Vile Bodies (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Waugh was at a turning point in his personal life when he wrote this book. His wife — also called Evelyn but referred to by their friends as “She-Evelyn” so as to avoid confusion — had decided to divorce him as he was writing Vile Bodies. Knowing that, it’s hard not to see something of Waugh’s misery and the conduct of his ex-wife in the life and behaviour of Adam and Nina. And there’s another thing too: in Vile Bodies, Nina suggests that her sexual relationship with Adam was dull. In real life, She-Evelyn once commented about Waugh: “All this fuss about sleeping together . . . I’d sooner go to my dentist any day.” Evelyn Waugh was in his mid-20s when he wrote Vile Bodies (1930), but he had already seen enough of the foibles of the ruling class to provide ammunition for a lifetime of storytelling. Although he hailed from a solidly middle class family, Waugh associated at Oxford with a circle known as the 'Hypocrites Club', and thereafter mingled with the rich and fatuous before marrying Evelyn Gardner, the daughter of a Lord and Lady. Waugh writes with a comical touch, precisely using the sort of characters he more than likely would have associated with in his own life. This novel I would say is somewhere along the lines of a raw satire, which features seemingly farcical and madcap goings-on in London's lavish high society. There are some of the most ridiculously silly character names I have come across, with the likes of Miles Malpractice, Fanny Throbbing, Lottie Crump and Melrose Ape, to name a few. Diana: "Praying. Don't be absurd. Evelyn simply doesn't pray. And even if he did no-one would mention it." 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.

There is much to admire and enjoy in Vile Bodies, however this is one of Evelyn Waugh's less successful novels (measured against his exceptionally high standards). It's probably of most interest to Waugh completists (of whom I am definitely one) or anyone interested in gaining eye witness insights into the world of the Bright Young Things.

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It's been bound by Sangorski and Sutcliffe. Evelyn usually got Maltby's of Oxford to do the binding of his diaries for him. But as he presented this manuscript to one of the richest couples in the country, it may have been luxuriously rebound at some point.

Nancy: "Praying. Don't be absurd. Evelyn simply doesn't pray. And even if he did no-one would mention it." It's been suggested in the Waugh literature that the character Agatha Runcible, is in part a portrait of the Bright Young Thing, Elizabeth Ponsonby. There is probably something in this, but in chapter ten, Evelyn is surely thinking of She-Evelyn, the woman who has just deserted him, notwithstanding that she is already well and truly embedded in the book as Nina.I will always be a Decline and Fall man, though I'm impressed by the attempt made in Vile Bodies to transform experience (failure in marriage) into art ( 'Good-bye... I'm sorry, Adam. ')

Adam spices up the flagging column with a series of ‘Notable Invalids’– well known people who are deaf, bald, disabled, one-legged, and certified insane. When he has exhausted this line of entertainment, he begins to invent celebrities who do not actually exist. He creates the society beauty Imogen Quest and fills his column with her spectacular successes and designer clothes. Eventually she becomes so popular that the editor of The Daily Excess Lord Monomark wants to meet her. Adam is forced to despatch the Quest family to Jamaica the same day. Actually, strictly speaking it was Adam's pal, Archie Schwertz, who gave you the fiver and bought everyone champagne." The difference is that somewhere along the road, we stopped satirizing these people and took to glorifying them instead. Case in point: the person who wrote the 2000s version of this story - pretty young things with too much money, too few brains and too strong a sex drive - had it serialized in print and brought to life on TV, now known and idolized by millions as Gossip Girl. This is in no sense (except the Christian) a Charity Exhibition. In overcoming for the first time what the artist himself admits as his extraordinary shyness, and opening her house to those who wish to see the works of Bruno Hat, Mrs.Guinness is attempting to do a service less to him than to the artistic public.' In Vile Bodies , a tannoy announces that car 13 has disappeared from the course at Church Corner, turning left instead of right there, and was last seen proceeding south on the bye road. This can be made sense of by referring to a map of the circuit, as below. The road that goes south from St Mary's Church in Comber (bottom edge of map) goes straight south for many a mile. Picture poor Agatha at the wheel, trying to keep control of the beast of a car that she's voluntarily taken the wheel of.

Heavily influenced by the cinema and by the disjointed style of T. S. Eliot, Vile Bodies is Waugh's most ostentatiously "modern" novel. [4] Fragments of dialogue and rapid scene changes are held together by the dry, almost perversely unflappable narrator. [5] Orwell’s further comments about not being able to be Catholic and grown up chime with Cyril Connolly idea of In the last chapter of Vile Bodies , called 'Happy Ending', we learn from a letter from Nina to Adam, being read on the front line of the biggest battlefield in the history of the world, that Nina and Ginger are together again. Nina is pregnant with Adam's child, but that's fine, she says, because GInger thinks he's the father. Waugh was also at a spiritual turning point as he finished writing Vile Bodies. It was in 1930 — the year that the novel was published — that he converted to Catholicism. (Waugh described himself as having been an atheist prior to his conversion.) He was prepared and formed by a Jesuit priest. The novel’s title itself (not what he planned to entitle the book originally) is also a reference to religious imagery and themes. The term ‘vile bodies’ appears in Philippians 3:21, and is a reference to Christ and transfiguration: “…Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” In one sense, the novel explores the meaninglessness of an existence not grounded in some belief in a transcendental. In her 1985 book, Loved Ones , Diana suggests that the thing Evelyn loved most about Paris was the Musée Grevin, which was a short walk north from the flat, past the Louvre and other classic beauties. In those days the Musée Grevin was like Madame Tussauds, only more horrible. According to Diana, Evelyn particularly liked the tableau of Christians being thrown to the lions.