Vile Bodies

by Evelyn Waugh, Nathaniel Parker (Narrator), Emilia Fox (Narrator), Rebecca Fenton (Editor), Tobias Menzies (Narrator)

book data

1,352 ratings, 3.81 average rating, 146 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		23%
4		41%
3		27%
2		6%
1		1%

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published

November 1st 2008 by CSA Word (first published 1930)

details

Audio CD

isbn

1934997153 (isbn13: 9781934997154)

description

Evelyn Waugh's second novel, VILE BODIES, is his tribute to London's smart set. It introduces us to society as it used to be but that now is gone fore…more

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Mar 13, 2009

Evan rated it:

(review of isbn 0141187506)

bookshelves: 2009-reads, humor, in-my-collection

Read in March, 2009

Up til now I was 0-2 with Waugh, which might elicit a "Waugh is me," which, alas, it just did...

"The Loved One," his famous satire of the death business in the USA mildly amused me in high school. I found it at least more interesting than "Scoop," a look at the news biz that I barely remember anything about at all other than the lingering memory of being bitterly disappointed by it.

"Vile Bodies" is often said to be his masterpiece, ...more Up til now I was 0-2 with Waugh, which might elicit a "Waugh is me," which, alas, it just did...

"The Loved One," his famous satire of the death business in the USA mildly amused me in high school. I found it at least more interesting than "Scoop," a look at the news biz that I barely remember anything about at all other than the lingering memory of being bitterly disappointed by it.

"Vile Bodies" is often said to be his masterpiece, and so I just waded into the first 50 pages and find them mildly amusing as it follows the adventures of several sets of Brits (we're asked to consider quite a large cast of characters right off the bat), particularly one young stifled author, Adam, betrothed to a woman who hardly seems interested. In some ways she seems to embody the dispassionate tone of the book so far. The style of the book is supposed to be more complex than usual for Waugh. I find it equal parts infuriating and engaging enough as a peek into social mores of a time and a people. But, at this rate, I'm afraid I may be looking at 0-3. We'll see.

OK, so on page 125 now and well more than halfway in and have to say this odd book has kind of crept up on me. The phony society columns Adam is writing, to the chagrin of the gullible in-crowd makes for funny situations. The reappearance and deft disappearance of the man with Adam's 1,000-pound horserace betting money is a nice circle-back.
I found myself infuriated for most of the way to some degree by this book --- it's written in almost a machine-gun like way, snatches of dialogue and incident move it along rather than typical explanatory narrative segues. It gets more compulsively readable as it goes along. I can see this being a possible re-read to catch subtleties missed on the first go. I like this study of Brit society more than I like Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," I think. Still reading this with great fascination...

Page 185. Have just gotten through the motorcar race segment and have to say this book has ingratiated and wormed its way into my affections. This, after initial struggle with it --- I fought it and thought it frivolous and even pointless at first, and had trouble with the style --- it now reads like a breeze and I'm finding myself laughing out loud. Should finish this up promptly...

OK, finished. So the pampered Euro elites partying to their doom sort of thing... All right then. This was uneven but rewarding. No doubt my favorite Waugh so far. So maybe in reality I'm now 2-1 with Waugh, because I did sort of enjoy "The Loved One" enough to give it three stars. (less)

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Mar 30, 2008

Kris rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

bookshelves: bookblog

Read in March, 2008

Vile Bodies is no Brideshead Revisited, but then, if you read my (much) earlier post on Brideshead, you'll know that even Brideshead itself didn't quite live up to it's own first 100 pages for me. What I'd really like to do is just read the beginnings of Evelyn Waugh novels from now on. From the first pages of Vile Bodies I was filled with the delicious anticipation of forthcoming satirical wit, but just as I experienced with Brideshead, Handful of Ashes, and even Decline and Fall, the rest of t...more Vile Bodies is no Brideshead Revisited, but then, if you read my (much) earlier post on Brideshead, you'll know that even Brideshead itself didn't quite live up to it's own first 100 pages for me. What I'd really like to do is just read the beginnings of Evelyn Waugh novels from now on. From the first pages of Vile Bodies I was filled with the delicious anticipation of forthcoming satirical wit, but just as I experienced with Brideshead, Handful of Ashes, and even Decline and Fall, the rest of the book left me still wanting. Vile Bodies opens grandly on a ship in a storm, and bounces around from character to character - Father Rothschild, bearing someone else's suitcase containing a false beard; Evangelical Mrs. Ape and her seven children (named Charity, Fortitude, Prudence, Divine Discontent... etc.) who sing hymns and wear wings; Prime Minister Outrage (only in office a week) and on and on... all of whom seem bursting with potential for scandalous, lovely satirical hijinks... and yet... while they reappear throughout the book in various little episodes, never feel skeweringly sharp or nearly as clever as they were going to be in my imagination, back on page 5.

