MobileRead October 2016 Discussion: The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (spoilers)

[CRussel]

No, that's always the issue with humour. It's culturally dependent and subject to all sorts of vagaries. I have no expectation that everyone would find this book funny. I find it somewhat funny, but a shade too bitter for me to think it's really funny.

[bfisher]

I read this 50 years ago, and thought that it was fairly funny then. On a re-read, I think that it is brilliant satire, of a very dark and bitter kind - for example, Barlow looking for something by his suicide roommate Sir Francis Hinsley for the memorial service, and finding only the book review, and the verse fragment when Barlow tries to write a poem for the service.

I don't think that this is something anyone should read if they want some light comedic relief.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by issybird

I found several levels of humor in this. In addition to the overall satire, there really were laugh out loud moments for me. Joyboy getting an annual card that Aimée is wagging her tail in heaven, the Dreamer and his church without walls, Sambo's little parrot head reposing on a pillow in a tiny casket - I could go on.

And Waugh's prose is continually a joy.

One could take paragraphs to discuss everything happening in those two sentences, but it's just plain funny on the face of it, too.