Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh
Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh
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Vile Bodies

Author: Evelyn Waugh

Narrator: Nico Evers-Swindell

Unabridged: 6 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/02/2025


Synopsis

"A wickedly witty and iridescent novel" (Time) from one of England's greatest satirists takes aim at the generation of Bright Young Things that dominated London high society in the 1920s.

In the years following the First World War a new generation emerged, wistful and vulnerable beneath the glitter. The Bright Young Things of 1920s London, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercised their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade. In these pages a vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the hedonistic fulfillment of their desires. Evelyn Waugh's acidly funny satire reveals the darkness and vulnerability beneath the sparkling surface of the high life.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jack on April 02, 2019

A book in which every character is equally detestable. The 'Bright Young People' are superficial, snobbish, ostentatious and vulgar, and yet - much like the tabloids - you cannot look away. Such a pertinent read for todays age of digital influencers. I'd love to see a film made about this in a moder......more

Goodreads review by Fabian on March 26, 2017

Unputdownable; both excitingly modern & original, a novel about manners & society and all that jazz. I have seriously not read something this comical and smart and sad since (my all-time fave) “A Confederacy of Dunces.” The sharp dialogue is more than clever: it constructs a full little universe in......more

Goodreads review by Lesley on April 17, 2022

Updated thoughts can be found here - [URL not allowed] I just finished reading the gorgeous 1930 novel, Vile Bodies by the old genius of a boy, Evelyn Waugh. I feel it's not too soon to admit to this already being one of my favorite books of all time. Just lovely in every way. I'd already see......more


Quotes

"It may shock you, but it will make you laugh."—New York Times

"A wickedly witty and iridescent novel."—TIME

"A hectic piece of savage satire....I laughed until I was driven out of the room."—V.S. Pritchett, The Spectator

"Evelyn Waugh is a satirist, no doubt, but not a skeptic, for he believes, and proves, that amusement can be depriced from the most unpromising material, from people, that is, whose one occupation in life is the quest for amusement, people who give and attend parties."—Saturday Review

"A savage study in public and private morals....It is uproarious. It is also ferocious."—John K. Hutchens, New York Times

"Wonderfully funny."—Jessica Mitford, LIFE