Customer Reviews

The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(33)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

How brilliant an author can be when he doesn't give the slightest hoot about any of the characters he breathes life into! "The Loved One" is a brutal read, but those who read it will uncover a fabulous entertainment precisely because of its total lack of sentiment.

Failed poet Dennis Barlow has left his native England and, much to the embarrassment of his fellow ex-pat Brits, taken work as the front man for a Los Angeles pet cemetery, Happier Hunting Grounds. While making funeral arrangements for his former living companion, a scriptwriter-turned-suicide, Barlow meets and romances a cosmetician at Whispering Glades, the in-place for dead celebs who crave some final status before they go. Using some recycled poetry from the likes of Shelley and Shakespeare (he's long since run out of gas on his own), Barlow manages to woo young Aimee Thanatogenos from under the attentions of chief Whispering Glades undertaker Mr. Joyboy. But will Joyboy play fair with his rival?

One confusing thing people often say about "The Loved One" is that it's a Catholic satire on the materialist way people handle the subject of death. Waugh was a devout Catholic, and a satirist, but it strikes me that "The Loved One" is rather agnostic in tone, without a religious character or idea presented as buttress against the nihilist vision of the book. I don't think people are wrong to be disturbed by it that way. "The Loved One" satirizes the non-religious nature of death as memorialized at Whispering Glades, but not so much with the suggestion of an alternative as with the notion that talk of non-sectarian "better worlds" is like whistling in a vacuum and, at best, frivolous. After a few reads, my sense of "A Loved One" is that it could be a book written by a Lutheran, a Jew, or an atheist. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

The fact that the novel still manages to be entertaining even as it runs against the grain of Waugh's moral and spiritual beliefs is testament to the author's brilliance. It's one thing to write the Crete passage in "Officers And Gentlemen," where the awful carnage of the battle is presented with a sense of some higher significance. When Barlow returns home one day and finds his old friend swinging from the rafters in a noose, we are told "his reason accepted the event as part of the established order." Barlow is an artfully rendered protagonist precisely because he is so lacking in character or decency. He is a thorough clod. Readers tackling "The Loved One" for the first time are well-advised not to make the mistake of caring for any of the characters in it, especially not him.

My favorite part of the book is the opening, where we meet Barlow and his companion, the aging screenwriter-turned-hack-publicist Francis Hinsley. "Kierkegaard, Kafka, Connolly, Compton Burnet, Sartre, 'Scottie' Wilson. Who are they? What do they want?" asks Hinsley over sodas-and-whisky, taking in the literary "new breed" which was by then either dead or collecting pensions. There's a wonderful sense of comic disengagement, the idea of Hollywood as some Somerset Maugham outpost in deepest Africa, and the Tinseltown focus is something we lose as the novel goes on, which I missed.

The rest of the book is a clever forum for Waugh's brilliant observations and off-handed commentary about a life lived in a world without standards. Aimee notes at one point: "Once you start changing a name, you see, there's no reason ever to stop. One always hears one that sounds better."

Or the infamous single episode where we meet Mr. Joyboy's mother, who had "small angry eyes, frizzy hair, pince-nez on a very thick nose, a shapeless body, and positively insulting clothes." Who says adverbs ruin good writing?

As I said, "The Loved One" is not for the fainthearted. I almost wish my edition didn't come with a Charles Addams cover illustration; it sets the wrong expectation. This is a "fiendishly entertaining" read only for those who go into it not expecting to be fiendishly entertained. It's for the dour pessimist in us all. But it's definitely one of the best novels ever written, precisely because of its unremitting focus on the things mankind naturally would turn away from if it could, and the dark amusement it finds from such exploration serves as a kind of triumph of the literary imagination we can still celebrate today.

This is only the second Evelyn Waugh novel I have read, and I find myself liking him all the more. Waugh is famous for his scathing satire and witty play with words; he can craft characters who are odious even to him and dispose of their problems with ease and brillance. Such is the case with "The Loved One", a wry novel that skewers everything from the upper class to religion to funerary practices, all while drawing laughs and smiles from the reader.

Dennis Barlow is a young Englishman living in southern California. He fashions himself to be a poet, but as the Muse has left him dry, he finds employment at the Happier Hunting Grounds a.k.a. the local pet cemetery. When his mentor and roommate commits suicide, it is up to Dennis to arrange his funeral at the chic and studied Whispering Glades - not so much a cemetery as an entire business devoted to the dead and their 'waiting ones'. Dennis finds himself enthralled with not only Whispering Glades, but with Aimee, a young cosmetician who works there. He fights for her attention with plagarized poems while her other suitor, Mr. Joyboy the wonder mortician, delivers smiling corpse after corpse for her to paint in hopes of winning her love.

