... but I'm willing to overlook it because, among other things, Tom Stoppard cites Waugh among his favorites and his great influences. Thus he becomes an automatic must-read for me. There's a thoughtful piece on Waugh in The Age.
It is not simply his humour, however, that distinguishes him from other writers of the low dishonest decade, but the singular purity and brio of his prose style: smooth, exact and pitiless. He had this manner down from the start: in Vile Bodies the gossip columnist Simon Balcairn dictates to a copy boy a stream of flamboyant, entirely fictitious libels, and then puts an end to himself:"It made over two columns, and when Simon finally rang off, after receiving the congratulations of his colleagues, he was for the first time in his journalistic experience perfectly happy about his work. He finished the watery dregs of the cocktail shaker and went into the kitchen. He shut the door and the window and opened the door of the gas oven. Inside it was very black and dirty and smelled of meat. He spread a sheet of newspaper on the lowest tray and lay down, resting his head on it. Then he noticed that by some mischance he had chosen Vanbrugh's gossip-page in the Morning Despatch. He put in another sheet. (There were crumbs on the floor.) Then he turned on the gas. It came surprisingly with a loud roar; the wind of it stirred his hair and the remaining particles of his beard. At first he held his breath. Then he thought that was silly and gave a sniff. The sniff made him cough, and coughing made him breath, and breathing made him feel very ill; but soon he fell into a coma and presently died."
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