The vignette that is clearly central and by far the most entertaining, was that of Adam, a young writer who has just finished his first novel, for which he's been paid a hefty advance. Upon getting off the boat, Adam encounters a customs officer who confiscates most of his books and then burns his manuscript, due to its supposed indecency. Adam meets with his publisher and concludes that he'll have to write a novel every month for a year to meet his newfound debt, and that he won't be able to marry the lovely Nina Blount as planned. Throughout the rest of the book, Adam resurfaces on and off, always suddenly falling into some small fortune, telling Nina the wedding is back on, and then losing everything and cancelling the wedding again. The best of these episodes surrounds Adam's breif stint as a gossip writer named Mr. Chatterbox, and he writes a weekly "Page 6"-ish column about the "bright young things" of society and all their crazy night lives. He soon gets bored and just begins inventing important people, or hyping restaurants and clubs that are not nice at all and thus tricking everyone else into flocking there. He is promptly fired, of course, but not because his bosses care that he's making things up (they seem to expect this) but because he wrote that someone was wearing a bottle-green bowler hat and no one could conceive of such nonsense. So he's fired and the wedding is off... at least until the next escapade.

While predictable, this manages to be very funny for the most part and keeps the novel humming along. Adam encounters many of the odd characters from the introduction as he goes along, but they never seem very important, or interesting, and are gone before long.

In a move reminiscent of Brideshead, the novel concludes with a surprise flash-forward to Adam in the midst of "the biggest battlefield in the history of the world" wherein he reads a letter from Nina, now happily married to someone else and very much still flighty and out-of-touch. Now in a warzone, the silliness of all the preceding chapters is thrown into sharp contrast and here, but really only here, the irony is deliciously sharp. However, it didn't quite feel like the payoff I wanted from the previous 300 pages. I did appreciate one thing, though - the book came out in 1930 and in the forward, Waugh writes that the book is set in "the near future, when existing social tendencies have become more marked" - all of which makes this final chapter, in the "biggest battlefield in the history of the world" eerily pre-escient.(less)

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Dec 24, 2007

Chris rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

Read in January, 2008

I finally get to post something.

Took a long time to get through this book, and I'm still not entirely sure why. Part of it, I believe, is me, not Mr. Waugh. A good book really is the right match between the author's words and the reader's willingness to succumb to it, and I haven't been lately.

But the end of this lighthearted farce came with a little more of a bittersweet ending than I expected. It takes a look at a decadent class of people as they flitter through situati...more

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Dec 03, 2009

Jennifer (JC-S) rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

Read in November, 2009

‘All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I’d sooner go to my dentist any day.’

Adam Fenwick-Symes is an unheroic hero. Adam’s engagement to Nina Blount is called off when the manuscript of his book is burned by a customs official. Adam’s livelihood depends on this manuscript and the customs official’s ‘livelihood depends on stopping works like this coming into the country.’ Alas, poor Adam. On the periphery of the Bright Young Things, in that h...more

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Jul 16, 2009

Trena rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

Read in July, 2009

recommended to Trena by: Book Club

I don't know that this "classic" has stood the test of time so well as true classics. I am sure it was hysterically funny at the time it was written, but it got only a single snicker from me (though several inward smiles). When I compare to much older books that are still hilarious (Henry Fielding comes to mind), it falls a bit flat.

