Decline and Fall

by Evelyn Waugh

Expelled from Oxford for indecent behaviour, Paul Pennyfeather is oddly unsurprised to find himself qualifying for the position of schoolmaster at Llanabba Castle. His colleagues are an assortment of misfits, including Prendy (plagued by doubts) and captain Grimes, who is always in the soup (or just plain drunk). Then Sports Day arrives, and with it the delectable Margot Beste-Chetwynde, floating on a scented breeze. As the farce unfolds and the young run riot, no one is safe, least of all Paul. Taking its title from Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Evelyn Waugh's first, funniest novel immediately caught the ear of the public with his account of an ingénu abroad in the decadent confusion of 1920s high society.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Humor, Literature, British Literature, 20th Century, Satire

293 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

Evelyn Waugh's father Arthur was a noted editor and publisher. His only sibling Alec also became a writer of note. In fact, his book “The Loom of Youth” (1917) a novel about his old boarding school Sherborne caused Evelyn to be expelled from there and placed at Lancing College. He said of his time there, “…the whole of English education when I was brought up was to produce prose writers; it was all we were taught, really.” He went on to Hertford College, Oxford, where he read History. When asked if he took up any sports there he quipped, “I drank for Hertford.”

In 1924 Waugh left Oxford without taking his degree. After inglorious stints as a school teacher (he was dismissed for trying to seduce a school matron and/or inebriation), an apprentice cabinet maker and journalist, he wrote and had published his first novel, “Decline and Fall” in 1928.

In 1928 he married Evelyn Gardiner. She proved unfaithful, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1930. Waugh would derive parts of “A Handful of Dust” from this unhappy time. His second marriage to Audrey Herbert lasted the rest of his life and begat seven children. It was during this time that he converted to Catholicism.

During the thirties Waugh produced one gem after another. From this decade come: “Vile Bodies” (1930), “Black Mischief” (1932), the incomparable “A Handful of Dust” (1934) and “Scoop” (1938). After the Second World War he published what is for many his masterpiece, “Brideshead Revisited,” in which his Catholicism took centre stage. “The Loved One” a scathing satire of the American death industry followed in 1947. After publishing his “Sword of Honour Trilogy” about his experiences in World War II - “Men at Arms” (1952), “Officers and Gentlemen” (1955), “Unconditional Surrender" (1961) - his career was seen to be on the wane. In fact, “Basil Seal Rides Again” (1963) - his last published novel - received little critical or commercial attention.

Evelyn Waugh, considered by many to be the greatest satirical novelist of his day, died on 10 April 1966 at the age of 62.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_W...

Reviews

[Fabian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, silly, silly Brits! So eager to defend "honour", "custom", "decency". As if these concepts actually even existed! They did not exist then, just as they sure as hell don't exist now. (Instead, we mingle with the complex & the pseudo-complex.)

Like Jude (of "The Obscure" fame), our main man struggles to live within a system (in the novel, prep schools and jails are synonymous) which rules his existence. But this awful society is prettied up so, and the irony (and comedy) derives from the fact that all characters are o-so ignorant. Of the roles they play, of their important or negligible lives, of the upstairs/downstairs never ending bullshit... The masterful touches of a true novelist like Waugh (one of the quintessential writers of British lit.) though, lie in the factual certainty that the real world of today and tomorrow is pretty much the same as 1920's-30's England, with all its citizens perpetually cast in chicken-minus-head roles roaming about on a fickle pyramid. But who wouldn't be stupid enough to fall for dreams of love, glory or riches?

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderfully whimsical (unusual for waspish Waugh) coming of age lark cheered me immensely in Sophomore Year after my own Decline & Fall into disrespect.

The previous year, a free year for me to recuperate after extensive medical attention, I hit rock bottom.

I Declined & Fell through the cracks of polished respectability, a persona non grata. To my on-again-off-again girlfriend Maria, I was just a laughable sorta bum.

So I had to start life ALL OVER AGAIN on my quest to recover, like Rodney Dangerfield, a modicum of respect. Rodney, of course, earned his the hard way:

Through Self-Abasement.

And I was not yet ready for that - no, not by a long shot. With my fellow hippies, I laughed at the establishment.

Wrong play, Shakespeare!

So hard knocks followed mercilessly.

Was Waugh to blame?

Surely not. ALL coming of age stories are like his. But watch how you use that cookie cutter, Fergus...

So now I see my mistake.

Instead of following him directly back to Orthodoxy, I continued to drown in my own soggy slough.

Sauve qui peut -

But (guess what?) call in the God of Rugged Orthodoxy, my friends -

And he’ll do it FOR YOU...

Guaranteed - and with no Strings attached!

A warning, though: He'll give you a Lifetime Cross, for which you'll pay "not less than everything."

