Shelf Control #224: The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh

Wednesday, the 19th of April 2023, and time for Shelf Control once again! Shelf Control is a weekly feature created by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR piles/mountains. Since early January 2023, Shelf Control has moved base here to Literary Potpourri. To participate, all you do is pick a book from your TBR pile, and write a post about it–what it’s about, when/where you got it, why you want to read it and such. If you participate, don’t forget to share your links in the comments. I’ll check out your picks of course, and also add you to the list of participants in this post.

Today’s pick is a humorous and satirical novel from the pen of English novelist and writer of biographies and travel books, Evelyn Arthur St John Waugh. Before he started writing, he worked as a teacher in a prep school, private secretary (to the writer C.K. Scott Moncrieff) and even considered a career in cabinet making! His first commercially published piece of fiction was a short story, ‘The Balance’ in 1926. Besides novels, biographies (among them one of Dante Gabriel Rossetti) and travel writings, he also wrote short fiction and essays.

The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (1957) is among his later works and one that I only heard of comparatively recently though I have read others by him including his best-known Brideshead Revisited, The Loved One, and Decline and Fall. The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold is described as ‘one of his most remarkable and self-revealing books’ based on an experience he himself had when in poor health. Gilbert Pinfold is a successful middle-aged novelist with ‘bad nerves’ who is travelling to Ceylon. Almost as soon as the journey starts, he begins to hear all sorts of sounds emanating from the roof of his cabin–jazz bands, barking dogs, revival meetings. He thinks a public address system is allowing him to hear all that’s going on aboard the ship, but then suddenly the sounds change–they become voices, and ones that are talking about him!

This sounds a fun novel in which Waugh seems to be (and I confirmed this from a friend’s review) poking fun at himself. Though Waugh did ‘do’ humour and satire, this still sounds very different from his usual line of writings, especially in the personal element coming through strongly. So this is one that is definitely staying on my TBR and one I would very much like to read.

Do you enjoy Waugh’s books? Any that you’d recommend? Have you read this one?

Cover image and book description via Goodreads; author information via Wikipedia

If you’re joining in to Shelf Control this week, do share your links below and I’ll add you to the list of participants in this post!