But it is still a solid three star read. The Absurdism is absurd, the adventures madcap, the names clever, and the love story thread quite amu...more

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Jan 02, 2008

Sara rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

Read in November, 2007

What is this book even about? It seemed like a best-of British one-liners from the interwar era. After putting down the book in a kind of daze, we happened to pick up Bright Young Things on TiVO. I wondered what they could possibly put in a film. But it was line-by-line accurate, and to my surprise, beautiful, evocative, and sort of touching. Not only was it better as a film, but my post-partum brain actually needed the film to show me what was in the book. "How shaming."

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

1 comment

Dec 28, 2009

Paula rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

bookshelves: 1001, between-the-wars, read_in_2010

Read in January, 2010

I seem to have a habit of reading books that I don't much enjoy on January 1. Last year it was Lord of the Flies which left such a bad taste in my mouth I still remember the depth of my dislike.

At least Vile Bodies wasn't too terribly bad, for my taste, it was more that it was a style of writing to which I am not much accustomed. Waugh seemed to jump right into a scene in life with a mash of characters, and never stepped back to set the stage in a way that I normally like. It was no...more

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Sep 12, 2007

Julie rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

Read in September, 2007

As my Waugh-coach John observed, this book speaks truths as apropos now as they were between the two World Wars. I think that high-waisted jeans may be the "black suede shoes" of today. As for "green bowler hats", may I suggest, well, green bowler hats? Kate Moss is a fan, I hear. Waugh is such fun because his snark is surreal, not ironic, though I didn't really get the Ms. Melrose Ape storyline.

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Aug 18, 2008

Michel rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

bookshelves: hist-fic, lit

Read in September, 2008

Waugh is as cruel and observant as Agatha Christie, but his characters are hollow: they are what they do.
Quite probably an accurate portrait of high society in the twenties, amoralized by the great war, gutted of compassion and weary of human interaction.
I enjoyed the book and had a few laughs, but the dispassionate humor leaves an ashy, cynical aftertaste.

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Jul 10, 2008

Zepp rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

Edgeless sandy satire- laughing fires punctuate an otherwise unfancied landscape.
But it does include my new favorite expression, which is Ginger up! and I don't know what it means but it works in just about any mood room smile situation.

Only three stars because this is the same guy who wrote Brideshead...

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Sep 11, 2007

Eleni rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

This is one of those books that I didn't really enjoy at the time that I was reading it, but have since appropriated just about every possible pull-quote from my now dog-eared and underlined-to-death copy. Waugh delivers fantastic dialogue that remains with you long after your initial read.

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Oct 06, 2009

Maureen rated it:

(review of other edition)

bookshelves: 09

Read in October, 2009

well, this was my first waugh, and he came highly recommended by mr. p.g. wodehouse, so my expectations were high. despite the fact that there is an author's note saying you don't need to have read his previous novel "decline and fall" before reading this one, though they share similar characters, i had trouble keeping all of the characters straight, especially since they quite often acted in very similar ways. lord metroland and lord monomark were especially hard to distinguish, and ...more

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Feb 18, 2008

Eric rated it:

(review of isbn 0140188606)

The finest Waugh. The funniest 20th century novel, in my opinion. Too many people buy Brideshead and fall asleep in it. Skip that and read this. Read Decline and Fall first though. Waugh at his brisk, bright, unsentimental best.

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Mar 30, 2009

Mary Anne rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

Read in April, 2009

This book is mentioned in Bright Young People which I just finished reading. It is a fictional description of youthful society in London in the 1920s. The author was a member of that society as well as a chronicler
of their exploits in the gossip columns of the newspapers just as his protagonist, Adam.
The romance between Adam and Nina mirrors the Evelyn Waugh's own romance and first short-lived marriage to a woman also named Evelyn (referred to by friends as He-velyn and She-velyn). ...more

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Jan 05, 2010

Elliott rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

Read in January, 2010

Instead of writing an original review of "Vile Bodies," I'm honoring the time-tested, market-approved hip-hop methodology of sampling by cribbing choice bits from some other joe's (thank you Evan Gilling for being articulate where I am not) review and reproducing them here in a delightfully context-free yet strangely coherent way. If recent musical trends are any indication, this should be fun and profitable.