After introducing readers to this integral triangle of the book, the novel is then devoted to Aimee's struggles to choose which man she should marry. This questioning leads to some fatal consequences, that are indecorously disposed of through Waugh's irreverent creation Dennis Barlow. "The Loved One" is tirelessly funny, and searchingly honest. Evelyn Waugh examines the farce humans play when a loved one dies with heretofore unknown wit and alacrity that may have failed under lesser hands.

In this brilliant little satirical novel, Evelyn Waugh takes on Hollywood, the British expatriate community in Los Angeles, the death care industry, romantic love, filial love, sexism (perhaps without knowing it), and American attitudes toward success, death, foreigners, art, their pets, suicide, morality, newspaper advice columns, and religion (both ancient and new-fangled). No tombstone goes unturned. Rather than summarize the plot, let me just say that the title of the book, which is an obvious reference to the standard funteral director's euphemism for a deceased person, actually takes on another meaning as well, especially as the two main male characters (Dennis Barlow, an British would-be poet newly arrived to Los Angeles, and Mr. Joyboy, a successful local embalmer) vie for the affections of the same young lady, Aimee Thanatogenos. The novel could be seen on one level as the story of her journey from being the men's love object (desired, but never really "seen") to becoming a "loved one" in the death care industry sense of the word.

At the same time I was reading the book, I rented Tony Richardson's marvelous all-star film (1965). Both are equally wicked and satirical, but Richardson's film, in its exploitation of American anxieties about nuclear war, has more in common with Stanley Kubric's "Dr. Strangelove" than with Waugh's 1948 novel. In any case, seeing the movie didn't spoil the ending of the book. Both are brilliant and LOL fun.

For those unfamiliar with Waugh, no better starting place than this, a compact volume but one that bursts with creativity, style and pitch black humor. In short, failed British expat poet Dennis Barlow competes with the stiff American mama's boy/mortician Mr. Joyboy for the love of Aimee (get it?) Thanatogenos against the backdrop of both 1950's Hollywood and the funeral industry. A small masterpiece, "The Loved One" showcases Mr. Waugh's wit, here like that of a cat toying with a mouse pre-meal. Anyone whose sole exposure to Waugh is via his classic "Brideshead Revisited" will be shocked by the darkness and gallows humor; those who have read "A Handful of Dust" will see Waugh's imaginativeness toward the macabre and the obscene honed to a razor's edge here.

First, let me be honest. The first few pages of this book are downright boring. In fact, I practically had to force myself to read these pages, because I really didn't care about two old men talking to each other. However, once I got to the halfway point of the book, I was hooked. Reading about Ms.Thanatogenos ongoing struggle on who she really loved, Mr.Joyboy or Mr.Barlow was probably the best part of the book for me. The way these characters act and speak in the book made me feel like I was standing right next to one of them, which made me greatly appreciate the writing ability of Evelyn Waugh. Alas, even this was not enough to overcome the negativeness brought down on the book by the first few pages, so I decided to give this book an average rating of only stars. I only recommend this book to people who will have the patience and discipline to get past the first few pages without skipping them, because they are a necessary part of the story. If you can do this however, you will be pulled into a whole new world of romance, comedy, treachery, and tragedy, that could very well enthrall you and keep you reading this book for years to come. Thank you for reading my review.

Waugh is wickedly merciless in this attack, his use of humor morbid and obsene, his wit piercing, as always he leaves no room for empathy or sympathy as he cruely dissects his victims. His targets are common themes in many of his works, the British upper class, the Catholic Church, a lack of post war standards, human vanity ,love and the biggest of all, any symbol of the establishment (in this case societies method for the disposal of the dead).

This short book skewers all of the above, set against the Los Angeles British film community in the thirties. Our central character (not hero) is Dennis Barlow, british expatriate, failed poet and employee of the Happier Hunting Ground Pet Cemetry. After the suicide of his mentor Sir Francis, Dennis has the task of arranging the funeral at the hallowed Whispering Glades Funeral Home where he falls in love with cosmetician Aimee.

There are cultural problems, class of funeral establishment issues and a rival suitor in the shape of embalmer Mr Joybody. Waugh as you would expect extracts the maximum humor from every situation, allows no sentiment to creep into the novel or even endearing qualities in his characters. As with much of his work the love story ends in tragedy, no one much cares and life moves on.

