Decline and Fall

Paul Pennyfeather is the main protagonist in Decline and Fall, which is not to say we ever see him developed as a character or come to know him in any way. He is more the pawn that Waugh uses to unfold his story, and a funny tale it is. None of the characters are really imbued with any depth, but then they don't need to be.
Decline and Fall is a farce, and draws more from the supporting characters and the situations that Pennyfeather finds himself in. Delving into his deepest thoughts would only hinder the fun and flow of the story. Consider this the forerunner to It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Just enjoy the madcap fun, Pennyfeather's naive outlook of the world, and Waugh's skewering of society at every level.

Clever. A quote:"I don't believe," said Mr. Prendergast, "that people would even 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...."

Happenings of a ex-University student circa 1930

The first hundred pages or so of this novel are among the funniest I have ever read. I urge you to read it. Much of the humour throughout the book is caustic satire. What really made me laugh were the unexpected and perfectly turned comments from various characters. The protagonist is entirely passive. Things happen around him and to him. Were it not for its brevity, the novel would have dragged for me because I find it hard to identify with a character that doesn't really care about himself. That's a very personal reaction though. Don't let it put you off if you like a good laugh.

sometimes hilarious, sometimes mean and nasty. probably much better than i'm willing to give it credit for right now, but i really don't like evelyn waugh.

Scorn can make for a trying read when its cruelty and harshness are still fresh, but almost a century on, Waugh's mockery of his own world has cooled to a playful and inventive caper. Very funny, carefully composed, remarkably restrained and economical for a first novel, yet still wide-ranging in it's scope and subjects. Diffident, hapless Paul Pennyfeather is borne from one farcical escapade to another, dispassionate witness to the frantic pretensions of the other characters: "How they all shriek and giggle!" as Professor Silenus puts it. Pure pleasure; I could read it again and again (this, prompted by an 'In Our Time' radio discussion, was, I think, my third time).

Waugh's first novel is a wonderful satirical dark comedy, with no shortage of humorous characters. Be prepared for some racist and plenty of politically incorrectness. Paul Pennyfeather is sent down from Scone College for 'indecent behavior' and is disowned by his guardian. In need of money, he manages to get a job as a teacher at Llanabba, a small boys school in Wales. At Llanabba, Paul finds his own method of getting along with the boys and faculty members, often with hilarious results. But lest you think this is just a chuckle-a-minute book without any depth, the build up to the final chapter where the meaning of life is explained with a very interesting and vivid metaphor is simply superb.

Evelyn Waugh's debut novel is a very promising start for an author who was to become a master of comic fiction. His protaganist ( hero would be too strong a word) is the hapless Paul Pennyfeather whose misadventures interrupt a contented if dull undergraduate life at Oxford University. He exchanges his sheltered existence for a journey through a cross section of pre-war British Society, meeting an amazing array of eccentric and venal characters along the way. Many of these are funny and yet appalling such as the chameleon-like Grimes or Philbrick who constantly remakes his identity, constructing a different one for whomever he is talking to. The most fascinating person Paul encounters is the gorgeous Margot Beste-Chetwynde, alluring but dangerous.Paul, passive and lacking any real personality functions as the conduit through which we experience the novel, it's characters and the manners and mores of England in the late 1920's as the era of the "bright young things" gives way to a more sombre society. There is a bitter flavour to the end of the novel as Paul ends up precisely where he has begun, leaving the reader to ponder on just what he has learned through the more worldly education he has experienced.In later novels Waugh would refine his comic vision; there are broadbrush effects here which are a sign of his novice status, but the assured narration and acute satire of a class-ridden, and rather rigid society mark him out as an author with something to say and the ability to say it entertainingly.