It's worth it.

Believe me.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

AN UNPLEASANT ENCOUNTER, OR, THE N WORD IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Bowling along in this droll farce about the upper classes – if you imagine a line with PG Wodehouse (utter lollery) at one end and Edward St Aubyn (still funny, but black, bitter and bleak) at the other – then Decline and Fall is towards the Wooster end of the spectrum - and then on page 77, there’s a sports day organised at the minor public school where our wan young defenestrated undergrad Paul Pennyfeather is now teaching. Gliding soundlessly into the grounds of the school comes an enormous limousine of dove-grey and silver and debouching therefrom

like the first breath of spring in the Champs-Elysees came Mrs Beste-Chetwynde – two lizard-skin feet, silk legs, chinchilla body, a tight little black hat pinned with platinum and diamonds, and the high invariable voice that may be heard in any Ritz hotel from New York to Budapest.

She says to the host “I hope you don’t mind my bringing Chokey” and Dr Fagan

for the moment was at a loss for words of welcome, for “Chokey”, though graceful of bearing and irreproachably dressed, was a Negro.

There follows four or five pages of fun with “the Negro”, but the term used is the n word. Waugh’s intention is to pillory a few dreadful attitudes :

"I think it’s an insult bringing a n----- here”, said Mrs Clutterbuck. “It’s an insult to our own women.” “N------s are all right,” said Philbrick. “Where I draw the line is a Chink, nasty inhuman things.”

You can tell Waugh is having fun at the expense of the racists, but I fear this kind of fun is no longer to our taste, and occupies the same cultural position as a tarantula on a slice of angel cake. You don’t want to see it, and when it’s gone, you don’t want to remember it was there.

BOWDLER – UNBOWDLER - REBOWDLER

But our nearly one-hundred-years-later sensibilities also need questioning too. We don’t want to find ourselves in a contest to see who has the thinnest skin. It leads to the ridiculous idea of publishing a bowdlerised version of Huckleberry Finn.



Some books may well have had the strange experience of being Bowdlerised in the 19th century, un-Bowdlerised in the 20th, and re-Bowdlerised, for different reasons, in the 21st. This is nonsense.

THE SUN HAS GOT HIS HAT ON

In May this year a 68-year-old BBC DJ resigned after 32 years at the BBC because he’d played Ambrose and his Orchestra’s version of "The Sun has Got His Hat On", a song written and recorded four years after Decline and Fall. This jolly, innocuous song goes as follows

The sun has got his hat on, hip-hip-hip-hooray!
The sun has got his hat on and he's coming out today
Now we'll all be happy, hip-hip-hip-hooray
The sun has got his hat on and he's coming out today

He's been tanning n------s out in Timbuktu
Now he's coming back to do the same to you
So jump into your sunbath, hip-hip-hip-hooray
The sun has got his hat on and he's coming out today

The poor DJ was completely unaware of the n word in the song. But apparently, he had to go.

And six years after "The Sun Has Got his Hat On", Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was published, another charming satirical comedy. Miss Pettigrew on page 162 of that book offers some advice to Miss LaFosse, who is trying to choose between two suitors :

"Now the first one, he was kind too," said Miss Pettigrew earnestly, "but well, my dear. I wouldn't advise marrying him. I don't like to jump to conclusions but I think there was a little Jew in him. He wasn't quite English. And, well, I do think when it comes to marriage it's safer to stick with your own nationality."

"Certainly," said Miss LaFosse, demurely.

Oh yes, that came 12 pages after this – here's one of the suitors speaking :

"Now Delysia's a little devil and there's times I could flay her alive, and obviously she needs a little physical correction, but I'm the only right man to do it."

(Those interested may wish to compare these cases with that of "Smack My Bitch Up", a No 8 hit in Britain by The Prodigy in 1997, - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The BBC banned The Prodigy.)

Well, what are we going to do? Not read books older than 1990 for fear of outraging ourselves? Obviously not. But this is a wilderness, there are no rules except the ones you make up yourself. (We are never allowed to forget that Ezra Pound was himself a fascist, but books have been written about TS Eliot in which his profound anti-Semitism is nowhere to be found. I guess the greater you are the more leeway you get.)

The act of reading is a pasodoble between the author and the reader in which sometimes the author stumbles and sometimes the reader and sometimes they’re both flat on their backs.

BUT ANYWAY

Decline and Fall doesn’t break the 4th P Bryant Rule of Novels which says Authors Under Thirty Do Not Write Great Books (Waugh was 25 when he wrote this). It starts off great and then half-way through starts to get sillier and sillier. But – shows great promise! I sort of kind of quite liked it.

