Enjoyable introduction to Waugh
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This is my first Evelyn Waugh novel and I will be definitely reading more in the near future. It is very accessible, extremely funny in places and has a good laugh at the British upper classes. I don't know if this book has any merit other than the farce that it is but it is enjoyable to read a famous classic author and not to struggle through it.
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Not his best and not very good in its genre either
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From the same author I had read and liked "A Handful of Dust" and "Brideshead", two "serious" books, the latter made extremely famous by the mini-series starring Jeremy Irons. "Decline and Fall" belongs to the category of (slapstick?) comedy. I don't think it is a success as such though. It is plagued by flaws typical of first novels. Lack of momentum: each chapter seems to begin the story anew rather than take over when the preceding one left. Many characters (students and teachers) are not well individualised and socially unconvincing. Most importantly, much dialogue is redundant and leads nowhere: in a novel dialogue should either help the story forward or contain witticisms; when it does neither it should be curtailed. I should say that my judgement was probably made more exacting by the fact that I read this book after reading one of Waugh's contemporary and friend: Anthony Powell. I now realise that the latter deals with a similar subject matter a much more compelling way.
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Waugh At His Best
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"Oh I shouldn't try to teach them anything yet"
Decline and Fall is simply one of the greatest novels I have ever read. It is laugh out loud funny whilst also moving the reader to care deeply for these fates of it's bumbling characters.
The story is easily epitomized by the title. Paul Pennyfather is a theological student at Oxford. Unfortunately despite being an inoffensive individual he is "sent down" from Oxford for an incident. The incident in question involves running across the quad sans pantaloon.
When he is cut from his fathers will he has no money and only one option- become a teacher.
The high jinks of his time as a teacher in Wales continue to constitute his fall until he falls prey to a sophisticated seductress and things go downhill from then on.
The brilliance of Waugh's wit shines throughout the novel as it cuttingly attacks and mocks the British Public School, the class structure of the early 20th Century and the scandals the British newspapers thrive upon.
Waugh's wit is augmented by a story that holds together and is fast paced. This keeps the jokes fresh and in abundance.
And the sum total of this narrative is that we learn nothing. Paul reflects that "there was not much to be gained by our knowing each other". Instead the novel is about what life means not "physiological implications of growth and organic change" instead the difference between people who are static and those who are dynamic. This difference Waugh supposes is that Paul was destined to be static and somehow got caught up in this glamorous world completely by chance.
Thus "Decline And Fall" stands as a warning about fame, particularly in this "heat" generation more than 70 years after it's publication. Waugh shows through Pennyfather that fame has a price and one that we may not be able to afford. Not all of us are cut out to be dynamic- that is hanging on to the wheel for dear life.
"Decline and Fall" stands the test of time because the strength of this underlying message and leaves one with a feeling of utter joy and a burning compulsion to turn the page and start the whole damn thing again.
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The easiest 'classic' I've read in years
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Great fun and a remarkably quick read. I agree with other reviewers that some of the coincidences in the narrative are a little hard to stomach - at least until one realises that it's to do with the style of the book. Waugh's satire is so naturalistic that things like that stick out - but they're meant to; partly to themselves satirise the 'everybody knows everybody' attitude of the English upper classes at the time.
Interesting also - having read this several years after consuming Tom Sharpe's oeuvre, it's clear that Sharpe was heavily influenced by his fellow Lancing College alumnus.
All in all, an excellent introduction to Waugh's work.
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Best-ever Waugh
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I must have read this ten times, and I'm not done yet. Every time you find something new, something you missed the time before
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Canada