Having long been a fan of The Bright Young People of the 1920's naturally Vile Bodies was high up on my list of books to read and last month I finally got my hands on a copy.
The 1930 novel by author Evelyn Waugh satirises a particular decadent young contingent of London society that emerged in the years following the first World War.
Often considered one of Waugh's lesser offerings I happened to enjoy it immensely and regularly became envious of what wonderful monikers the characters were given.
Agatha Runcible, Miles Malpractice and Archie Schwertz all make Martin Metcalf sound rather drab.
As with all my book posts I have included a favourite passage below so please do have a read through and pick up the book if you can.
"Oh Nina, what a lot of parties."
(...Masked parties, Savage Parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties at St Johns Wood, parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and nightclubs, in windmills and swimming baths, tea parties at school where one ate muffins and meringues and tinned crab, parties at Oxford where one drank brown sherry and smoked Turkish cigarettes, dull dances in London and comic dances in Scotland and disgusting dances in Paris - all that succession and repetition of massed humanity...Those vile bodies...)
The 1930 novel by author Evelyn Waugh satirises a particular decadent young contingent of London society that emerged in the years following the first World War.
Often considered one of Waugh's lesser offerings I happened to enjoy it immensely and regularly became envious of what wonderful monikers the characters were given.
Agatha Runcible, Miles Malpractice and Archie Schwertz all make Martin Metcalf sound rather drab.
As with all my book posts I have included a favourite passage below so please do have a read through and pick up the book if you can.
"Oh Nina, what a lot of parties."
(...Masked parties, Savage Parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties at St Johns Wood, parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and nightclubs, in windmills and swimming baths, tea parties at school where one ate muffins and meringues and tinned crab, parties at Oxford where one drank brown sherry and smoked Turkish cigarettes, dull dances in London and comic dances in Scotland and disgusting dances in Paris - all that succession and repetition of massed humanity...Those vile bodies...)
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