I admit I've never really gotten this book. How on earth can a family of frivolous, affected aristocrats be seen by anyone as the acme of civilization? As a glossy soap opera all this solemn, unintentionally campy hokum perhaps works. But as a seriously intended statement of what British society has supposedly lost, it's just laughable.

You're not getting the big picture: it's all relative to the competition . You have to compare it with the life of Stalin's ruling class, or Borgia's Italian equivalent, or perhaps ancient China, where a "Censor" who was duty bound to point out shortcomings of the Empire, might be publicly beaten to death for doing so. I wish our ruling classes were more frivolous than they are, right now, as the Republic deteriorates. disigny

Frivolous aristocrats may be preferable to fascists, but they're really not worth swooning over either. Then again, Waugh was a conservative pessimist who probably thought it had to be one or the other, with no other alternatives.

"Frivolous aristocrats may be preferable to fascists, but they're really not worth swooning over either. Then again, Waugh was a conservative pessimist who probably thought it had to be one or the other, with no other alternatives."

Maybe I’m a conservative pessimist too but what alternatives do you think that there are? Show me the well off person who is neither frivolous nor power mad.