Customer Reviews

Decline And Fall

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"Decline and Fall" is British satire at its best. Set in the life of the British Upper Classes, this book makes light of its self importance. It is humorous both in its plot and its wording. Paul Pennyfeather, a Public school man (private school in U.S. terms) lives an improbable life and meets with a host of characters. As readers of my reviews know, the novel is not my main reading genre, but as I discover more novels like this my interest I might grow.

This was by far the best book I have ever read. It is side-splittingly hilarious while also grabbing hold of, twisting and photographing English society of the time.

Not a huge commitment, as it is short, this book will nonetheless change your life. I want more books to be this book.

Our book club has decided to do Decline and Fall. It's been over 30 years since I last read this masterpiece. Oh what a treat to read it again!

I think the cover of this book is very well drawn - the look of all the Waugh books put out by "Back Bay," actually, is interesting, with those funny-looking illustrations and garish orange color. Still, I'm not sure about the quality of the binding. My copy has held up well, but I was in a bookstore, reading a copy of "Scoop" (also by Waugh, also put out by Back Bay, also a paperback) and the glue that bound the pages and the cover didn't do its job properly, and you can guess the rest.

So it might be worth your while to get a brand new copy of this book, or find a hardcover. I should make clear that if you don't own a copy of this book, you are missing out on a potential reference for how to create an effective writing style. Waugh's style is magnificent, especially for a satire like this. His sometimes pretentious prose fits the ironic occassion perfectly. But usually his style is more restrained, and the book, as a consequence, reads quickly and is remembered easily.

The novel concerns one Paul Pennyfeather, a former Oxford student kicked out (of Oxford) shortly after the First World War for "indecent behavior." As the story goes on, he becomes a schoolmaster in Wales, engaged to a noblewoman who may have murdered her husband, and thrown into prison. The series of misadventures Paul undergoes is purposeful: at every level of '20's English society some group of people or some set of mores is castigated.

Now you might be asking yourself whether or not you want to read this book. I think it is safe to say that no matter who you are, you should read it. It reads too quickly to be dismissed as "not worth my time," but it is too important in terms of those large questions like "Why is life so rotten? Could it be particular attitudes we have inherited from our ancestors?" to be left alone.

More deadpan than hilarious, "Decline and Fall" is the story of Paul Pennyfeather, who seems not only to attract misfortune but to embrace it as his due. While depicting Pennyfeather's downward trajectory, Waugh skewers the pretensions and mocks the hypocrisy of every class of British society. Although I trust Waugh did not mean for the reader to sympathize with Pennyfeather, who is truly an apathetic oaf, I (ironically) found him surprisingly likable.

Blameless throughout, Pennyweather resignedly and almost eagerly accepts punishment for crimes committed by others. (In prison, he positively enjoys solitary confinement for its regimen and its lack of stress.) Some of Waugh's commentary is a bit pedestrian, especially to modern readers, but he occasionally and fearlessly tackles weighty and "scandalous" themes: the apostasy of the clergy ("modern churchmen who drew their pay without the necessity of the commitment to any religious belief"), the excesses of the prison reform movement ("So far as possible, I like the prisoners to carry on with their avocations in civilized life. What's this man's profession, officer?" "White Slave traffic, sir."), and societal attitudes towards an aristocratic lady who takes a black American lover (and her own patronizing posture). This last subplot, it must be said, makes uncomfortable reading, because the black character barely rises above stereotype, because Waugh unflinchingly uses racial epithet, and because ultimately the reader is not quite sure where Waugh is coming from.

Much of Waugh's satire is dated, but (like Candide) Paul Pennyweather is a virtuous nobody whose misadventures transcend time. The edition from Everyman Library also includes an astute introduction from the critic Frank Kermode, who provides useful background for the book instead of assuming you've already read it.

While I think that Brideshead Revisited is his best, this is Waugh at his funniest, before the iron had got into his soul. The satire of an English public school is executed with such a light touch that even a character's death cannot prick the bubble. Especially recommended to fans of Kingsley Amis's "Lucky Jim."

This book has become my personal invitation to screaming, stomach grasping laughter. Waugh's portrayal of the particular bigotries, blindnesses and vanities of the various members of the British class system; the manner by which it invades every personality and way of thinking lends a good shaking up to contemporay myopia and to my funny bone. And though I may have laughed before, I have never been so guaranteed of a side splitting mood changer as when I pick up this book and begin to read. Alas, although I've read just about everything else Waugh wrote, and God knows loved, nothing in his enormous body of great writing reached this level of perfection and perfect aim.

Waugh's first novel is an outrageous satire that pokes fun at the British class system, religion, and education. If one does not take it at all seriously, then it is a howlingly funny book. His "hero," Paul Pennyfeather, and the other characters float in and out of various kinds of trouble without seeming to learn a single thing. Best moment - the casual, but horrifying fate of poor little Lord Tangent. The amusing illustrations drawn by Waugh himself are a delightful bonus. I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading more of Waugh.

Poor Paul Pennyfeather! As the "hero" of Evelyn Waugh's first novel he is barely worth a cent and light as pillow stuffing. This flimsiness of character may cause concern unto lack of concern in the reader who wishes to strongly identify with the protagonist, but halfway through the book, Waugh's narrator assures us that Pennyfeather's hollowness is intentional:

"In fact, the whole of this book is really an account of the mysterious disappearance of Paul Pennyfeather, so that readers must not complain if the shadow which took his name does not amply fill the important part of hero for which he was originally cast."

Pennyfeather is someone who is acted upon more than he acts--perhaps it is better to say he is more sinned against than sinning--his story begins when he is attacked in an Oxford quad by a group of his snobbish bully classmates. They strip him naked from the waist down and before he knows it the university has expelled him for indecent behavior. He then loses his allowance and ends up teaching in a disreputable prep school in Wales where adventures continue to be inflicted upon him.

Waugh never allows Pennyfeather to defend himself, his satirical point being that an English gentleman wouldn't stoop to blame those who had wronged him, even if it means he goes to jail. After all, his irrepressible fellow teacher Grimes tells Paul, no matter how bad things get, there is "a blessed equity in the English social system that insures the public school man [public schools in England are actually private] against starvation." It's that social system that the young Waugh, twenty-five when this book was published, enjoys puffing up just to tear it down. Waugh maintains a light narrative touch though his subject matter is often serious and occasionally outrageous. He structures the book well and has a sharp appreciation for the absurdities of the English upper classes in the 1920s that is not inapplicable to many other time periods and cultures.

DECLINE AND FALL did not make me laugh as much as I thought it might. There are funnier English campus comedies out there, notably Kingsley Amis's LUCKY JIM and the first part of Waugh's own BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. Waugh was one of the twentieth century's great stylists, however, and I look forward to reading his second book, VILE BODIES.

I must have bought a dozen copies of this book. I give it to the young and university-bound, lend it to friends who need help in understanding the English character, and make sure I always have a copy around to re-read at regular intervals. The story of Paul Pennyfeather's parabola - or perhaps ellipse -through English 1920s society is told with a deadpan acid wit, through fantastic recurring characters that recur both in the story and later in your life as you encounter those like them. I'm not going to tell you that you must read this book, but I'm going to invite you to enjoy as I did and still do, each time I re-read it.