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.)
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.
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.