The Books: “Decline and Fall” (Evelyn Waugh)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

Decline and Fall, by Evelyn Waugh

I just read this book a month or so ago (thoughts about it here). It made me laugh out loud. From page one. It was Evelyn Waugh’s first novel and it’s unbelievable to think that – because it’s so assured, so unbelievably ridiculous – openly absurd … He has such confidence in his own tone. It just GOES. Everything in the book depends on a terrible misunderstanding that happens in the first chapter – and it is NEVER “righted”. Paul Pennyfeather is expelled from Oxford for running across the quad wearing no pants. The incident occurs during a notorious night where everyone plays pranks – but Waugh makes it clear that Paul Pennyfeather sits alone in his room, he’s serious, he’s studying to be a minister, and he’s not one of the rampaging idiots wreaking havoc on the campus. But somehow, one of the pranksters steals Paul Pennyfeather’s pants (from off his body) and, mortified, he runs across the quad, under the eyes of the Dons. So it seems as though HE is the instigator of the madness – and he is expelled. Paul Pennyfeather doesn’t even explain himself or try to defend himself. He is quite passive. Perhaps he senses that the series of coincidences that led to him running pants-less in a public place would be too bizarre or difficult to explain, so all righty then, no hard feelings, I’ll pack my bags and go!

The ministry is now out of the question for someone expelled for indecent exposure. So Paul Pennyfeather gets a job at a ridiculous boarding school for boys in the Welsh countryside. Every teacher who works there is legitimately insane. The headmaster is a lunatic. The boys are terrors. Paul Pennyfeather was hired to teach German and music – even though he doesn’t speak German and he can’t play an instrument. But the school assures him that that doesn’t matter. And the amazing thing is: IT DOESN’T.

Waugh skewers education in this book. Academia is his target. Paul Pennyfeather is really the only sane one in the book – but nobody congratualtes him for it because, after all, if everyone is insane then the only sane one is going to seem the MOST insane.

Paul Pennyfeather ends up getting fired – due to another series of coincidences – and then he ends up having a romance with this woman who basically convinces him to become a slave trafficker – but he doesn’t even know that that is what he is doing. She runs a theatre in Buenos Aires or something like that and all of her showgirls are stranded throughout Europe with Visa problems so she begs Paul to go get all the girls. Paul does. He flies through Europe, talking to embassies, getting girls out of hock, all the while having no idea that he is behaving like a criminal mastermind. He eventually is arrested for slave trafficking. How on earth do you traffic in slaves and not know it? Perhaps Paul understands that the world is a tremendously complex place and there is no way he could understand his part in it … so he accepts all of these disasters with passive aplomb. He is thrown in jail, and he finds that he really enjoys jail. And what do you know … many of his old teacher friends are also in jail by now, for this or that crime … so he knows a lot of people. It’s like he keeps running into the same band of lunatics.

The entire book is hilarious. It never stops. The comedy is relentless. But at the end, there’s a monologue by one of the characters that cuts through the bullshit, the lunacy, and makes the points Evelyn Waugh has been making all along. Only now he goes from covert to overt. It’s brilliant. Evelyn Waugh had SUCH a good eye for ridiculous-ness, pomposity, pretentiousness … Paul Pennyfeather is not congratulated by the world for having integrity. He is the one who takes the fall. His entire life is ruined. Yet he seems to not mind all that much. Isn’t that how life sometimes is? You start out wanting to be a minister and before you know it you are trafficking slaves across Europe, and you aren’t sure how you got from A to B.

The excerpt below is during the games day at the boarding school. The parents of the boys (lunatics, all of them) show up to watch their kids run relay races, etc. But the whole thing is mayhem, because nobody really cares about sports – none of the teachers do – they don’t even understand why anyone would WANT to leap over hurdles and run around a track … Paul Pennyfeather is in charge of much of this, and again, he has no qualifications. But that doesn’t seem to matter.

Very funny book. Amazing (again) that it’s only a first novel.