[Graham Power · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evelyn Waugh may have been an arch-reactionary but this novel is one of the most lethally funny satires of British society you could hope to find. Waugh held up this mirror in 1928 but the Britain reflected in these pages seems uncannily like the one of today.

The misfortunes of Paul Pennyfeather, our Candide-like hero, begin when he is debagged by the privileged yahoos of the Oxford University Bollinger Club, an elite group of vandals and bully-boys dedicated to destruction and mayhem on an extensive scale. The ensuing chain of events allow Waugh to skewer the public schools, the aristocracy and the penal system with a joyously savage brio that reminded me of the films of Lindsay Anderson.

Decline and Fall is short, sharp and very funny. In fact it’s that literary rarity, your actual comic masterpiece.

[Jan-Maat]

This was Waugh's first novel and was received with great acclaim, even by my old favourite Arnold Bennett. However I find it like eating whipped cream. It goes down easy, but doesn't fill me up.

Clearly I lack the required level of sensibility to appreciate Waugh. Which is to say an addiction to the riotous upper classes. If you think there is nothing better than a snazzily dissolute aristocrat then this is the comedy for you.

It romps from Bullingdon Club style antics at Oxford via cut price private schools, to white slavery, to prison and back again. The hero learns nothing, but is simply spun round full circle on Fortune's wheel.

What is earnest is for Waugh laughable and comes in for punishment or abuse whether that be the League of Nations or Prison reformers. But the rakish, so long as they are blue-blooded, will survive and thrive.

Being of a tragically earnest disposition myself Waugh sharpens my appreciation for Madame Guillotine as an agent for social improvement. But it would be a sad world if we all thought alike.

I think you can see why he ended up a Catholic in this novel, nothing else could give him a fixed and reliable set of values, certainly he found nothing to value in a secular and Parliamentary world.

[Shovelmonkey1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

SUMMARY:
A skewed and satirical version of Lemony Snickets Series of Unfortunate Events for grown-ups including a similar line-up of comedy death scenes and improbably named characters.

THE LONG WINDED VERSION:
Oh Mr Waugh, you're a cad, a bounder and pithier than a bushel of oranges. Why, I do believe that without you the 30s would have been quite insufferably dull. Lets face it, with one war over and another one gestating quietly in the wings, what better way to pass the time than by disemboweling the braying upper classes, armed only with a scalpel-sharp wit.

A cast of ridiculously named, vaguely vapid and generally insufferable middle and upper class buffoons rub shoulders between the pages and try gamely not to tip caviare and absinthe over each others haute couture, while generally taking advantage of those poor gullible middle class types who'll do anything for an extra shilling (including the facilitating of people trafficking and sex slavery apparently). Of course the ultimate irony in this "sending up" of the weak chinned, inbred upper classes is that Waugh himself was in the possession of a not undistinguished lineage, was Oxbridge educated and harboured secret longings to be fully accepted into the Upper Classes.

Still wryly amusing now, but I have trouble imagining how this book was received when it was first published as the buying of books was beyond the means of many working and middle class households at the time and I doubt the upper classes, perched in their wing-back chairs in the library would be slapping their leg, wiping a tear from their eye and ringing for butler to bring them another sherry while they mused on the satirical dissections of their class put forward by young Mr Waugh.

As an aside, it occurred to me while reading this that David Mitchell (he of the Cloud Atlas) probably bloody loved this book, simply for the way all the characters are interwoven and keep cropping up again in different roles and different locations. Wowed by Waugh were we, Mr Mitchell?

[Jean-Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘I don’t believe,’ said Mr Prendergast, ‘that people would ever fall in love or want to be married if they hadn’t been told about it. It’s like abroad: no one would want to go there if they hadn’t been told it existed. Don’t you agree?’

Vicious—death has never been more efficient or undemanding—and hilarious and absurd, but not without one or two objectionable scenes concerning race. Uncomfortable to read? Yes. But representative of the time period in which it was written? Certainly, even if we like to pretend that it isn’t so. Isn’t it nice to be able to recognize how far society—most of society—has come? That aside, I still cannot help but feel that the book fizzled out towards the end. Parts One, Two, and Three, are so divergent, even if the characters remain largely the same, and the book progresses at such breakneck speed, that you reach the end feeling as if you’ve just binge watched seasons one, two and three of it on Netflix. I cannot say that I didn’t enjoy it, but I still feel as if I’ve inadvertently overindulged.

