RETRO READS VAL HENNESSY

DECLINE AND FALL by Evelyn Waugh (Penguin £8.99)

WITh chortles galore — if somewhat public schoolboy chortles — Waugh’s comic novel on the page is hugely more amusing than the recent Tv adaptation.

The hapless Paul Pennyfeather is expelled from Oxford after a debagging (bare buttocks) by a bunch of braying, pianosmashing toffs.

sent to teach at an obscure, mouldering boys’ school staffed by drunks, idiots, sadists, childmolesters and crooks, nonmusical Paul is in charge of the titled star pupil’s organ lessons.

On sports day, Paul falls for the star pupil’s mater, volunteers for various ludicrous assignments and lands in prison. ha ha.

One for the boys, I’d say. Posh, middle-aged boys at that.

IN A SUMMER SEASON by Elizabeth Taylor (Virago £8.99)

Once the ‘physical side’ cools, there’ll be nothing left . . . so sniffs a dismayed aunt about the marriage of widowed Kate, mother of teenagers, to Dermot.

It’s the Fifties, the family — plus cook, gardener and aunt — are ensconced in Kate’s old rectory. Life should be idyllic, but Dermot, despite his charm, is an unemployed, boozy layabout ten years Kate’s junior.

Apart from blissful sex, the couple share no interests and the cracks are showing.

Taylor’s very British novel is addictive, and the maiden aunt’s predictions are spot on.

VERA by Elizabeth von Arnim (Vintage £8.99)

here’s a great Gothic chiller. The sweet, vulnerable Lucy, devastated by her beloved father’s death, is comforted by the recently widowed everard. he makes himself indispensable and they marry (despite reservations from a wise aunt), but Lucy becomes troubled that his first wife, vera, died in mysterious circumstances.

she fell from a window — but how? At everard’s gloomy, isolated mansion, the window is a constant reminder, and as despot everard becomes increasingly possessive and controlling, Lucy sinks into depression and denial as she begins to figure out what did happen to vera.