EXCERPT FROM Decline and Fall, by Evelyn Waugh

“So you’re the Doctor’s hired assassin, eh? Well, I hope you keep a firm hand on my toad of a son. How’s he doin’?”

“Quite well,” said Paul.

“Nonsense!” said Lady Circumference. “The boy’s a dunderhead. If he wasn’t he wouldnt’ be here. He wants beatin’ and hittin’ and knockin’ about generally, and then he’ll be no good. That grass is shockin’ bad on the terrace, Doctor; you ought to sand it down and resow it, but you’ll have to take that cedar down if you ever want it to grow properly at the side. I hate cuttin’ down a tree – like losin’ a tooth – but you have to choose, tree or grass; you can’t keep ’em both. What d’you pay your head man?”

As she was talking Lord Circumference emerged from the shadows and shook Paul’s hand. He had a long fair moustache and large watery eyes which reminded Paul a little of Mr. Prendergast.

“How do you do?” he said.

“How do you do?” said Paul.

“Fond of sport, eh?” he said. “I mean these sort of sports?”

“Oh, yes,” said Paul. “I think they’re so good for the boys.”

“Do you? Do you think that?” said Lord Circumference very earnestly; “do you think they’re good for the boys?”

“Yes,” said Paul; “don’t you?”

“Me? Yes, oh, yes. I think so, too. Very good for the boys.”

“So useful in case of a war or anything,” said Paul.

“D’you think so? D’you really and truly think so? That there is going to be another war, I mean?”

“Yes, I’m sure of it; aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course, I’m sure of it too. And that awful bread, and people coming on to one’s own land and telling one what one’s to do with one’s own butter and milk, and commandeering one’s horses! Oh, yes, all over again! My wife shot her hunters rather than let them go to the army. And girl’s in breeches on all the farms! All over again! Who do you think it will be this time?”

“The Americans,” said Paul stoutly.

“No, indeed, I hope not. We had German prisoners on two of the farms. That wasn’t so bad, but if they start putting Americans on my land, I’ll just refuse to stand it. My daughter brought an American down to luncheon the other day, and, do you know …?”

“Dig it and dung it,” said Lady Circumference. “Only it’s got to be dug deep, mind. Now how did your calceolarias do last year?”

“I really have no idea,” said the Doctor. “Flossie, how did our calceolarias do?”

“Lovely,” said Flossie.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Lady Circumference. “Nobody’s calceolarias did well last year.”

“Shall we adjourn to the playing fields?” said the Doctor. “I expect they are all waiting for us.”

Talking cheerfully, the party crossed the hall and went down the steps.

“Your drive’s awful wet,” said Lady Circumference. “I expect there’s a blocked pipe somewhere. Sure it ain’t sewage?”

“I was never any use at short distances,” Lord Circumference was saying. “I was always a slow starter, but I was once eighteenth in the Crick at Rugby. We didn’t take sports so seriously at the ‘Varsity when I was up; everybody rode. What college were you at?”

“Scone.”

“Scone, were you? Ever come across a young nephew of my wife’s called Alastair Digby-Vaine-Trumpington?”

“I just met him,” said Paul.

“That’s very interesting. Greta, Mr. Pennyfeather knows Alastair.”

“Does he? Well, that boy’s doing no good for himself. Got fined twenty pounds the other day, his mother told me. Seemed proud of it. If my brother had been alive he’d have licked all that out of the young cub. It takes a man to bring up a man.”

“Yes,” said Lord Circumference meekly.

“Who else do you know at Oxford? Do you know Freddy French-Wise?”

“No.”

“Or Tom Obblethwaite or that youngest Castleton boy?”

“No, I’m afraid not. I had a great friend called Potts.”

“Potts!” said Lady Circumference, and left it at that.

All the school and several local visitors were assembled in the field. Grimes stood by himself, looking depressed. Mr. Prendergast, flushed and unusually vivacious, was talking to the Vicar. As the headmaster’s party came into sight the Llanabba Silver Band struck up Men of Harlech.

“Shockin’ noise,” commented Lady Circumference graciously.