[AiK · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Упадок и разрушение» - это сатирический роман о нравах и государственных институтах в Англии 1920-х годов. Само название говорит о том, что послевоенное общество, наряду с начавшимся процессом крушения империи, переживало упадок нравственности, деградацию общественных ценностей, приводившим к явлениям, описанным в книге, таким, как, например, попойки золотой молодежи в университете, выливавшийся в форменный разгром, попортив мебель, ковры и картины. Но у преподавателей, наблюдающих сквозь окно беснующуюся и веселящуюся толпу человек эдак в 50, возникают совсем другие мысли. Один, с говорящей фамилией Побалдей (в английском варианте скорее всего другая, но эквивалентная по смыслу) подсчитывает, сколько штрафов выпишут студентам, другой, священнослужитель, говорит: «Господи, сделай так, чтобы осквернили». Эти деньги пойдут на попойку самих преподавателей. Так начинается этот роман.
Главным героем является Поль Пеннифизер, который пострадал в этой пьяной вакханалии, будучи отчисленным «за непристойное поведение» с третьего курса. На самом деле, конечно, он был козлом отпущения, потому что был беден и не мог заплатить штраф.
Ему приходится пройти многое – сначала, его, недоучившегося студента, принимают на работу учителем, причем сразу по нескольким малосвязанным дисциплинам, в том числе, обучение немецкому языку, которого он вообще не знает. Никого это не смущает, потому что преподаватели этой школы тоже абсолютно некомпетентны. В конечном итоге, Полю пришлось даже обучать игре на органе.
Ивлин Во критикует снобизм, расизм, глупость, лицемерие и ханжество. Если роман начинается, как сатира, далее он последовательно развивается в гротескно-фарсовом направлении, постепенно превращаясь в полный абсурд.
По сатирическим произведениям можно узнать, что является, по мнению автора, самыми наболевшими проблемами. Этот роман показывает утрату духовности, нравственных ценностей и подмену ими погони за материальными благами, успехом в обществе,
Не могу сказать, что я в полном восторге от этой книге. Возможно, по причине «нам бы Ваши проблемы», и из-за этого возникает ощущение недостаточной остроты критики, мелкости тем.

[Ed · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decline and Fall is an amusing story, told with great wit, and filled with astute social commentary. Unfortunately the commentary is quite particular to its place and time period. I could not really sustain my interest and enjoyment beyond about a third of the way through. It all got a bit too much.

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first Evelyn Waugh and I will be reading more, although I suspect the author finds salvation through religion more than I.

This was the author's first published novel. It was published in 1928 and is a satire of British society of the 1920s. The humor is accusatory, as most satirical humor is. Social norms, cultural differences, education, religion, bureaucracy, prisons, marriage, sex, love, honor - all of these themes are mercilessly poked at, to such an extent that the book could be classified as a farce. This book is meant to make us laugh. I did laugh, but that the humor is stretched to the level of a farce is why I cannot rate it higher.

We are meant to consider where the central character starts and where he is at the end. What does this say about human nature? Keep in mind that what we first see may be deceptive. Look at the title. I do appreciate novels given titles relevant to the book's message.

The book draws on the author's own school years, undergraduate studies and years as a teacher at Arnold House in northern Wales.

Do not listen to the audiobook narrated by Michael Maloney, as I did! This is the most important element of my whole review. I absolutely hated the narration, and tell me, is it easy to laugh when the narrator's intonations infuriate you? I do not think it is fair to lower a book's rating because the audiobook narration is poor. However, it was a pure struggle to concentrate only upon the author's written words and ignore the lousy narration. Maloney's reading has an uneven tempo. One minute he is screaming and the next he is whispering. Names are snot spoken clearly. Women sound like men and men as women. He over-dramatizes. There is a frantic neuroticism in the tone and tempo. I have listened to this narrator read other books. None were done as poorly as this.

[Mike Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saw the TV adaptation some years back and can still visualise David Suchet as Dr Fagan. This farce like story has Paul Pennyfeather losing his life as a monied gent when sent down from University. He is debagged by drunken yahoos and thrown out for running naked through the cloisters. He has to become a teacher at a low key public school. Where the gross characters and farcical situations kick off.

Waugh lampoons race, colour, creed, religion, class…everything …in a wicked manner (ie politically incorrect as of today).

The monologue about the Welsh is side splitting - unless you are Welsh of course 😉I was going to quote some of them but I reflected that might be rash.

Perhaps one for our American cousins I can get away with:

Lady Circumference talking about WW1 and if we are fighting the Americans next time:

‘We had German prisoners on two of the farms. That wasn’t so bad, but if they start putting Americans on my land, I’ll just refuse to stand it.’

Other great quotes about class:

‘I should think by the look of them, they were exceedingly cheap cigars,’ added Mr Prendergast sadly. ‘They were a pale yellow colour.’ ‘That makes it worse,’ said the Doctor. ‘To think of any boy under my charge smoking pale yellow cigars in a lavatory! It is not a gentlemanly fault.’

