This book ended quite oddly, and yet it stayed forever true to the title. It was interesting that we met Chastity again at the end. I still don't understand Adam and Nina. He sold her for 78 pounds and change, and she took him as her new husband (even though she was really married to someone else) to spend Christmas with her father. And the book then sends Adam off to war (it really does feel like World War II even though it was entirely Waugh anticipating a war that wouldn't begin for another several years) and brings Ginger (Nina's husband) back to be at home with his wife. Waugh seems to have a predilection for making characters who are completely un-soldier-like in every way, yet become soldiers (for reasons that are never explained) as soon as war breaks out!

The line about having babies in wartime being patriotic was funny and astute.

This section was more parties and social interactions. I really can't imagine living in this world. It sounds rather boring, for one thing. The plot (if you can really call it a plot) has continued to follow Adam's money troubles. I completely can't understand how he survives during the times when he has no money (which is quite often). His on-again/off-again engagement to Nina continues to baffle me as well! Everyone is just so apathetic about everything! I just can't handle how little anyone seems to care about anything or anyone else. "Vile Bodies" really does seem the most appropriate description for the people in this book!

This book has not started out as well as Brideshead Revisited, but I am amused and intrigued thus far. Adam is an amusing character, but I don't understand Nina very well. I think that perhaps it's more that I don't quite understand the world she lives in. I am very entertained by the world described in the book thus far, but I also know that I wouldn't want to live in it!

Well, I haven't even gotten into the story itself thus far, just the author's note and the introductory quote from "Through the Looking Glass". The Red Queen's running quote seems vaguely appropriate to much of Waugh's work! I love that in the author's note Waugh tells us what the date of Christmas is, just in case anyone wouldn't know, when giving the chronology for the book. I can't wait to dive into the story itself!