Very amusing episodic novel amongst the upper crust of the youth in 1920s England. Not as picaresque as Decline and Fall and not so serious as Brideshead, but is on the way to it. In each Waugh book I've read, his own perspective seems inscrutable to me. Most often the comedy is directed firmly at the upper classes, but he's firmly on their side too when it comes down it it. This might be an easy mistake to make, to think that making fun of something has to mean the author is dead against it. Orwell is similar in his constant jibing at the left, but remaining of it. Waugh is such a strong observer and poker-of-fun at the time and place he writes about because he was really immersed in it. His writing veers between seeming ambivalence to moments of sensitivity when describing his characters trials and tribulations. Car crashes and suicides are brushed over in a sentence, and the next full chapter drags out a break up. Sometimes soft, sometimes hateful.

This book also has some of the most Waughy names encountered so far in my reading: Melrose Ape, Miles Malpractice, Fanny Throbbing, Walter Outrage MP. etc.