‘For generations the British bourgeoisie have spoken of themselves as gentlemen, and by that they have meant, among other things, a self-respecting scorn of irregular perquisities. It is the quality that distinguishes the gentlemen from both the artist and the aristocrat. Now I am a gentleman. I can’t help it: it’s born in me. I just can’t take that money.’

Only my second Waugh after ‘Brideshead Revisited’ I look forward to more.

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

An improbable, but comic, tale of Paul Pennyfeather, wrongly sent down (expelled) from Oxford, and his subsequent adventures as a teacher in a very dubious private school, love with an older heiress, prison and Reggie-Perrin style "death".

This was Waugh's first novel, but in places it's like a caricature of his (not yet written) Brideshead Revisited, which I reviewed more thoroughly than this, HERE.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

“What an immature, self-destructive, antiquated mischief is man! How obscure and gross his prancing and chattering on his little stage of evolution! How loathsome and beyond words boring all the thoughts and self-approval of his biological by-product! this half-formed, ill-conditioned body! this erratic, maladjusted mechanism of his soul: on one side the harmonious instincts and balanced responses of the animal, on the other the inflexible purpose of the engine, and between them man, equally alien from the being of Nature and the doing of the machine, the vile becoming!”
Waugh’s first novel. It is a comic and satirical novel. Waugh satirises what he sees around him: it isn’t just gentle, it’s brutal.
The plot is simple and circular. Paul Pennyfeather is a shy and retiring theology student at Oxford. One evening the Bollinger Club is having a party (there is an actual real life equivalent, The Bullingdon Club: previous members include two of our former Prime Ministers: Cameron and Johnson. Let’s not even mention the ritual with the pig’s head) and Paul is at the wrong place at the wrong time. Being found without his trousers he is sent down for indecency. The only job he can get is in a minor public school in North Wales. Cue some dubious jokes about the Welsh:
“From the earliest times the Welsh have been looked upon as an unclean people. It is thus that they have preserved their racial integrity. Their sons and daughters rarely mate with humankind except their own blood relations.”
If you like this form of humour you may like this (I don’t).
The Masters at the school are a rather odd bunch with some odd habits. The boys do pretty much what they like. At various functions, including a rather disastrous sports day (races started with a real gun … you know where that’s going) Paul meets the mother of one of his pupils and is invited to be his tutor during the summer. There he falls in love with the mother, not realising she runs a worldwide string of brothels amongst other things. She decides she wants to marry him. He is sent to Marseille to bribe some policemen who won’t let some of her “girls” on a ship. Paul is charged with trafficking women and is sent to prison for seven years. Cue some more jokes about the similarities between prison and public schools.
In prison he meets most of the masters from his school. His wife to be marries a government minister and arranges for Paul to be spirited away to Greece. He grows a beard and returns to his theological studies at Oxford as a cousin of his former self.
The plot is mostly incidental and all the action pretty preposterous. There are echoes of Wodehouse:

“Old boy," said Grimes, "you're in love."
"Nonsense!"
"Smitten?" said Grimes.
"No, no."
"The tender passion?"
"No."
"Cupid's jolly little darts?"
"No."
"Spring fancies, love's young dream?"
"Nonsense!"
"Not even a quickening of the pulse?"
"No."
"A sweet despair?"
"Certainly not."
"A trembling hope?"
"No."
"A frisson? a Je ne sais quoi?"
"Nothing of the sort."
"Liar!" said Grimes.”
Pure Wodehouse, but yet it really isn’t, there is malice in this. There is some very striking racism and misogyny. The satire does have humour and as always with Waugh it is well written, but it’s pretty soulless.

[Trevor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just finished this book and look, read it. It is a delight from start to finish. In an odd way it reminds me of O Lucky Man - the Lindsay Anderson film. It also reminded me of Monty Python at their best, no, at their very best. Ok, so perhaps some of the social stereotypes don't really exist anymore, but that would be like not reading Wodehouse because no one has a man servant anymore. The architect is comic genius in its purest form - I may have even laughed out loud (though never lol) when he decided that he would have to put a staircase into the building but complains something along the lines of, what is the matter with people that they have to move around so much? Why can't they just sit still and work? And his saying that we should divide people into dynamic and static rather than male and female is just inspired.

By reading this book you will learn, among much else, that a course of action is worse than criminal behaviour (I think this may be becoming my favourite quote of all time), why people from public schools have an easier time in prison than those from slums, why it is best not to announce too loudly that you no longer have your appendix and how doubting Ministers of religion should not loose their heads over prison reform.

All delivered in straight-faced English deadpan. It doesn't get any better than this.

A romp, a riot - read it.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Decline and Fall" is an entertaining satire of British society in the 1920s. A quiet Oxford Divinity student, Paul Pennyfeather, is set upon by some alcohol-fueled members of the Bollinger Club and loses his trousers. Pennyfeather is expelled for indecent conduct. As he is leaving the university the porter says to him, "I expect you'll be becoming a schoolmaster, sir. That's what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for indecent behaviour."