I love satire and this is so good, not the authors best but much better than many if not all his imitators work.

Evelyn Waugh has long been a favorite of mine. His satire and his wit, along with his wonderful ability to capture human personality with words, introduced me to a whole new standard of literature in my college days. I read everything he had written, or so I thought, until I stumbled on a few books at the local used bookstore several years ago--and before my introduction to the world of Amazon.com. I don't know why it took me so long to pick up The Loved One, but I'm so glad I finally did!

Dennis Barlow is a young Brit, brought over to Hollywood for his poetic skills. When his contract is not renewed, far from being horror-stricken like his fellow ex-patriots, he simply takes another job, with the intention of returning to poetry on the side. What happens afterward is a morbidly humorous tale on which I can not expound for fear of ruining it for you. I can say that it includes a cosmetician, a mortician, Whispering Glades Memorial Park, a parrot and a few famous poems. Oh, and lots of typical Waugh black humor that will have you laughing out loud, re-reading, and thoroughly enjoying yourself at the expense of the characters, dead and alive.

I've read all but two of Waugh's novels, and I must say that this one tops even Scoop as my favorite!

Looking through the reviews of this book it quickly becomes apparent that the great majority of readers are, in fact, from California. Virtually no one seems to be aware that the very essence of this book's high satire is occurring daily, right in front of them. Death, it's true, is an industry like anything else. And in California, for the wealthy, and for those that desire it, death need never be a simple, natural process. If you've got the cash spend it, you can't take it with you. The book is not a satire on death as such, it's a wonderful pisstake on the ways that people prepare for the great unknown, Through Waugh's highly evolved humor death's sting is lessened. We ought to enjoy life and its absurdities now. Not from any whispering glades. The book is painfully funny. And, fer chrissakes, you people in LA should go out to Forest Lawn in Glendale because that is what the book is sending up. Not the dear departed themselves.

After a brief, apparently unpleasant, stay in Hollywood--he had been commissioned to adapt his novel Brideshead Revisited for the screen--Evelyn Waugh wrote this wonderfully wicked satire of the movie business, the funeral industry, lowbrow Americans and whatever other hapless targets wandered within range of his savage pen. Dennis Barlow is a young British poet, who, having lost his movie job, is temporarily employed at The Happier Hunting Ground, a pet cemetery modeled after the hallowed Whispering Glades, graveyard to the stars. But such a lowly job is anathema to the British expatriate community, as Sir Ambrose Abercrombie informs him:

We limeys have a peculiar position to keep up, you know, Barlow. They may laugh at us a bit--the way we talk and the way we dress; our monocles--they may think us cliquey and stand-offish. but, by God, they respect us. Your five-to-two is a judge of quality. He knows what he's buying and it's only the finest type of Englishman that you meet out here. I often feel like an ambassador, Barlow. It's a responsibility, I can tell you, and in various degrees every Englishman out here shares it. We can't all be at the top of the tree but we are all men of responsibility. You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs--except in England, of course. That's understood out here, thanks to the example we've set. There are jobs that an Englishman just doesn't take.

However, when Barlow's roommate, Sir Francis Hinsley, is abruptly dismissed from his studio job and hangs himself, Abercrombie and his fellow Cricket Club members depend on Barlow to arrange the burial--after all, he knows about how to dispose of animal remains, how much different can it be?

So Barlow heads over to Whispering Glades where he is treated to a hilariously garish tour and sales pitch. He meets and falls in love with one of the cosmeticians there, Aimée Thanatogenos, but must hide the truth about his embarrassing job, particularly since she is also smitten with Mr. Joyboy, the legendary embalmer at Whispering Glades. When she proves unresponsive to his own poetry, Barlow woos her with passages from the great poets, the works of whom she is utterly ignorant.

Naturally, it all goes bung, as Barlow's various frauds are revealed and Aimée kills herself. Barlow extorts some money out of the scandal fearing Joyboy and buries her at the Hunting Grounds, so:

Tomorrow and on every anniversary as long as the Happier Hunting Ground existed a postcard would go to Mr. Joyboy: Your little Aimée is wagging her tail in heaven tonight, thinking of you.

Waugh lays bare a Hollywood where all is pretense and illusion, where human lives--never mind human feelings--are meaningless, where semantic niceties, like calling a corpse a "Loved One" are intended to mask reality. It is brutal, and unfortunately still timely, and quite certainly one of the best novels ever written about the movie industry. It is also just a screaming hoot.

