' book "The New Class", on the dominant bureaucrat/military class in Tito's officially Socialist Jugoslavia"). In the US many people seem to think that money grants class. That is largely a deception. As Fussell says, it takes at least three generations to produce a middle class person, and many more to produce an upper class one. Readers, do not berate the messanger for the message. To paraphrase Goldwater, "in your heart you know he's right".
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