Vile Bodies

Vile Bodies (1930) is the second novel by English novelist Evelyn Waugh and a scathing satire of the bohemian lifestyle that swept across post-WWI London (named by the press as “bright young things”).

Despite narrowing its sites on the decadence of its time, the novel is an apt critique of any gaggle of socialites that achieves fame solely for being famous and will undoubtedly ring true to modern readers who are fatigued with the endless parade of influencers and performative politicians flashing across their screens. The narrative itself follows Adam Symes, a novelist whose latest work is impounded by French authorities for charges of obscenity, leaving him unable to pay the dowry for the hand of his sweetheart, Nina Blount. What ensues is an absurd romp in search of one-thousand Pound Sterling that snakes through lavish estates, uncouthly ostentatious parties, and finally ending amongst the battlefields of some yet-to-come war ravaging the French countryside. Although filled with absurd humor, Waugh’s message is resounding and timeless: the collapse of civilization comes not with the rise of some grand evil but with the accumulation of small acts of stupidity and immorality that slowly erode at the foundations of society.

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