I was thinking of reading something by Evelyn Waugh, but I have never read any of his writing. Where should I start? I don’t know if I should read one of his novels or some of his short stories. I thinking of maybe Brideshead Revisited.
As an aside, did Waugh once tell a divorced friend that her remarriage would increase Christ’s suffering on Calvary?
Evelyn Waugh’s one of my very favorite authors. Bitterly funny stuff. My favorites are A Handful of Dust, The Loved One, and Brideshead Revisited. But he’s working your way through soup to nuts. (If you love him, let me know; I have a huge thing for the, for want of a better word, *genre *that includes Waugh: British lit about the “lost” generation between the Wars.)
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My favorites are A Handful of Dust, The Loved One, and Brideshead Revisited.
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They would be my three picks too. As a fourth - Sword of Honour.
I’ve only ever read Scoop but I thought it was a riot.
I’ve only ever read Brideshead Revisited but it’s amazing. I think I powered through it in two days, and it’s neither slim nor light.
I’d say The Loved One. I recently read Vile Bodies after seeing Stephen Fry’s film Bright Young Things (which is an adaptation), and I can recommend the novel.
Vile Bodies was the first Waugh I’d ever read, and it got me hooked on him. It’s very funny and easily in my top 5 or 10 books by anyone.
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I’ve only ever read Scoop but I thought it was a riot.
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This is my position as well.
I’ve only read Brideshead Revisited, but it’s one of my absolute favourite books.
Brideshead Revisited is one of my favorite novels, but I think it’s atypical if you’re trying to get the flavor of Waugh’s work overall. Something like Vile Bodies or Scoop might be better to start off with.