Vile Bodies

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.