The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (novel #183)

The subtitle calls this, An Anglo-American Tragedy

I beg to differ. It’s a comic novel.

Waugh says of it…

The tale should not be read as a satire on morticians but as a study of the Anglo-American cultural impasse with the mortuary as a jolly setting.

But again, I beg to differ – which perhaps adds validity to the notion of an Anglo-American Cultural Impasse.

Waugh also said it was

...much the most offensive work I had done.

Dennis Barlow, a once successful poet, and an out-of-work British screenwriter in Hollywood takes work at a pet mortuary – The Happier Hunting Grounds. Dennis must make funeral arrangements for his fellow Briton, and roommate, a washed-up screenwriter, who committed suicide after being unceremoniously fired. Arrangements are handled by the Whispering Glades mortuary and cemetery, a thinly veiled portrayal of Forrest Lawn (Waugh’s inspiration), the over-the-top, opulent resting place for Southern California’s rich and beautiful. While making arrangements, Dennis develops a crush on Aimée Thanatogenos, Whispering Glades star cosmetician, who has also caught the eye of head mortician, Mr. Joyboy. Aimée is confused by her own emotions, and repeatedly writes a local advice columnist.

 

Empty-headed Aimée is further confused when she learns Mr. Joyboy lives with his overbearing mother, and Dennis’ love poems to her are not his own, but the work of England’s glorious dead poets. And although she never learns it, her advice columnist is a drunken, insensitive hack.

 

Does that sound like tragedy or comedy? I suppose I should defer to the author, but I thought it was fun and funny, reminiscent of Nathanael West or Kingsley Amis – quite unlike my other experiences with Evelyn Waugh. [Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust]

 

My rating: 3 1/2 of 5 stars

 

This book satisfies a humorous or satirical classic in Back to the Classics Challenge 2021, and book with “One” in the title for the What’s in a Name? 2021 challenge.

 

I’ll share one excerpt. The unofficial head of the British enclave in Hollywood attempts to admonish Dennis for his undignified job, and relates how a previous chap, embarrassed his fellow Britons:

 

Clever chap, be he went completely native – wore ready-made shoes, and a belt instead of braces, went about without a tie, ate at drugstores.

 

Now that’s funny.

 

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