Vile Bodies

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Summary: A tale of Bright Young Things, during the Empire's decline
Review: Evelyn Waugh's been known for his biting satirical novels that vicious cut at the British upper class. Vile Bodies, his second novel, depicts a month in a half in the lives of the swinging, partying, jaded, young upper class, aka The Bright Young People. Young, yes, bright, well, that's questionable, and people... But it also a snapshot of an empire in decline, of the spoiled younger generation who take for granted what their elders fought for. A sentence more or less summarizes how they are: "like so many people their age, Adam and Nina were suffering from being sophisticated...before they were at all widely experienced."

This also features drunk on wine, silly conversations, and silly names, such as a stern evangelist named Mrs. Ape, an ex-PM named Outrage, peers named Lady Circumference, and a group of girls dressed as angels who perform for Ms. Ape's Christian charity. Their names represent certain virtues: Fortitude, Chastity, Faith, Humility, Prudence, Creative Endeavour, and the like, i.e. Victorian values. Yet their names do not mirror their personalities, as many of them bicker among themselves, which symbolizes the coming apart of Victorian values.

The story focuses on Adam Fenwick-Symes, a struggling and penniless writer whose success is like a series of W's: down, up, down, up... and so on. Having his novel, an autobiography, burned at customs for being possibly subversive, is just one of the misfortunes he runs into. He's engaged to Nina Blount, an engagement that hinges a lot on his being solvent. The most repeated lines by him: "I say Nina, we shan't be able to get married after all." or other variants.

Among his misadventures includes trying to track down a drunken major to whom he entrusted a thousand pounds on a longshot at the track, the numerous wild parties he goes to at the most happening places to be, "masked parties, savage parties, Victorian parties,...parties at Oxford where one drank brown sherry and smoked Turkish cigarettes,...all that succession and repetition of massed humanity...all those vile bodies," and trying to get Colonel Blount his blessing to be married to Nina, is itself a challenge, as the irascible colonel's memory is such that he's got quite a loose propeller.

But Adam's brief tenure as the gossip columnist detailing parties, of who was there wearing what, is itself a portrait of how the upward mobile, socially conscious trendies are addicted in trying to be where it's cool, even when Adam invents people and visiting a lunatic asylum, gives them noble names and describes their ailments!

Of the decadent Young Things, Angela Runcible has the most exciting moments, as she wakes up after a rowdy party dressed in a revealing Hawaiian outfit, embarrasses the family she stayed over at during breakfast, and goes outside the door to the delight of reporters. The address? Oh, somewhere in Downing Street.

There's a conversation on the younger generation between Father Rothschild and the ex-PM, where Rothschild remarks on the generation gap. From the Victorian value of "if a thing's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well," to the Bright Young People's "If a thing's not worth doing well, it's not worth doing at all." Rothschild mentions it also relates at a need for permanance, such as marriage, given the word "bogus" that the BYP use, years before Bill and Ted, and the number of growing divorces. And that's something Adam says, that a marriage should go on.

Vile Bodies is one of those great birds, a historical snapshot set among the jaded and decadent pre-war Young Things during the decline of the British Empire, all because Modernism is showing the upper hand over Victorian values. This decadence and pluck of youth would be reduplicated in the late 1950's, when the teenagers took power, but that's another era of Britain altogether.

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Summary: Writhing toward Gommorah
Review: Evelyn Waugh�s second novel is a ludicrous satirical jaunt through the lives of the so-called smart set, or �Bright Young People� of London�s high and climbing society of the late 1920s. Twentysomething Adam Fenwick-Symes can�t catch a break: after months spent in Paris writing his memoirs he has his manuscript of them confiscated and burned by his own English customs (�If we can�t stop literature in this country, we can at least stop its being brought in from outside,� says the Comstockian official). As a result Adam spends much of the rest of the book fumbling to find ways to earn the income that would support his beloved Nina Blount should she stop her waffling and decide to marry him.

