Opening Lines
The type of reader who browses through books and read the opening line as a means of determining the worth will be disappointed in The Loved One if they expect the writing style of its opening will reflect the style of the novel in general. On the other hand, the opening lines which are so rich in metaphorical imagery rank among the best opening lines in the history of the 20th century novel. One of the most interesting things about the novel is how Waugh constructs a series of counterpoints between paragraphs featuring lush, dense passages such as this with long extended scenes of dialogue written with Hemingway-esque lack of signposts indicating who is speaking. For fans of actual writing, then, these intermittent displays of metaphorically-rich descriptions are a godsend.
“All day the heat had been barely supportable but at evening a breeze arose in the west, blowing from the heart of the setting sun and from the ocean, which lay unseen, unheard behind the scrubby foothills. It shook the rusty fingers of palm-leaf and swelled the dry sounds of summer, the frog-voices, the grating cicadas, and the ever present pulse of music from the neighbouring native huts.”
The Life of a Writer
The Loved One is about the art of writing as well as a satire on Hollywood (and a satire on the funeral business) and much of the plot is see through the eyes of a sensitive aspiring writer. Waugh gives a very clearly indication of the underbelly of being a person who cannot help but be alert to everything taking place around them on a secondary level in which everything is potential content:
“And all the while his literary sense was alert, like a hunting hound.”
Writing; it’s a dog’s life
"The Staple of Feminine Repose"
The novel is a very sharp satire of everything about life in Hollywood and so it should be expected that much metaphorical language is directed toward those elements. Waugh is particularly gifted at making even the most mundane of trendy targets sound as elegant as one might expect a respected British writer to tackle Hollywood low-life behavior:
“In Aimée's bathroom cupboard, among the instruments and chemicals which are the staples of feminine well-being, lay the brown tube of barbiturates which is the staple of feminine repose.”
A Dutch Uncle
At one point, a character who has been dispensing advice says “Well, here I am talking like a Dutch uncle while the missus is waiting for her dinner.” To the modern reader, this idiomatic metaphorical comparison may seem as alien as a foreign language, but it is actually one of a number of such comparisons that the English created to denigrate the personality of the Dutch.
Going Dutch: when two people go out to dinner and each is expected to pay for their own food
Dutch act: committing suicide
Dutch reckoning: a bill for items or services not clearly delineated and unexpectedly high
Dutch courage: the stupidly blind courage that comes with being drunk
When “Dutch” is used in such phrases, the connotation is almost always disparaging to the character of the Dutch. In this case, the simile is comparing the speaker to a person who is overbearing in their advice even when delivered in friendly and encouraging way.
Poetry and Nicotine
One might well fully understand what this comparison implies, but the beauty of it lies in the lack of precision. A reader is welcome to extricate from the comparison the meaning of his choice. Waugh shows here the power of mystery and ambiguity; regardless of the specific intent he was attempting to make between the linkage here, it has been lost with time and now stands primarily as a demonstration of the power the imprecise simile.
"He opened the anthology as a woman opens her familiar pack of cigarettes."