Evelyn Waugh satirizes the public schools and the good old boy network of helping each other out of "the soup". Humorous situations poke fun at the lifestyles of the rich and titled, inept government officials, modern architecture, and more. I enjoyed Waugh's deadpan black humor as we see Pennyfeather involved in a year of improbable situations to come full circle in his life.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Decline and Fall" has served as my introduction to Evelyn Waugh, and I am satisfied. This biting satire has deadpan dark humor, a protagonist whose detached observations serve the plot well, and an ending that is depressingly stark in its view of our human nature.
This novel reminds me greatly of Voltaire's "Candide" in its themes, plotting, and characterization. The novel zips along and sweeps the reader into a plethora of events, each more outrageous than the last, until it dumps you at the end with a sad realization about this "ship of fools" we call life on earth. Don't get me wrong, the novel won't depress you, but it will leave you with a lot to mull over once you close it. However, Waugh makes the journey bearable through some of the most outrageously funny lines I have encountered in literature. I laughed out loud often while reading this text.
This is a book that can easily be misread. One could read it on the surface level and get a funny story with a dope of a lead character. You would enjoy it, put it down, and move on. And that is fine. However, this novel is such a text and much more. Waugh has an innate ability to combine biting and relevant observations about society into the most ridiculous conversations between his characters. Read this text for the humor, but stay alert to the nuggets just beneath the surface and you will get a fuller experience.
Some readers may have trouble with the British colloquialisms that Waugh uses, but most can be figured out from context.
I will be exploring more of this writer. I can pay him no higher compliment that that.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I cordially hated this! Cordially because I still feel kindly to Evelyn Waugh, but this was not at all my style of humor. It's way too ridiculous. The only thing I liked about it was Paul Pennyfeather as a character, but he is not enough to make me ever want to read this again. I'm probably missing some of what the humor is making fun of, but I don't really care after reading it.

[Barry Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ugh how great is this? Waugh's biting satire of his time and class is just *heart eyes emoji*. This is a lot funnier than I expected it so be, although it is very much British humour (which I love) so it may be lost on a lot of people. It's sort of like a comical Clockwork Orange mixed with Anderson's If.... Basically it's a Malcolm McDowell film (but nothing like Caligula). It's really very good. It's my first Waugh and I need more! He may be a new favourite.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decline and Fall is an amusing satire that skewers many aspects of British society in the 1920s. Waugh takes special aim at the foibles and pretensions of the upper classes and their institutions. Neither Oxford nor public school education escapes his pen. Nor does the “enlightened” penal system. And Waugh makes sure that the Welsh come in for their fair share of caricature.

The book is home to a collection of characters memorable for their silliness, with Philbrick, Captain Grimes, and Lady Margot Beste-Chetwynde being among my favorites. The book is fun to read, although some of the satire has lost its edge over time. I’m sure I would have loved it had I been an Englishman reading it in 1928.

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decline and Fall was Evelyn Waugh's first novel, and the first novel of his (that's right, Kelly, Evelyn's a man) that I read. It wasn't at all what I expected.

I expected a weighty, gloomy, hopeless, depressing love letter to the British upper crust. I expected the kind of book Merchant-Ivory would be happy to film amidst overcast skies and lush lawns. I expected Masterpiece Theatre during a PBS funding push.

I didn't expect scathing satire, a sort of P.G. Wodehouse with fangs, nor did I expect to laugh as much as I did. I was genuinely surprised by what I found, and while I did enjoy the surprise, I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. My enjoyment of Decline and Fall suffered from my preconceptions, which were actually misconceptions.

What I wanted to read, what I was hoping to read, was something a bit more like Brideshead Revisited. The whole experience was like eating a hamburger when craving roast beef. I still enjoyed the hamburger, but I longed for the beef, and my disappointment was unavoidable.

Peter Pennyfeather's journey from school to teaching to prison and back again is funny without sacrificing Waugh's acidic burn. And the funny rarely descends into the silly like Jeeves and Wooster are wont to do (not that there's anything wrong with silly). Decline and Fall maintains its focus, delivers its critique, and does so with purpose. It really is an excellent little novel. Too bad I can't like it more.

If I'd known what I was getting into when I cracked the book, I would have liked it immensely, but unfulfilled expectations -- like mine with Decline and Fall -- can be the death of any piece of entertainment. This time they were more like a grand mal seizure, but that was enough to diminish the experience for me.

[Lorenzo Berardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Decline and Fall' is the sort of merciless social satire about Oxford and its elitist characters I expected to find when I bought 'Zuleika Dobson' by Max Beerbohm.

