Maybe I'm just being contrary here, but I've never been that dazzled by Evelyn Waugh. Scoop was pretty good about the pack instincts of journalists, but his treatment of Africa is nothing short of racist and hateful; The Loved One was an attempt to write a satire of American society informed by nothing but a few frustrating weeks in Hollywood and the limited glimpses of the country he got while making well-remunerated lecture tours (Nabokov's thrusts at American culture hit much harder because he got the details right, and he got those right because he lived here). As for Vile Bodies and A Handful of Dust, they are mostly animated by his anger at his awful first wife (she was awful, but he seems to have married her mostly because she was upper-class, so he probably got what he deserved). And then there was that endless trilogy of novels where he posited himself as the last honorable man in England, an antidote to all of the gray mediocrities taking over the country. I could tolerate the animating presumption of those books if Waugh had ever convinced me of his exceptionalness, but I've only found his work to be exceptional for its bile, not the talent with which the bile was expressed.

me disagree, but you write heap good...never give 'em rating before...you deserve six pointed star, but no jews anymore at slate...just impartital, diverse editors. here goes...hope this doesn't hurt:

doink!

It's not just you. I think Waugh is overrated. He is utterly ruthless, not a bad quality for a satirist but I think he is inferior to many other writers who get less praise and attention.

'brideshead' just shows the loss of a generation of well-educated, smart edwardian males that ticked evelyn off more than a little...graves on leave (a georgian) describes hearing a mother holding a frightening seance in an english cottage trying to ressurrect her dead son...graves told the ghost that tried to appear through the wall of his room--'just go away!'

it's hard to bring such realities forward in time without the witnesses...thank goodness dubya is stuffing the perps.