This is Waugh's first published novel. Based on its title, and having read his second novel (Vile Bodies), I pretty well knew to expect a satirical, funny-with-a-message book about the atrophy of the British Empire. But really, isn't all post-WWI British lit about the decline of Empire? Playing off Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Waugh wasn't even trying to be subtle. And so church, the educational system, and the aristocracy fall victim to his scathing pen and wit. With one caveat, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As The Atlantic says, Waugh has created a "riotously anarchic cosmos." How can you not have fun with a book where characters are named Sir Alastair Digby-Vane-Trumpington; Lady Circumference; Lord Pastmaster; Clutterbuck; Colonels Slidebottom, Shybottom and Sidbotham; Hon. Miles Malpractice, Sir Humphrey Maltravers, and Lord Parakeet. Trust me, I could go on. Great fun.The caveat: I try not to judge older books by today's standards. And it's no secret that the British ruling class of the 1920s had utter disdain for anyone who was not them. And further, Waugh is satirizing the ignoramuses making the comments. But still, the racism (against 3 different groups, but mainly Africans) was very uncomfortable to read. So, if this bothers you, rather than miss an otherwise lovely novel, just skip chapter 9 entirely. It's one short chapter out of 26, and may increase your enjoyment of the novel. You won't have missed any story.Recommended for: Waugh is a must-read for all Anglophiles. If you don't like British humour, this one isn't for you.

It's not a good sign when you've read a book at least twice but still can't really remember what you thought of it or any of the plot.Paul Pennyfeather is sent down from Oxford and becomes a teacher at a minor public school. Various bizarre adventures ensue.

A briskly paced but densely written schoolboy farce which takes its hard-luck protagonist, Paul Pennyfeather, from Oxford to a down-at-the-heels boy's school in Wales to the arms of the formidable Margot Beste-Chetwynde and back. Humor doesn't often age gracefully, and so it's a testament to Waugh's talent that much of "Decline and Fall" is still genuinely laugh-provoking some seventy years after its publication, and to an American reader, no less. A few unforgettable characters, such as the protean Philbrick and the resourceful Grimes. also make this novel very much worth reading. I would have enjoyed "Decline and Fall" much less had I not read the perceptive introduction by a certain David Bradshaw that was included in my Penguin Classics edition. Knowing a bit about Waugh's own anti-modernist political and cultural leanings helped me put his spoofs, of modern writers, psychiatry, jazz musicians, and the Welsh, in proper perspective. If nothing else, "Decline and Fall" gives the lie the oft-heard assumption that there aren't any funny conservatives out there. While I enjoyed this book, I can't say that I'm quite finished with it and think that it probably deserves a reread. In a way, that might be the best compliment I can give it. After all, how often do you hear yourself saying that about a comic novel?

Thanks to Mark Feeney for visitng my 1982 hospital bed with a fistful of Evelyn Waugh. He began my lifelong love of this absurdist anarchist rapier commenter on society and all of our foibles. I don't wish I could write like him. I wish I had his eye in a roomful of people.

Decline and Fall is a short satiric novel, compassing the tragic life of the main character, beginning with his being sent down from Oxford, his becoming a school teacher, and his further misfortunes. It is quite a different book to Waugh's Brideshead, as it is not serious. This book is deliberately written to be a farce, and to make the reader sympathise with the main character in his suffering of the hardships which he doesn't deserve, and consequently, to enjoy the few happy turns of fate which he survives to see through his optimistic persistence in life. I don't read many comical books, but I did enjoy this. I would recommend it to anyone who needs cheering up, it really made me laugh.

I haven't read this for years but all I remember about reading it is that I laughed out loud when I read it on a train, I literally could not stop laughing. Brilliant writer and very funny book.

Hilarious. It was a pleasure to return to D & F after reading Brideshead earlier in the year. Much funnier, though less moving than B., it is a favourite of mine, because of the satire & a vague feeling of sentimentality when thinking of school days.

