Vile Bodies

Vile Bodies, a satiric novel by English author Evelyn Waugh, is about the dislocation of the generation that came of age just after the Great War of 1914-1918. Published in 1930, it takes place in the late 1920s, soon after a worldwide economic depression ended an era of freewheeling economic speculation. Protagonist Adam Fenwick-Symes acts as a surrogate for Waugh himself as he navigates one wild party after another and finds them populated by a censorious and out-of-touch older generation and by younger people obsessed with enjoying themselves but unable to hold on to any sense of purpose or tradition. Vile Bodies is a comic novel that observes the tensions of a generation gap with bite and clarity. This guide refers to the Back Bay Books edition published in 2012.

Plot Summary

After taking a trip across the English Channel, young novelist Adam Fenwick-Symes has his manuscript confiscated by border guards. On the lookout for licentious literature, the guards find none, but take Adam’s novel just in case. Cash-poor Adam must explain to his editor that his manuscript is gone, which adds the debt of his publisher’s advance to money he already owes his landlady for his stay in the old-fashioned Shepheard’s Hotel. His financial situation also makes it difficult for him to marry Nina Blount, his fiancée.

Adam’s finances improve and decline in a series of rapid reversals. With each setback, he calls Nina and tells her the state of their potential marriage prospects. He wins a thousand pounds in a trivial bet in the Shepheard’s lobby but then gives it to a perpetually drunk Major whom Adam trusts to bet the money on a horse. Later, he attends a raucous party with Nina and his friends Agatha and Miles. The friends include the current Prime Minister’s daughter in their revelries. When the parties carry over into the Prime Minister’s residence, it causes a crisis in the country’s leadership.

Adam goes to Doubting Hall, the Blount family estate, to see Nina Blount’s senile father, the Colonel, and to ask permission to marry his daughter. At the same time, Adam asks for money with which to establish himself as marriageable. When the Colonel cuts him a check, Adam is ecstatic and spends that night with his fiancée. Unfortunately, he later finds that the check is signed “Charlie Chaplin.”

A local paper fires a young earl named Simon Balcairn from his job as a gossip columnist after he is disinvited to Lady Metroland’s lavish party. In retaliation, he sends in one more libelous column, then dies by suicide. Adam is hired to write the column soon after. After scandalous Balcairn’s final column, most of English high society is suing the paper. To avoid distressing real people by reporting on them, Adam invents a variety of interesting fictional characters, but he is eventually fired from the gossip column after telling one too many lies.

Many parties and social events take place at which the young exhaust themselves aimlessly while the old cluelessly complain about the attitudes of the young and the radical instability of modern life. Everywhere, Adam finds evidence of the disconnect between the older generation and the generation that has come of age after the Great War. At one race, Adam is astonished to find that the horse he put a thousand dollars on has won in the November Handicap, with a return of 34 to one. He glimpses the Major at the race but cannot catch him in the chaotic scene and is therefore unable to collect his winnings. While there, Adam and Nina meet Ginger Littlejohn, a wealthy childhood friend of Nina’s recently returned from a colonial post in Southeast Asia.

At a motor race, Adam finally catches up with the Major, who says he has 35 thousand pounds waiting for him in a bank in London. However, this good news precedes a series of negative events. Adam and Nina’s friend Agatha Runcible is committed to a psychiatric hospital after being mistaken for a racecar driver and given command of a dangerous vehicle. Adam’s later attempts to corner the Major do not lead to success. When she runs out of money, a reluctant Nina informs Adam that she is going to marry the wealthy Ginger instead of him.

As the endless parties begin to recede and war looms, Adam continues his affair with Nina despite her coming marriage to Ginger. Adam confronts Ginger about the affair, eventually “selling” Nina to Ginger for the price of his housing debt. Nina and Ginger spend a miserable honeymoon together. Ginger is called away on duty, so Nina and Adam spend a peaceful Christmas with Colonel Blount, who can’t tell one of Nina’s suitors from the other.

Soon, Adam is enlisted in a terrible and meaningless global war. There, he yet again meets the Major, who finally gives Adam his now worthless winnings. Together, the two men stumble across one of the women they used to frequently see at parties. The three of them huddle from danger in a car, drinking champagne and awaiting the next disaster.