SOURCE: “Decline and Fall,” in Evelyn Waugh, Continuum, 1988, pp. 25–36.

In the following excerpt, Crabbe praises Decline and Fall as hysterically funny and very appealing, while exploring the depth and complexity of Waugh's plot and structure.

Decline and Fall, Waugh's first novel, is for those who love farce, one of the funniest of English novels. The constant appearance, disappearance, and reappearance in another identity of the characters puts one immediately in mind of the opening and closing doors and the circular structures of plot that characterize farce. Although Waugh's approach is often oblique and ironic rather than straightforward and broadly humorous, it is stunningly effective. Even now, more than fifty years after its original publication, Decline and Fall is readily available in bookstores and libraries, and each succeeding generation learns to laugh at the Candide-like existence of Paul Pennyfeather.

Although Waugh had hoped Decline and Fall would be a...