Mild to quite amusing light satire on the mores and manners of the English upper classes during the 1920's and the naivety of the aspiring bourgeoisie (not leaving the lower orders unscathed with some patronising en passant caricatures, nevertheless tinged with a modicum of affection). The narrative is a 'stiff upper lip' farce: a young Oxford undergraduate finds himself the unwitting victim, several times over, of the amoral cavorting of upper class types, leading to his sending down from College, his sudden and convenient romance and betrothal to a high society socialite and (unknown to him) 'white slave trafficker' who leaves him in the lurch when, once more unwittingly. he is apprehended parti pris and has to carry the can in gaol; his subsequent retrieval from prison by the machinations of the same woman, only then to slope off to an obscure religious vocation is a little anticlimactic. There are many targets for EW's dry satire and some of the set pieces bite strongest, including the account of a somewhat dadaist school sports day, during which a young boarder is shot (and his eventual demise chronicled in a several brutally indifferent epistolary asides, made by both headmaster and his mother) and in the caricature of the iconoclastic destruction of the Pastmaster stately home for a vulgar modernist carbuncular make-over. Some of these sketches also sail close to the wind in portraying the casual racism and discrimination of the age ('Chalky', Mrs Beste-Chetwynde's 'companion', is described using language no longer deemed acceptable) while committing much of the same in the narrator's racist portrayal of the morally stunted Welsh wind-bags of the 'Llanabba' local choir. Other more obscure attacks (from our contemporary perspective) include diatribes against religious movements within Anglicism of the time (1928) and fads for liberal penal reform. Nevertheless, despite its weaknesses, this is the promising first novel of a 24/25 year old who went on to write such classics as 'Scoop' and 'Brideshead Revisited'.

You can tell this was his first - it isn't as polished as some of his later work, and it is definitely lighter. He hasn't had time to get too bitter, yet, and it shows. Using the story of Paul Pennyfeather, sent down from Oxford for "indecent behavior" and subsequently becoming a teacher ("...what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for indecent behavior."), Waugh not-very-subtly mocks Oxford, public school, British high society, the obsession with sports, etc etc. Hilarity ensues.It is laugh-out-loud funny, the kind of book I like to read with another person around so I can say "here, listen to this!" and then read my unsuspecting victim an entire chapter. Since I'm not in 1920s Britain, I think some of the satire went over my head - is Waugh making fun of the Welsh, or is he making fun of an English prejudice against the Welsh? Were the English even prejudiced against the Welsh? I don't know, but he does it so well that it still made me laugh.

A hilarious satirical story about a certain paul Pennyweather who was sent down from Oxford because he was seen about without his trousers, and ended up as a teacher in a very bad public school.

I'd really call this 3 1/2 stars. I enjoyed the comedy and some of the absurd events in the book, and Waugh's very controlled and understated narration was a good fit for the type of humor he was doing. Most of the characters are pretty flat, though, and so it is hard to care much. This isn't so much of an issue in some comic novels, but since many of these characters had ridiculous names, I was often at a loss to remember what character went with what event. Overall, a good, quick read, but not something I'd call a favorite.

An amusing look into British society during the post-modern period. While the first half of this book drags a bit for my tastes, it picks up in the second half and becomes quite entertaining. While Waugh isn't my favorite post-modern author, Decline and Fall is a quick and easy read for anyone who wants a quick taste of what that literary era was like.

It's like "The Headmaster Ritual" by the Smiths except funnier.

I have been on the look out for a copy of Scoop to introduce me to the satiricist Evelyn Waugh. But after rejecting a battered old Penguin I can across a pristine looking edition of his first novel, Decline and Fall. I was expecting something quite heavy and ponderous to read, a sort of literary leaden-footed PG Wodehouse. So, I was a little surprised to find this easy reading and for the prose to be uncomplicated and accessible. Nevertheless, that is the point at which my problems start. I knew that I would depise the characters being depicted - so that was no surprise. But I failed to appreciate the craft of the writing. It is very cold and unemotional. There is a dispassion and haughtiness to it that disdainful of the reader. The whole book feels like the exercise of priviledge not the product of a needful vocation.-Is it funny? Well, that depends on the depth of your susceptibility to class distinctions. You may not care and can enjoy the antics of upper class parasites or you do and can find their extravagant and wasteful habits endearing. If so, then this is funny. I can when it is full blown comedy with truly silly characters, as in Wodehouse. Bit here, when Paul Pennyfeather has completed his circuituous misadventure and landed back at Scone College, he can begin again. The rich can bespoil all before them but their resources are limitless. He ingenue lifestyle is bankrolled time and again by the likes of Margot Beste-Chetwynde because her infinite wealth transcends common ideals of morality, social responsibility and dignity.-After all this, I struggle more with Waugh because he writes dialogue well and consequently uses a lot of it. We hear what the characters say and are left to infer what they are feeling. This is where Oscar Wilde leaves me cold; playing with words is fine until they are used solely as barbs thrust at the heart of cultural differences. Nabakov plays with words to endow them with a rich luxury of meaning; Waugh does it so coldly to emphasise the betterness of his characters. These rich are highly intelligent but both pseudo and anti-intellectual. Knowledge is power and it must remain in the same few hands. This is why the rich are conservatives. The status quo protects their amoral decadence. At least the decadence of the middle-classes engenders anxiety and guilt rather than ruthlessness and cruelty.

