# Evelyn Wuagh, "Bright Young Things," & WWII (unboxed spoilers!) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 4, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evelyn-wuagh-bright-young-things-wwii-unboxed-spoilers/334064 "2005-12-04T19:07:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evelyn-wuagh-bright-young-things-wwii-unboxed-spoilers/334064/1 "2005-12-04T19:07:04Z")
I recently saw _Bright Young Things_ ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325123/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325123/)) on DVD. This 2003 film is about a clique of decadent young aristocrats having fun (or, in some cases, struggling to survive and keep up their social position in reduced circumstances without resorting to doing any kind of non-respectable work for a living) in interwar Britain. It is based on _Vile Bodies,_ a novel by Evelyn Waugh ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vile\_Bodies](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vile_Bodies)). The characters pay attention only to their own problems and mostly ignore events in the larger world – until near the end, when the penniless writer Adam Fenwick-Symes wanders into the parlor of the London boarding house/hotel where he lives, and finds everyone gathered around a radio from which an aggressive German voice is ranting. In the next scene, Fenwick-Symes is a soldier fighting in Europe. Now, when I saw the movie, I naturally assumed the book had been written during or after WWII – or at least after Hitler had come to power and it was becoming apparent a war was imminent. But when I looked it up, I found the novel was published in 1930! Before most people outside of Germany had even heard of Hitler! So why did Waugh end the novel with a new war on the continent? Was he just being pessimistic about the course of European civilization in general? Did he have a lot of contemporaries who felt the same way? Who felt it was inevitable that there **would be** yet another war in Europe even if no particular causes or issues for such were yet obvious? ---
**Author:** ![Tevildo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Tevildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tevildo)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evelyn-wuagh-bright-young-things-wwii-unboxed-spoilers/334064/2 "2005-12-04T19:18:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So why did Waugh end the novel with a new war on the continent? Was he just being pessimistic about the course of European civilization in general? Did he have a lot of contemporaries who felt the same way? Who felt it was inevitable that there **would be** yet another war in Europe even if no particular causes or issues for such were yet obvious? Yes, I think it was safe to say that war was inevitable by 1930. Considering the forum we’re in, I would recommend [Cabaret](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068327/) (based on Isherwoods “Goodbye To Berlin”, published in 1938) or [Things To Come](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028358/) (1936) for some other contemporary references. ---
**Author:** ![Tevildo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Tevildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tevildo)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evelyn-wuagh-bright-young-things-wwii-unboxed-spoilers/334064/3 "2005-12-04T19:20:56Z")
Incidentally, there’s no mention of Hitler, or the fact that the war is being fought against Germany, in the book. While it would have been obvious which enemy Waugh was referring to, he didn’t make it explicit. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evelyn-wuagh-bright-young-things-wwii-unboxed-spoilers/334064/4 "2005-12-04T19:47:45Z")
> [@Tevildo](#): > > Yes, I think it was safe to say that war was inevitable by 1930. Why? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evelyn-wuagh-bright-young-things-wwii-unboxed-spoilers/334064/5 "2005-12-04T19:54:28Z")
Makes me glad I didn’t see the movie, as _Vile Bodies_ is, perhaps, my favorite book of all time ( **Ukulele Ike** can now enter and argue that _Decline and Fall_ is better). Did they move the time period up to the late '30s? I wonder why? The Bright Young Things were a post-World War I phenomenon, arising during “The Aftermath,” as it was called, and pretty much vanishing by the mid- to late-1930s. As James Laver wrote: > [@](#): > > We’ve boyish busts and Eton crops, > We quiver to the saxophone. > Come, dance before the music stops, > And who can bear to be alone? > Come drink your gin or miff your snow, > Since youth is brief, and love has wings, > And time will tarnish, ere we know, > the brightness of the Bright Young Things. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evelyn-wuagh-bright-young-things-wwii-unboxed-spoilers/334064/6 "2005-12-04T20:00:45Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Makes me glad I didn’t see the movie, as _Vile Bodies_ is, perhaps, my favorite book of all time ( **Ukulele Ike** can now enter and argue that _Decline and Fall_ is better). Did they move the time period up to the late '30s? I wonder why? It’s not set in the historical 1930s–more as if the wild 1920s partying style of living were still going on up until the war. Except for the radio announcement about the invasion of Poland near the end (which places it as real WWII rather than Waugh’s fictitious projected war), you’d think it was the '20’s.