Whereas the latter left me utterly disappointed - to the point I left that book half-read - this novel turned out to be far more brilliant than I thought.

It's funny to notice how Mr. Beerbohm was chiefly a caricaturist who toyed with literature while young Evelyn Waugh was exactly the opposite.
And I believe both men made the right choice in sticking to what they did best later in their life.

'Decline and Fall' was published in 1928 as an 'illustrated novelette', but Waugh's sparse cartoons are amateurish and clumsy when compared to his brilliant flourished words.
In fact, among the novelists I have been reading, only the Swiss author Friedrich Durrenmatt had a worse inclination to figurative art than Waugh did.

So much for Evelyn Waugh's early aborted career as an awful cartoonist.
Shall we focus on his writing? Oh yes, indeed!

Mind you, this novel is the very first published by Waugh and it is better than a household name of British humour like P.G. Wodehouse in my humble opinion.

Am I partial to Mr. Waugh?
Well, to be honest, I don't think I am. And let me tell you why.

This guy was a conservative at heart, a converted Roman Catholic and an incurable reactionary.
Had he lived in these years, Evelyn Waugh would have probably had his weekly column in The Times or The Telegraph attacking the UE and flirting with the UKIP.
I hardly doubt his harangues would have spared harsh words on Eastern and Southern European immigrants alike invading the UK.
Had we met in person, Mr. Waugh would have probably been condescending in talking to me, found my English pronunciation disgraceful and my social manners uncouth.

But still, I'm not bitter about him. Not a bit.
No hard feelings, Evelyn.

True, Mr. Waugh changed and developed his writing style quite a lot, but the joyous, sadistic pleasure that you can find in this early novel of his is unsurpassed in his later - and more accomplished - works.
After all, this is the same author who delivered novels such as 'A Handful of Dust', 'Brideshead Revisited' and 'Scoop' which are staple food for many an English literature fan. And yet, all those books were just too perfect to blow me away completely.

'Decline and Fall' might be a juvenile work, but it does have power, anarchy, courage.
What I'm trying to say is that this novel is spontaneous and authentic to the point that you can easily imagine its author giggling at his own jokes and making fun of its own characters.

The downside of this novel is that there is plenty of racism in it. Which is hardly surprising thinking that Waugh is the same guy who entitled one of his novels 'Black Mischief'.

Actually, if you are a black person, an Italian, a Frenchman, a Welshman or have Jewish heritage chances are you will be either deeply offended or bitterly amused by this book.
And if you're a woman things won't improve that much. Female characters here are pompous matrons, coquettish posh bitches and prostitutes (Waugh plays the prudish by calling them 'entertainers').

But then again Waugh here is pitiless in his scorn for everyone and every social class, from aristocracy to the bourgeoisie passing through Bauhaus-inspired architects, butlers, schoolmasters and pub-owners.
If there is one thing Mr Waugh is excellent at it's in despising people and the way he does that is terribly funny.

'Decline and Fall' is a 'Candide Revisited' without the wit of Voltaire, but with much more enjoyable cruelty. Waugh didn't need to stage the Lisbon earthquake to raze to the ground the times he lived in.

[Keith Bruton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

Sent down from Oxford for indecent behaviour, Paul Pennyfeather embarks on a series of bizarre adventures.

Historian writer Andrew Roberts said this was one of his favourite books as well as Edwards Gibbon's Decline and Fall which has the same title. So I decided to give this a whirl and was somewhat disappointed. The first few chapters were promising but then it kind of lost its way. The racial slurs used on chapter 8 can also be off putting. It was witty at times but nothing like PG Wodehouse, he was the best at it.
.
I do have Vile bodies on the shelf by Waugh which I might give a go in the future but not anytime soon.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Description: Expelled from Oxford for indecent behaviour, Paul Pennyfeather is oddly unsurprised to find himself qualifying for the position of schoolmaster at Llanabba Castle. His colleagues are an assortment of misfits, including Prendy (plagued by doubts) and captain Grimes, who is always in the soup (or just plain drunk). Then Sports Day arrives, and with it the delectable Margot Beste-Chetwynde, floating on a scented breeze. As the farce unfolds and the young run riot, no one is safe, least of all Paul. Taking its title from Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Evelyn Waugh's first, funniest novel immediately caught the ear of the public with his account of an ingénu abroad in the decadent confusion of 1920s high society.

31.03.2017: this BBC production is fabulous fun!

Bettie's Books

[Lea · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's funny, but the racism ruins it.

[Eylül Görmüş · Rating 4 out of 5]

Komiksin Evelyn Waugh, valla komiksin. Flaş Haber'deki kadar yüksek perdeden kahkahalar attırmadıysan da yine güzel eğlendirdin beni. Çünkü yani hayatta İngiliz mizahı diye bir gerçeklik var, değil mi?