Decline and Fall tells the story of Paul Pennyfeather, a young man who is (through no fault of his own) shamed out of Oxford university and made a schoolteacher (unlikely candidate though he is to teach sport or music, due to his total lack of knowledge in these areas) in Llabbana castle in Wales. Here he meets an array of interesting and often insincere characters, and most importantly perhaps, the magnificent Mrs Beste-Chetwynde whose wily charms he is soon spellbound by. A funny sequence of events follows, and almost all the characters have hilariously interlocking storylines, ducking and weaving in and out of each others lives. This is Waugh's first novel, written in 1928 and was meant to be a satirical look at English 'society' and the absurdity thereof, I believe. I suppose sometimes humour and satire don't quite transcend time and social context, because although I did find the book amusing, I also felt it was slightly lacking. It seems to end abruptly, and I suppose I subconciously am uncomfortable sometimes with stories that aren't ciruclar and don't conform to the standard structural foundation of Beginning: set the scene, Middle: problem and plot, and End: Conclusion and resolution. But I don't doubt that is the effect it was MEANT to have, as I'm sure Waugh intended to point out that what some people considered 'normal' was rather ridiculous. It was well-written, certainly - simplistic but purposeful language, not overly-descriptive but I could definately picture grey-green Wales and hear the pomp of the 'lords and ladies' without a thousand adjectives. Overall I rate it 3 1/2 out of 5, because while I enjoyed it I still felt a little... let down by it.

Evelyn Waugh's first novel, Decline and Fall (1928), is a delightful satiric comedy. I tremendously enjoyed the picaresque adventures of its hero, Paul Pennyfeather, as he encountered barely believable difficulties in "getting along". This was a book that is a joy to read even if you do not participate in all of Mr. Waugh's inside references. It is a worthy introduction to the novels of one of the finest authors of our century.

Probably my favourite book ever -- Waugh is a master of prose style even when being completely trivial...

I picked this up at a used book store, almost primarily because I felt that, as someone who likes to consider herself well-read, I should have read something by Waugh. Now, I want to read EVERYTHING by Waugh. Black humor set in 1920s England, Waugh doesn't leave any institution or social class unscathed by his hilariously acid pen.Paul Pennyfeather is an unassuming young divinity student at Oxford who is expelled due to a practical joke that was played on him by a wealthy student. Having lost his reputation, income, and social standing, he finds work at a "public" school (American concept would be private school) in Wales, and hijinks never quite stop. Whatever else you might say for Waugh, by god, he has tone!

This is probably the book I most often get back to when I need a laugh. Waugh dissects 1920s society with his hilarious descriptions of universities, boarding schools, religion, high society and the prison and health systems. Add to this the amazing character of Paul Pennyfeather - the story's protatgonist - who, through no apparent faults of his own, finds himself at some time in all of the above mentioned settings. I recommend it most highly.

Much better than the Goodreads reviews would have you believe, but you do have to be in the mood for it.

Listened to the whole book one Sunday afternoon & evening.

Reason read: TBR takedown, Reading 1001 This is the first published, therefore debut novel for Evelyn Waugh and is based on the author’s own experience with academia. The main character Paul Pennyfeather is expelled after running through campus without his trousers. He loses his guardian’s support and is forced to find employment. Employment leads to North Wales which then leads to falling in love and a proposal to marry. The marriage is halted by the arrest, conviction, and incarceration of Paul. In the end, all things end where they started. The author wanted that the reader should know “IT IS MEANT TO BE FUNNY”. Themes include cultural confusion, moral disorientation, and social bedlam.

'Decline and Fall' was Evelyn Waugh's first novel, and yet it is astonishingly complete for a debut. Everything fits together - a rarity among comic novels, which experience tells me often begin well but tend to drift towards the middle and then sag at the end. Not so here, as the whole plot seems orchestrated to produce the most cynical laughs possible. An absolute blast.