The head prefect came forward and presented her with a programme, beribboned and embossed in gold. Another prefect set a chair for her. She sat down with the Doctor next to her and Lord Circumference on the other side of him.

“Pennyfeather,” cried the Doctor above the band, “start them racing.”

Philbrick gave Paul a megaphone. “I found this in the pavilion,” he said. “I thought it might be useful.”

“Who’s that extraordinary man?” asked Lady Circumference.

“He is the boxing coach and swimming professional,” said the Doctor. “A finely developed figure, don’t you think?”

“First race,” said Paul through the megaphone, “under sixteen. Quarter mile!” He read out Grimes’s list of starters.

“What’s Tangent doin’ in this race?” said Lady Circumference. “The boy can’t run an inch.”

The silver band stopped playing.

“The course,” said Paul, “starts from the pavilion, goes round that clump of elms …”

“Beeches,” corrected Lady Circumference loudly.

” … and ends in front of the band stand. Starter, Mr. Prendergast; timekeeper, Captain Grimes.”

“I shall say, ‘Are you ready? one, two three!’ and then fire,” said Mr. Prendergast. “Are you ready? One” — there was a terrific report. “Oh, dear! I’m sorry” — but the race had begun. Clearly Tangent was not going to win; he was sitting on the grass crying because he had been wounded in the foot by Mr. Prendergast’s bullet. Philbrick carried him, wailing dismally, into the refreshment tent, where Dingy helped him off with his shoe. His heel was slightly grazed. Dingy gave him a large slice of cake, and he hobbled out surrounded by a sympathetic crowd.

“That won’t hurt him,” said Lady Circumference, “but I think some one ought to remove the pistol from that old man before he does anything serious.”

“I knew that was going to happen,” said Lord Circumference.

“A most unfortunate beginning,” said the Doctor.

“Am I going to die?” said Tangent, his mouth full of cake.

“For God’s sake, look after Prendy,” said Grimes in Paul’s ear. “The man’s as tight as a lord, and one one whisky, too.”

“First blood to me!” said Mr. Prendergast gleefully.

“The last race will be run again,” said Paul down the megaphone. ‘Starter, Mr. Philbrick; timekeeper, Mr. Prendergast.”

“On your marks! Get set.” Bang went the pistol, this time without disaster. The six little boys scampered off through the mud, disappeared behind the beeches and returned rather more slowly. Captain Grimes and Mr. Prendergast held up a piece of tape.

“Well, run, sir!” shouted Colonel Sidebotham. “Jolly good race.”

“Capital,” said Mr. Prendergast, and dropping his end of the tape, he sauntered over to the Colonel. “I can see you are a fine judge of a race, sir. So was I once. So’s Grimes. A capital fellow, Grimes; a bounder, you know, but a capital fellow. Bounders can be capital fellows; don’t you agree, Colonel Slidebottom? In fact, I’d go farther and say that capital fellows are bounders. What d’you say to that? I wish you’d stop pulling at my arm, Pennyfeather. Colonel Slybotham and I are just having a most interesting conversation about bounders.”

The silver band struck up again, and Mr. Prendergast began a little jig, saying: “Capital fellow! capital fellow!” and snapping his fingers. Paul led him to the refreshment tent.

“Dingy wants you to help her in there,” he said firmly, “and, for God’s sake, don’t come out until you feel better.”

“I never felt better in my life,” said Mr. Prendergast indignantly. “Capital, fellow! capital fellow!”

“It is not my affair, of course,” said Colonel Sidebotham, “but if you ask me I should say that man had been drinking.”

“He was talking very excitedly to me,” said the Vicar, “about some apparatus for warming a church in Worthing and about the Apostolic Claims of the Church of Abyssinia. I confess I could not follow him clearly. He seems deeply interested in Church matters. Are you quite sure he is right in the head? I have noticed again and again since I have been in the Church that lay interest in ecclesiastical matters is often a prelude to insanity.”

“Drink, pure and simple,” said the Colonel. “I wonder where he got it? I could do with a spot of whisky.”

“Quarter Mile Open!” said Paul through his megaphone.