GRADE: A

"This is a purely fanciful tale, a little nightmare produced by the unaccustomed high living of a brief visit to Hollywood." Thus, Evelyn Waugh begins "The Loved One," his macabre comic send-up of Hollywood, the Funeral Industry and Post World War II Southern California with a one-page preface entitled "A Warning."

"The Loved One" begins with the usual cast of Waugh characters. There is Sir Francis Hinsley, an aging Englishman who, when he first arrived in America more than twenty years earlier was the only knight in Hollywood, President of the Cricket Club and chief screenwriter at Megalopolitan Pictures. Now in decline, he no longer reads, writes or does much of anything except sit in a rocker, read a tawdry magazine or two, and drink whiskey and soda. He lives with the much younger English expatriate, Dennis Barlow, a poet whose one literary success earned him an invitation to Hollywood where his screenwriting career quickly dissipated. Barlow now works at the Happier Hunting Ground pet cemetery, an embarrassment to his English colleagues in Hollywood. As the actor Sir Ambrose Ambercrombie tells young Barlow, in a sort of recasting of the White Man's Burden in a thoroughly modern context:

"We limeys have a peculiar position to keep up, you know, Barlow. They may laugh at us a bit-the way we talk and the way we dress; our monocles-they may think us cliquey and stand-offish, but, by God, they respect us. Your five-to-two is a judge of quality. He knows what he's buying and it's only the finest type of Englishman that you meet out here. I often feel like an ambassador Barlow. It's a responsibility, I can tell you, and in various degrees every Englishman out here shares it. We can't be at the top of the tree but we are all men of responsibility. You never find an Englishman among the under-dogs-except in England, of course. That's understood out here, thanks to the example we've set. There are jobs that an Englishman just doesn't take."

The stage thus set, "The Loved One" soon takes off into a dark comic narrative of the American funeral industry. Sir Francis, no longer wanted by Megalopolitan Pictures, is turned out of his office and shunned. Young Barlow returns home to find that Sir Francis, in despair, has hanged himself. Appropriate funeral arrangements must be made.

Barlow then embarks upon his adventure in the funeral industry, making arrangements at Whispering Glades, a full-service funeral establishment and cemetery for Hollywood's rich and famous:

"Times without number since he first came to Hollywood he had heard the name of that great necropolis on the lips of others; he had read it in the local newssheets when some more than usually illustrious body was given more than usually splendid honours or some new acquisition was made to its collected masterpieces of contemporary art. Of recent weeks his interest had been livelier and more technical because it was in humble emulation of its great neighbor that the Happier Hunting Ground was planned. The language he daily spoke in his new trade was a patois derived from that high pure source. . . . As a missionary priest making his first visit to the Vatican, as a paramount chief of Equatorial Africa mounting the Eiffel Tower, Dennis Barlow, poet and pets' mortician drove through the Golden Gates."

In a brilliant comic chapter, Barlow meets first the Mortuary Hostess, who explores burial options with him:

"Embalmment, of course, and after that incineration or not, according to taste. Our crematory is on scientific principles, the heat is so intense that all inessentials are volatilized. Some people did not like the thought that ashes of the casket and clothing were mixed with the Loved One's. Normal disposal is by inhumement, entombment, inurement or immurement, but lately many people just lately prefer insarcophagusment. . . . That, of course, is for those for whom price is not the primary consideration."

After choosing a burial option, there is the matter of selecting appropriate garb for the deceased, viewing the various slumber rooms for Sir Francis' wake, and selecting a burial site in Whispering Glades. As the Hostess explains: "The Park is zoned. Each zone has its own name and appropriate Work of Art. Zones of course vary in price and within the zones the prices vary according to the proximity to the Work of Art." And the Park is, of course, restricted to Caucasians: "The Dreamer has made that rule for the sake of the Waiting Ones. In their time of trial they prefer to be with their own people."

Barlow then moves on to the Funeral Director, who, in a brilliant passage of dark comic wit, explains the benefits of Before Need Arrangements to Barlow, trying to sell him on the need for making his own funeral arrangements while he's young.

Finally, young Barlow is introduced to the mortuary cosmetician, Aimee Thanatogenos, and the embalmer, Mr. Joyboy. It is here that the real plot begins, for the second half of "The Loved One" brilliantly narrates an offbeat love triangle among Barlow, Aimee and Joyboy that ends in a darkly comic way that only Waugh could imagine.

"The Loved One" is a short, brilliant, dark, and funny comic novel that represents Waugh at his best. Read and enjoy!