A strange novel …

… Waugh’s last cruel novel. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Among Waugh’s targets in The Loved One was the English community in Hollywood, personified by the character Sir Ambrose Abercrombie, who was modeled on the English character actor C. Aubrey Smith, a dictator of behavior on all matters English. The community is portrayed in stiff-upper-lip style, determined not to lose face before the decadent Americans. The protagonist, Dennis Barlow, has done that by being sacked at the studio (for failing to complete a screenplay of the life of the English poet Shelley), and, to make matters worse, he now works at an animal cemetery, the Happier Hunting Grounds.

I didn’t find it especially funny. It’s my least favorite Waugh novel.