Waugh�s characters are picture postcards, some glittering, some torn, but all destined for the wastepaper basket sooner or later. Caring about the characters is not the issue here, laughing at them and fearing that their types might ever really have existed is most of the fun. Everyone seems to have popped off the pages of a tabloid, and in certain cases, they have, since one of Adam�s writing jobs becomes reporting the society news. People with names like Fanny Throbbing and Miles Malpractice drink, are callous to each other, have sex without meaning and die without being mourned. Such fun! No wonder the spiritually troubled Waugh ends the book with a war that wouldn�t arrive for another nine years after VILE BODIES was published.

This book is an improvement over Waugh�s first effort, DECLINE AND FALL, though it�s not as funny as his satire on the Californian funeral industry in THE LOVED ONE. It is, however, just enough to make me read more of his works. I�m convinced that much of what people found so acidly funny about this book in 1930 was a function of how shocking Waugh�s subtle and overt references were to ballroom and bedroom behavior at the time. The moral undercurrent of meaninglessness simmers beneath the surface all the while as characters separate from each other and come back together by humorous coincidences and contrived absurdity. It comes out here and there, as when Mr. Outrage says to Fr. Rothschild that the BYPs of the post-WWI generation had �a whole civilization to be made and remade�and all they seem to do is play the fool.� The priest suggests that the war may have been to blame: �I don�t think people ever WANT to lose their faith.�

VILE BODIES won�t restore anyone�s faith, but it will entertain them for a while, and perhaps make them puzzle over its meaning. And that can�t be bad, can it?

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Summary: Vile Bodies
Review: I read my first book by Waugh a few months ago and have become a huge fan, "Vile Bodies" being the fourth Waugh book I've read. Although not a sequel to his first novel, "Decline and Fall," "Vile Bodies" includes several of the same characters and has a similar satiric tone. You do not, however, have to have read "Decline and Fall" to enjoy this book.

The main plot concerns a group of young people from London's "bright young generation." They have monied parents and spend most of their time searching for the next party and amusing fad. The protagonist is Adam Fenwick-Symes, a poor writer who manages to live the highlife by being a hanger-on. He is in love with Nina Blount, but cannot marry her because of his economic status. The book chronicles his attempts at making enough money to marry Nina. As with other Waugh books, the characters are passive and do not really do anything, but they manage to have some terrible things happen to them!

The supporting characters are extremely funny, including the modern Agatha Runcible, the revolving line of Prime Ministers, and the various people who become the columnist Mr. Chatterbox. Of course, as with all of the Back Bay Books editions of Waugh's books, the cover and style are lovely. If you love Waugh, you'll love this book. Highly recommended.

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Summary: Not vile at all
Review: I read this book shortly after reading American Psycho and was struck by - barring the serial murders - the similarity between the two books. Both are social critiques, even parodies, of a particular class of monied young people. In Waugh's book, the action centers on Adam Symes, alternately penniless and wealthy over the course of the book, and his equally alternate fiancee Nina Blount. A writer, Symes accepts with frightening aplomb the confiscation and destruction of his latest manuscript by customs officials, and the consequently back-breaking book deal his editors make him sign. Hopes destroyed, he can no longer marry, and becomes a gossip columnist. The similarities to American Psycho are striking - both Symes and Bateman are relentlessly social animals, yet unable to remember who people are. Both have a fine eye for appearances (Bateman for clothes, Symes for hypocrisy). Waugh does with humor what Ellis did with horror.

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Summary: A Masterpiece about the Absurdity of Man
Review: In Mr. Waugh's second novel, the absurdity of humankind is explored. The reader is allowed to follow a brief period in the lives of the "Bright Young People." They are young Londoners of the early 1930's who are well educated and from good families. Through the trials of the protagonist, Adam Fenwick-Symes, the reader is able to see the silliness of human existence. The "Bright Young People" spends their days and nights avoiding all real human experiences, especially love. Mr. Waugh chronicles a time in England when the motto "eat, drink and be merry" was embraced as a spiritual philosophy. At times, passages in this book are very amusing, but it never fails to recognize how life can be wasted when people are just "vile bodies."

