I feel terrible about that.ĭennis Barlow is a failed English poet who has been unsuccessful in breaking into the Hollywood film industry. Sadly this edition, published in 1956 and having survived all the years in-between did not last one day with me. The copy of The Loved One that I read was a gift from a friend back in Dublin to mark our leaving for Australia. It would seem the man himself was a thoroughly unpleasant character – if you are interested in reading about Waugh’s life I would recommend Selina Hastings’ biography – but I always find myself putting down a book of his with a big grin on my face. It was the louche pessimism of his writing that impressed me, equal parts self-aware and flavoured with schadenfreude, combined with a rapier-like wit. I think Vile Bodies was the first of his books that I read as a teenager, which was something of a revelation. And the face which inclined its blind eyes towards him – the face was entirely horrible as ageless as a tortoise and as inhuman a painted and smirking obscene travesty by comparison with which the devil-mask Dennis had found in the noose was a festive adornment, a thing an uncle might don at a Christmas party.Įvelyn Waugh is a writer I can return to again and again. The body looked altogether smaller than life-size now that it was, as it were, stripped of the thick pelt of mobility and intelligence. The complete stillness was more startling than any violent action.
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