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Reading Roundup, April 2026
Apr. 28th, 2026 04:50 pmBoth of my reads from April were purchased during my vacation to the UK in March, from G. David Booksellers in Cambridge. It was such a lovely shop with a huge selection of used books of all sorts, including the fun-to-browse antiquities/collectibles section! These two were not from there, more standard three pound fare, but they were fun to purchase and lovely ways to celebrate a holiday. I’m also extremely proud of myself for buying both and then immediately reading them, you know? TBR: almost net zero. (I bought something else at Oxfam which I haven’t read yet and won’t start soon, haha.)
Decline and Fall, by Evelyn Waugh
This was Evelyn Waugh’s first published novel, from 1928. It’s a class satire, very of its era, following the misadventures of Paul Pennyfeather who is sent down from Oxford for actions not his own fault, and it continues apace from there. Paul spends time at Oxford, teaching at a boys’ school, being idle rich, and in prison, before circling back to Oxford. He encounters a surprisingly-small cast of eccentric companions—as one of them later puts it, Paul is an essentially static personality who has been cast into the maelstrom of a more dynamic society.
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On balance, Lodge’s satires (especially Small World) were worse to read, simply because his misogyny intensely pervaded the entire novel, whereas Waugh’s bigotry is more localized at its extremes. But that’s hardly a recommendation. And our hapless, blameless Paul Pennyfeather, to whom bad things keep happening, isn’t the right lens for me to appreciate the satire. He only angers me when he absorbs the racist language of his peers, or fails to see the human trafficking that he’s helping to enable. Was Waugh’s writing witty or well-observed? Maybe. I don’t know, because I was distracted by the flaws. It was his first novel; maybe his future satires got better. Brideshead Revisited wasn’t like this. But, god, don’t bother with this one.
Women in Love, by D. H. Lawrence
Women in Love is one of D. H. Lawrence’s most acclaimed novels—and such was my reasoning to start with this one, among the various options. I picked up a nice 1930s copy when I saw it, because it had been on my TBR forever, and I vaguely remembered it as being called a queer novel—but how so, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps the titular women?
Not really. This novel tells the story of the two Brangwen sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, and their romances with two men, Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich, who are friends with one another. We get to know the social positions of the sisters versus those of their wealthier romantic interests, and follow the slow development of these relationships as they wind their way past social obstacles in the form of family and friends, culminating in one marriage and one death. The book occupies all four characters’ points of view at different times, so we get to see what love means for each of them, and how they hope their various relationships (romantic, sibling, friend) will develop.
( Read more... )
I’m glad that I read this book and I would recommend it. D. H. Lawrence is a huge figure in early 20th century British lit, someone discussed by Woolf and Forster as a contemporary. His books were also famously banned as obscene, and it’s worth reading them to see the sex scenes in all of their euphemistic glory. Personally, I’m not convinced that it’s worth my time to try a second novel of his, but it was definitely worth my time to have read the first.
Decline and Fall, by Evelyn Waugh
This was Evelyn Waugh’s first published novel, from 1928. It’s a class satire, very of its era, following the misadventures of Paul Pennyfeather who is sent down from Oxford for actions not his own fault, and it continues apace from there. Paul spends time at Oxford, teaching at a boys’ school, being idle rich, and in prison, before circling back to Oxford. He encounters a surprisingly-small cast of eccentric companions—as one of them later puts it, Paul is an essentially static personality who has been cast into the maelstrom of a more dynamic society.
( Read more... )
On balance, Lodge’s satires (especially Small World) were worse to read, simply because his misogyny intensely pervaded the entire novel, whereas Waugh’s bigotry is more localized at its extremes. But that’s hardly a recommendation. And our hapless, blameless Paul Pennyfeather, to whom bad things keep happening, isn’t the right lens for me to appreciate the satire. He only angers me when he absorbs the racist language of his peers, or fails to see the human trafficking that he’s helping to enable. Was Waugh’s writing witty or well-observed? Maybe. I don’t know, because I was distracted by the flaws. It was his first novel; maybe his future satires got better. Brideshead Revisited wasn’t like this. But, god, don’t bother with this one.
Women in Love, by D. H. Lawrence
Women in Love is one of D. H. Lawrence’s most acclaimed novels—and such was my reasoning to start with this one, among the various options. I picked up a nice 1930s copy when I saw it, because it had been on my TBR forever, and I vaguely remembered it as being called a queer novel—but how so, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps the titular women?
Not really. This novel tells the story of the two Brangwen sisters, Ursula and Gudrun, and their romances with two men, Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich, who are friends with one another. We get to know the social positions of the sisters versus those of their wealthier romantic interests, and follow the slow development of these relationships as they wind their way past social obstacles in the form of family and friends, culminating in one marriage and one death. The book occupies all four characters’ points of view at different times, so we get to see what love means for each of them, and how they hope their various relationships (romantic, sibling, friend) will develop.
( Read more... )
I’m glad that I read this book and I would recommend it. D. H. Lawrence is a huge figure in early 20th century British lit, someone discussed by Woolf and Forster as a contemporary. His books were also famously banned as obscene, and it’s worth reading them to see the sex scenes in all of their euphemistic glory. Personally, I’m not convinced that it’s worth my time to try a second novel of his, but it was definitely worth my time to have read the first.