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Summary: Wry, wonderful, witty Waugh!
Review: One of the wittiest, and ultimately saddest, novels about the "lost generation" of the early 20th century. Waugh writes about arrogant, self-centered, wealthy, vapid, young socialites in the period of The Great War, when social mores and traditions were being reexamined and reconstructed or, in some cases, summarily destroyed. Waugh was one of the great chroniclers of the decline and fall of the aristocracy in the 20th century. Like Ronald Firbank, Waugh often gave his characters the most absurd names, such as Mrs. Melrose Ape, Lottie Crump, Judge Skimp, The Honourable Miles Malpractice, Mary Mouse, etc. Having done this, he has to work that much harder to make us identify and empathize with the characters, if indeed we ever really can. Waugh also has his characters spout the most inane, banal dialogue, even in their moments of greatest conflict and turmoil. It is difficult, for instance, to fathom Adam Fenwick-Symes' emotional distress from his thrice-broken engagement to Nina Blount from her comment: "It is a bore, isn't it?" (83). Despite the richness and abundance of the humour, there is an underlying tension, a darkness, which permeates the work from the opening sentence: "It was clearly going to be a bad crossing" (9). The beauty of this novel is in the juxtaposition of comical imagery and dialogue with the spectre of death and destruction looming large. There is a constant negotiation between personal "crises" and a burgeoning global catastrophe. We are often shocked by the intrusion of the real and violent into the placid, literate meta-world of the characters. Thus we read, for instance, the hilarious tabloid journalism of Simon Balcairn/Mr. Chatterbox interspersed with the grisply details of his desperate suicide (106). Or Agnes Runcible's attempt at car-racing, which ends with a crash and a nurse assuring the suffering Agnes: There's nothing to worry about, dear . . . nothing at all . . . nothing" (200). The words are delivered just as Agnes is slipping into a fatal coma, into nothingness. Despite the fact that the narrative is a string of wild parties ("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 . . . all that succession and repetition of massed humanity . . . Those vile bodies" [123]), these heady days end with "the most terrible and unexpected thing -- War has been declared" (219). Waugh then adds a brief, ironically-titled "Happy Ending" chapter set in "the biggest battlefield in the history of the world" (220), with Adam literally in the trenches fighting for his life. He encounters a young girl known as "Chastity" in the earlier part of the narrative. Sold into prostitution in South America and now living the wretched existence of "comfort girl" during the war, hers is the worst fate of the Bright Young Things of Mayfair. Easy to dismiss because of its brevity and its wit, this is a brilliant and important novel.

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Summary: Delightful 20's sheer elegance!
Review: Quite, quite fascinating, strange, and sad. As we follow the hedonistic, somewhat dangerous pursuits of our Bright Young set from one costume party to another, we watch them scale a ladder of sensational thrills to an extent where they become so detatched from the basic emotions of reality that they lose touch, and their worlds come whirling back down.

I sensed a slight touch of sarcasm in the title of the ultimate chapter, 'a happy ending', as it is not so much an ending, as another day in their hollow lives, and as for it being 'happy', we see them slowly try to piece together the remains of their lonely lives as the jazz fades out, the champagne runs dry and the war comes as a harsh reality check to the Bright Young People of 1920's party scene.

Beautifully written and quite captivating to read, 'Vile Bodies' is an intriguing masterpiece that should be in everyone's library, if not their top 10 favourites.

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Summary: Idiots and savants
Review: The great thing about Evelyn Waugh is that the humor of his novels transcends their era. You don't have to know anything about English society of the 1920s to be entertained by "Vile Bodies" because Waugh's style relies on fundamentally silly characters, wry dialogue, piercing intelligence, and manic energy more than on contemporary culture, events, and figures. What makes his humor unique is that he can be irreverent without being tasteless, which seems an amazing concept since modern comedy has made the terms "irreverent" and "tasteless" practically synonymous. Few novels can elicit from me at least one paroxysm of audible laughter, but "Vile Bodies" succeeds in this feat, as does most of Waugh's work.

"Vile Bodies," one his earlier novels, is prototypical of his career, featuring a protagonist who is beleaguered by misfortunes but manages to rise to certain challenges. Adam Fenwyck-Symes is a young author who would like to marry his girlfriend Nina Blount but doesn't have enough money to support her, and he has to write twelve books before he can get a decent advance from his publisher. For the time being, he rents a room at a boarding house run by a woman named Lottie Crump and inhabited by a disparate group of idiots including the deposed king of Ruritania.

Adam petitions Nina's father, a retired colonel who is either senile or eccentric or both, a wealthy man who's too cheap to buy a car or pay for bus fare but enthusiastic enough about the cinema to blow all his money on the production of a film about Methodism founder John Wesley, for some financial aid, but the old man's strings can't be pulled so easily. A ray of hope is offered in the form of the suicide of a local rag gossip columnist named Simon Balcairn who assumes the nom de plume of Mr. Chatterbox. Adam fills in for the deceased hack, documenting the antics of the partying crowd, nonchalantly embellishing and inventing items to make the proceedings more interesting to his readers and himself.

Waugh is brilliant in the way he constructs an episodic novel within the context of an overarching plot, each of his characters usually having one distinct idiosyncrasy that contributes something significant to the story. One episode consists of a drunken Major who bets Adam's money on a sure horse but never makes it clear whether Adam will ever get his money back. Another memorable scene is an automobile race attended by Adam and a few of his friends, including Agatha Runcible, a young lady who nearly immolates herself by carelessness with her discarded cigarettes. And perhaps the most salient extraneous character is Mrs. Melrose Ape, an American evangelist who travels with a chorus of winged "angels," each named after a Virtue. (Chastity's persistent misconduct with strange men is troublesome to the troupe.) Virtue or not, Discontent could never be as Divine as one of Waugh's novels.

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Summary: Sophisticated Humor for the Young
Review: This book will appeal most to the more sophisticated collegiate crowd. Rappers, don't bother. But anyone with a heightened sense of sensibility and a lowered sense of the brute callousness with which the young are sometimes forced to face the travails of the world will find this a funny, original and even retroactively trend-setting gem. The language still crops up at parties of 'darling young things' in Georgetown, Boston, elsewhere: "How tired-making you're being," or "That's very scare-making." It's paradoxically a book about the world-weary young for youth with a fresh sense of humour. A great classic of humour and a good initiation to Waugh.

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Summary: Evelyn Waugh Revisited
Review: This is my very favorite of Waugh's novels. Don't talk to me of Brideshead Revisited or A Handful of Dust. When I read this for the first time as a teenager, it was my Siamese twin-- well, the times that teachers hadn't confiscated copies of it. I bought one new copy from a bookstore just because I heard there was a caricature of Rosa Lewis, but I was hooked on Vile Bodies from page one, long before I ever got to the part about the Rosa Lewis character.

I ended up buying two more copies from a used book store, then stealing a library copy with the help of a flathead screwdriver and some needle-nosed pliers (to pull out the magnetic theft-alert strip), when I figured teachers wouldn't confiscate a copy from the University library.

That's how desperate I was to devote every waking minute to this book until I finished it.

The reason it was hard to hide was the fact that I laughed out loud so many times while reading it. Right in the middle of the "Cell" unit in Biology class, I got to the part about the "angels," and began to giggle, and the more I tried to suppress my laughter, the more it grew out of control. My teacher asked what I found so funny about plant cells that hadn't been funny about animal cells, and then the book was gone.

You just can't go wrong with this book. The humor is very sharp, and cut neatly. There's not a single ragged edge here. Too completely mix my metaphors, there's not a cheap shot. No lame jokes. Waugh is perfect.

Of course, there is a theme underlying his humor. All the humor is directed at time-wasters, be they bureaucrats, the leisure class, or religious types who offer nothing but vague promises of "salvation" in exchange for your, "thank you," donation. He lays some of the blame for the precipitousness of these types on WWI, and England being in some way not "over it." On the other hand, this book is his attempt to pick people up and shake them and say "Get over it!" (OK, not in those exact words, but you get the idea.)

This book is not didactic, though. You are free to ignore the message, and just read the book for its humor. You won't regret it.