| Decline and Fall | |
Decline
and Fall
by Evelyn Waugh
A Back Bay Book
ISBN: 0316926078
1999 (originally published in 1928)
293 pages
"People get ideas about a thing they call life. It sets them all wrong. I think it's poets that are responsible chiefly. Shall I tell you about life?"
"Resurrection," "Decline and Fall"
Of course, it isn't until halfway through the book that Waugh tells us,
In fact, the whole of this book is really an account of the mysterious disappearance of Paul Pennyfeather, so that readers must not complain if the shadow which took his name does not amply fill the important part of hero for which he was originally cast.
Such a hero is Pennyfeather that he gets kicked out of Scone College, Oxford for indecent exposure and he's thrown into jail for "white slave traffic." But, that takes the whole of the book to fully explain.
In the meantime, the first occurrence was quite by chance (he was wearing the wrong tie and the Bollinger Club decided to take his trousers, leaving him to run across the campus). Then, when he leaves college and takes a position as a schoolmaster, he falls in with some very "interesting" characters...
Mr. Prendergast is a clergyman, who has doubts. He tells Pennyfeather, "Perhaps one day I shall see Light... and then I shall go back to the ministry." Captain Grimes is nice enough fellow, but he continually gets himself into scrapes. And, he always seems to get out of them somehow (whether by committing bigamy, by pretending suicide, etc.)
Perhaps, the most enigmatic character that Pennyfeather meets is Philbrick. His past is mysterious. He tells everyone a different story... And, he always seems to slip through the fingers of any law enforcement on his tail.
These characters, along with Margot and her son Peter, help to liven up Pennyfeather's life. Then, of course, the poor fellow dies and is resurrected. In the end, it really comes down to the fact that Pennyfeather is "static." He's not the type of person who gets on the wheel of life and hangs on for dear life. He's much more content to "stay in the seats and sit still" and "watch others." All of the events that affect his life take place without much of his involvement in them. And, he ends up right back where he started.
He may have declined and fallen to the utter depths, but somehow he managed to pick himself up again.
EvelynWaugh (1903-1966) was a comic British novelist. His works include: "A Handful of Dust," "Brideshead Revisited," "Decline and Fall," "Men at Arms," "Officers and Gentlemen," "Scoop," "The Loved One," "Vile Bodies," and "A Life of Dante Gabriele Rossetti". "Decline and Fall "was Waugh's second book.