"I find it equal parts infuriating and engaging..." "...more

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Sep 24, 2009

Gabriele Wills rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

bookshelves: between-the-wars

Read in January, 2010

I definitely think that the movie ("Bright Young Things" by Stephen Fry) was better than the book, primarily because there seemed to be more depth and even poignancy to the characters than in the novel. I don't enjoy a book unless I can connect with at least one character, and these all seemed to be caricatures. Amusing at times; pathetic at others. I expect that the "bright young things" that Waugh skewered thought it was hilarious (since it was a great success at the time),...more

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Aug 16, 2009

Lesley rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

I just finished reading the gorgeous 1930 novel, Vile Bodies by the old genius of a boy, Evelyn Waugh.

I feel it's not too soon to admit to this already being one of my favorite books of all time. Just lovely in every way.

I'd already seen the hilarious 2003 film adaptation by my hero, Stephen Fry but I actually think I like the book even more.

So rich with wit and humor. so full of characters that one would love to share a bottle (or 40) of fizz with.

...more

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Jun 20, 2009

Ally rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

Read in January, 2010

When I read this book about 5 or 6 years ago I remember feeling rather ambivalent about it - it didn't grab me or keep me hooked until the end but it was a fairly easy read and generally 'OK'. I originally rated it 3 stars.

I have just re-read it and it has made a much bigger impression on me the second time around, which I can probably put down to having read more literature from the period in question and therefore gaining a wider appreciation of modernist literature in general.
...more

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May 02, 2009

Janey rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

bookshelves: read-2009

Read in October, 2009

3.6, say. Definitely meant to be revisited, for various reasons. Hilarious just about straight through (highly quotable/reciteable), and a very fast read (appropriately). Plenty of drinking (how divine!), very little eating (what a perfect bore); these vile bodies indeed. And so much stuff; if I were in a cartoon and dropped this book, it is likely that it would make a frightful clanking noise. And the picture of Waugh inside the front cover of this edition still cracks me up.

Shiny ...more

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Sep 16, 2007

Howard rated it:

(review of isbn 0316926116)

This is Waugh’s second novel. It’s a very funny, very brutal satire of British society “between the wars.” It’s filled with drunks, frauds, tabloid journalists, offended sensibilities, harried inn keepers, and put-upon servants. Everyone seems to be living a Zelda & Scottie lifestyle filled with drinking, witty quips, and the occasional car crash. The plot is as heedless as the lives of its characters; it defies summary. It’s mostly a look at a glittering, hard drinking group of Brig...more This is Waugh’s second novel. It’s a very funny, very brutal satire of British society “between the wars.” It’s filled with drunks, frauds, tabloid journalists, offended sensibilities, harried inn keepers, and put-upon servants. Everyone seems to be living a Zelda & Scottie lifestyle filled with drinking, witty quips, and the occasional car crash. The plot is as heedless as the lives of its characters; it defies summary. It’s mostly a look at a glittering, hard drinking group of Bright Young Things, and the endless destruction they leave in the wake of their endless party.

Waugh’s secret weapon is not airtight plotting, but his glittering dialogue. It’s not just the sparkling wit of its characters. Waugh captures the rhythms of speech for literally dozens of characters. These are British characters; most authors are satisfied with a bit of “’ow’s ye drink, guv’nor?” Waugh does not settle for such lazy devices. Every character’s voice seems to be pitched a particular way. You can almost hear their voices in your inner ear.

For all of the humor and wit at work here, Waugh’s book also has a distinctly dark edge. Several characters are killed. One commits suicide. Reminders of then-contemporary events are in the background. Waugh describes a Tube platform filled with office workers wearing poppies on their lapels, a reminder that WW1 was less than a decade in the past. Waugh also hints that another destructive war (he was writing in 1930) was on its way. While the plot seems to simply shift from one drunken party to another, it also suggests that the dissolute scenes in the book are as much a result of the characters’ uncertain future, as they are a result of the characters’ relentless pursuit of pleasure. Alternatively, Waugh is also describing a fallen world whose inhabitants are stumbling drunkenly into oblivion.

“Decline and Fall” is not just the title of Waugh’s first novel. it is also his great theme; that of the fallen state of Britain (depicted as much with humor as it is with melancholy) in the years before WW2. This book fits well within that theme.
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