1928 tarihli Gerileyiş ve Çöküş, ünlü İngiliz yazar Evelyn Waugh'nun ilk eserlerinden biri. Bizdeki çevirisi ise yazarın 1961 yılında gözden geçirdiği hali. Kitap, adını ünlü tarihçi Edward Gibbon'ın kült eseri "Roma İmparatorluğu'nun Gerileyiş ve Çöküş Tarihi"nden alıyor.

Konunun Roma'yla ilgisi yok tabii. Yüzyıl başı Britanya'sındayız, Paul Pennyfeather adındaki kahramanımızın hayat öyküsünü okuyoruz. Paul, nasıl desem, yani dümdüz bir abimiz. Yazar da zaten farkında, bir noktada bize şöyle sesleniyor: "Okurun şimdiden farkına varmış olduğu üzere, Paul Pennyfeather'dan asla bir kahrama çıkmayacağı bellidir, onunla ilgili merak uyandıracak tek şey, gölgesinin şahit olduğu bu sıradışı olaylardan kaynaklanmaktadır."

Olaylar çok sıradışı sahiden ve son derece de absürt. Paul'ün başına gelen manasızlıklar silsilesini çok eğlenceli biçimde anlatıyor yazar, üstelik tam o sırada kurulan Milletler Cemiyeti'nin (bugünün Birleşmiş Milletler'i malumunuz) günlük hayata etkilerini filan da müthiş sarkastik biçimde kitaba ekliyor ki bu açıdan yazarın çok sevdiğim kitabı Flaş Haber'le benzerlikler taşıyor diyebiliriz. Paul'un Oxford'dan atılması, bir okulda hocalığa başlaması, orada tanıştığı tuhaf tipler, derken kendini hapishanede bulması vs... Bir absürtlükler silsilesi bu kitap.

Ben sevdim. Bayıldım, öldüm diyemem ama çok tatlı vakit geçirten, akıcı, eğlenceli bir kitap kendisi. Arz ederim. Şu harika alıntıyla bitireyim:

"İnsanların böyle bir şeyden haberleri olmasaydı âşık olacaklarına ya da evlenmek isteyeceklerine inanmıyorum. Yurtdışı gibi tıpkı: Var olduğundan haberleri olmasaydı kimse yurtdışına çıkmak istemezdi. Aynı fikirde değil misiniz?"

Çok tatlısın Evelyn Waugh. ❤️

[Jose · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Evelyn Vaugh's first novels, he wrote it at 25, and hence lacking in arch and depth but ...it is funny. Vaugh skewers society (England in the 1920's) by launching his main character -Pennyfeather on to a voyage through everywhere from Oxford to boarding school to high society to prison and back. He is hapless and aims for nothing but finding something to "stick" to. I the end, he just aspires to be left alone and comfortably static. Sure, the world has changed since then but it is the scalpel that matters. Vaugh's disillusion is pervasive, with only a dry humor to coerce some surprise. The stakes are low, it is true, as the events start to become ever more absurd and everyone remains sheltered by class and well-sconced expectations but the banter keeps flowing and it is witty and fun to observe.

[Matthew Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

144th book of 2023.

I went off Waugh as a strong-minded university student because he was a young Tory boy who had been educated at the giant school down the road (figuratively) from my parents' house where, on occasions, I would be taken to their indoor swimming pool for kayaking lessons (that's how big the pool was). As I got older I realised two things about life: (1) art and the artist are separate and (2) that ignoring my hatred for their political persuasion, those with right-wing beliefs are generally funnier than those with the left.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evelyn Waugh’s social satire that makes buffoons of the English upper-class system, particularly hard on the education sector. I wish we could say none of this rings true, but alas beneath the farcical facade is an element of truth--as indeed there must be if satire is to work at all.

About midway of this novel, there is a scene set at a boy’s school sports day. I could picture this event perfectly...the children of the wealthy and prestigious, not an athlete among them, taking all the honors and awards in races that make no sense whatsoever.

This is Waugh’s first novel and it achieves what he set out to do, I’m sure. Being a huge fan of his Brideshead Revisited, a more straightforward look at the English privileged, I found this not able to compete. On the other hand, this is where the groundwork was laid for the great writing to come, and as satire goes, this one works.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up.

I took a half star off since - although this is largely a comic delight - the rampant racism and frequent use of the 'N' word I found to be quite distasteful (although considering this was written in 1928, I suppose some allowance should be made). The silliness of the book and characters reads quite contemporary, however - with the incorrigible Dr. Grimes being the standout character (he's played with hilarious fervor by Douglas Hodge in the inevitable miniseries).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxMQS...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLYEd...

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A puredee delight. One of the funniest novels I've ever read.