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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A taste for death: Evelyn Waugh’s mordant comedy of manners - the American way of death - has dated, since little Britain became a pound shop 51st state, with the same showy grief and ostentation on display a-plenty this side of “the pond” as people would no doubt say. Poking fun at vulgar yanks becomes a bit awks when the limeys are at it as well, only in a more half-hearted and passive-aggressive manner. It’s still funny, though, particularly in satirising the entertainment business which forms the backdrop to business activities of the Whispering Glades memorial park and its animal companion counterpart, the Happier Hunting Ground, which annually generates an automatic card to be sent to the mourning pet owner informing them that their much-loved pet is wagging his / her tail in heaven tonight. All very well until it’s used for the disposal of an inconvenient (human) corpse. Best bit - the conversion of former starlet Baby Aaronson from Spanish civil rights activist Juanita del Pablo into an Irish matron,if only they could think of a name: “‘She’s turned everything down. Maureen - there are two here already; Deirdre - no one could pronounce it; Oonagh - sounds Chinese; Bridget - too common. The truth is she’s in a thoroughly nasty temper.’” Can’t say I’m surprised. Middle-of-the-Waugh and perhaps one for the devotees rather than new readers start here. Good mourning.
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
I can't say that I really understood this book. It takes place in post WWII Hollywood, dealing with the absurdities of fame and famous death as well as expectations and conflicts within the British expat community. As someone who is unfamiliar with all of those things, it was hard for me to tell where the line was between representation and satire.
a fun little novel with a surprising satirical edge that reminded me of john irving. also, the protagonist has the exact name of my father, which was a fun surprise.
fast-paced
‘It is a natural instinct, Mr Barlow, to shrink from the unknown. [But] … Realize that death is not a private tragedy of your own but the general lot of man. As Hamlet so beautifully writes: “Know that death is common; all that live must die.”’
‘She was convenient; but Dennis came of an earlier civilization with sharper needs. He sought the intangible, the veiled face in the fog, the silhouette at the lighted doorway, the secret graces of a body which hid itself under formal velvet.’
‘She presented herself to the world dressed and scented in obedience to the advertisements; brain and body were scarcely distinguishable from the standard product, but the spirit – ah, the spirit was something apart; it had to be sought afar; not here in the musky orchards of the Hesperides, but in the mountain air of the dawn, in the eagle-haunted passes of Heilas. … As she grew up the only language she knew expressed fewer and fewer of her ripening needs; the facts which littered her memory grew less substantial; the figure she saw in the looking glass seemed less recognizably herself.’
From Penguin edition, reprinted 1952 [Orange cover], from pages 44, 45 and 105.
‘She was convenient; but Dennis came of an earlier civilization with sharper needs. He sought the intangible, the veiled face in the fog, the silhouette at the lighted doorway, the secret graces of a body which hid itself under formal velvet.’
‘She presented herself to the world dressed and scented in obedience to the advertisements; brain and body were scarcely distinguishable from the standard product, but the spirit – ah, the spirit was something apart; it had to be sought afar; not here in the musky orchards of the Hesperides, but in the mountain air of the dawn, in the eagle-haunted passes of Heilas. … As she grew up the only language she knew expressed fewer and fewer of her ripening needs; the facts which littered her memory grew less substantial; the figure she saw in the looking glass seemed less recognizably herself.’
From Penguin edition, reprinted 1952 [Orange cover], from pages 44, 45 and 105.
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No