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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
Reads like a strange marrage of Bellow and Fitzgerald. Waugh's satire is sharp and his characters are amazing.
I wish I could give this book more stars, the pretentious side of me really wants to, but I cannot. Although the book is very wry and definitely a shrewd social commentary on the decline of the upper class throughout the early 20th century. However, without the introduction in the Penguin edition, I would have missed the finer points. The imagery definitely requires reflection, and in my case, footnotes. Overall it was an enjoyable light read to pass the time. Therefore the book gets three stars.
All of that said, the book makes it clear that Waugh was a masterful writer. The references and allusions in the novel that make it quite as cutting as it is are truly genius. If I were rating the novel on skill alone it would easily get 5/5 stars. That's not what I'm doing here though, my rating is a reflection of how much I enjoyed the novel overall. Definitely worth the read but nothing utterly mindblowing in terms of storyline.
All of that said, the book makes it clear that Waugh was a masterful writer. The references and allusions in the novel that make it quite as cutting as it is are truly genius. If I were rating the novel on skill alone it would easily get 5/5 stars. That's not what I'm doing here though, my rating is a reflection of how much I enjoyed the novel overall. Definitely worth the read but nothing utterly mindblowing in terms of storyline.
This book was a good palate cleanser. I'd recommend this if you like Oscar Wilde (similar vibes but not as good). I do love a bit of British wit.
What other way is there but to damn your privileged ‘oh so bored’ with everything main character than have them read Dickens aloud in the jungles of Brazil? That’s a pretty good one to be fair ha-ha!
(Apart from that this is pretty dull and blasé about pretty much everything, just teetering on something that could explode, maybe I’ll look at Waugh’s earlier novels, maybe I just don’t have the time to care, you know?)
(Apart from that this is pretty dull and blasé about pretty much everything, just teetering on something that could explode, maybe I’ll look at Waugh’s earlier novels, maybe I just don’t have the time to care, you know?)
This is difficult to rate because of its sickening, depressing trajectory. However, the journey still manages to be captivating and authentic, even though the travails suffered by the hero are outrageously unlikely, except that the hero is accepting and culpable, in his trust and naivity. The novel has suffered criticism because the female characters are unsympathetic, although they are varied in their loathsome characteristics. Waugh wrote this after being cuckolded by his first wife; and it shows. Yet a feminist critique fails because Waugh once again proves that he hates everybody: he clearly has no sympathy for the male hero, who almost deserves all he gets, terrible though his fate is, given his own lack of skepticism, followed by reckless adventurism. The story still plays on my mind as so dark as to make me wish I hadn't read it sometimes. But as ever with Waugh, the characters and the narrative arc are so deep and rich that the book is rewarding as literature despite being unrewarding as affirmation.
There were some good things, but I think I was just disappointed after Brideshead.
I did not get very far listening to the audio edition. The wife and her friends are so thoughtlessly urbane & apparently used to floating around from one lover to another, that I wasn't able to suspend disbelief. It reminded me of books & tv shows set in the 70s & 80s - you step into a world where fantastic levels of self-indulgence are suddenly normal & you hardly question it. Myself, I've never been close to any society where everybody knows and sleeps with everybody, but I suppose it exists in closed, wealthy circles over history. The Bloomsbury Group that Virginia Woolf incubated in comes to mind. Anyway, I was unable to mentally immerse myself in this particular world & then the little boy was killed & I couldn't stomach reading further. Turns out I was missing all the levels of metaphor & historical commentary (Victorian vs. Post WWI & Women's Freedom - generally negative?). I think it's safe to say that this was a religious author's criticism of a Godless society (thanks to the state run church), which is maybe why it rubbed me the wrong way. It sounds like a Virtuous person's description of dreadful, immoral people.
Now I know where Martin Amis got his writing style from. "Pastoral" would be a kind word to describe this work, as weirdly absorbing as it becomes. The basic premise mirrors that of many comedies of manners from around its time; wife takes apartment in the city and takes a lover, leaving the hapless husband at home. Wife feels guilty. Wife attempts to set husband up with a lover. Husband is oblivious. The repercussions are immense.
I got the feeling that Waugh was trying too hard at the beginning of this book, and that after he stopped trying and started just plain writing, the book got a whole lot better. He spends a relatively unnecessary length of time setting the scene before anything really starts happening, and that scene-setting is interminable. (I should mention that Amis' writing style mirrors those first seventy pages to a T.) However, once Waugh stops attempting to be so damned urbane, and gets on with the task of putting his characters in increasingly unrealistic situations, both the pace and the humor pick up. The obligatory tragedy happens, and when it does, it's a mark of how much better the book has gotten that it's unexpected, and the reader realizes that maybe he feels something more for these characters than a cordial sort of despise.
One could (and one is sorely tempted) compare and contrast Waugh's novel with Amis' _Dead Babies_ as synecdochic of what's happened to British humor over the past sixty years. One will not stoop to such a level, since one is utterly infatuated with Dawn French, and thinks The Vicar of Dibley is the cat's pyjamas where TV sitcoms are concerned. So one will content oneself with saying that Waugh, using understatement and irony, has written a far more humorous novel than Amis, whose main conceits were slapstick and drugs. Still not one of the better things I've read this year, could have used a good editor in the beginning, but not bad, not bad at all.
I got the feeling that Waugh was trying too hard at the beginning of this book, and that after he stopped trying and started just plain writing, the book got a whole lot better. He spends a relatively unnecessary length of time setting the scene before anything really starts happening, and that scene-setting is interminable. (I should mention that Amis' writing style mirrors those first seventy pages to a T.) However, once Waugh stops attempting to be so damned urbane, and gets on with the task of putting his characters in increasingly unrealistic situations, both the pace and the humor pick up. The obligatory tragedy happens, and when it does, it's a mark of how much better the book has gotten that it's unexpected, and the reader realizes that maybe he feels something more for these characters than a cordial sort of despise.
One could (and one is sorely tempted) compare and contrast Waugh's novel with Amis' _Dead Babies_ as synecdochic of what's happened to British humor over the past sixty years. One will not stoop to such a level, since one is utterly infatuated with Dawn French, and thinks The Vicar of Dibley is the cat's pyjamas where TV sitcoms are concerned. So one will content oneself with saying that Waugh, using understatement and irony, has written a far more humorous novel than Amis, whose main conceits were slapstick and drugs. Still not one of the better things I've read this year, could have used a good editor in the beginning, but not bad, not bad at all.
dark
funny
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes