This was not as hot an epic as I had anticipated. As an absurdist Belle Epoque novel, Zuleika Dobson should have enamoured me as its title character enamoured the undergraduates of Oxford.
Certainly the writing is easier to follow than the prose of some of Beerbohm's contemporaries.

The humour is in the flightiness and exaggeration. Zuleika, a celebrity for her legerdemain, visits her grandfather at Oxford, and the impression she makes is electric, and so is the impression the snobbish Duke of Dorset makes on her. The gods look down and laugh. The marble busts of emperors bear witness. The Muse Clio bestows the narrator with unearthly powers so that the story may be told.

I wanted to like this more than I could manage. Don't let my deliquium (thanks for enriching my word power, Max Beerbohm!) dissuade you. This Belle Epoque apparently ranked #37 on Modern Library's Top 100 novels of the 20th century, but my 21st century mind, appreciative of flickering tintypes, absurdism, antique phonographs, black humour, could not absorb much beyond Mr. Beerbohm's gleeful caricatures and diversions into the ethereal and mythical. Maybe if I didn't live in a place where the even less-gifted than Zuleika, obese, demented, narcissistic, sociopaths are engorging on the attentions of the limited, seeking admiration always, I could see humour in the ridiculous.

Edwardian mysogynist fantasy rant. The funniest bit being the name given to the mythical Oxford college. Interesting only for the use of many obscure words that I had to look up in the dictionary.

It took me almost 2 years to read this because it was my "found-it-on-a-MUST-read-classics-list-but-it-seems-boring" backup pile.
That being said. I am so ashamed of myself for profiling and missing out on this book for so long. I LOVED this book.
The only way I can describe it is Hitchhiker's Guide for an 18th century British classic.
I felt like it started slow but in reality I didn't know what I was reading.
This book is funny, absurd, ridiculous, witty and so smart!!!
His mastery of satire and parody is amazing. It checks all my boxes for my British obsession, history, comedy, classic symbolism, quick wit and it just makes you think.
The problem now is finding another book that is similar!

Zuleika is the most interesting character I have encountered in quite a while and although he novel is satirical of a way of life a century away from mine, I still found myself chuckling.

The book is everything everyone says it is, just a little less so for me. I don't recommend the audio version, because it was hard to follow the slightly dense prose. What was really remarkable is that I finished this book on a long commute, and switched to the next book I had downloaded, a non-fiction about quackery, and within the first couple of chapters, the author, Lydia Chang, quoted Beerbohm. The coincidence was stunning.

The stream of good writing does not make up for the fact that there is not much in this book. This is another one that is unravelling my faith in the Modern Library Top 100 books. Yes, it might be a good satire on Oxford life, but that is not that interesting for most. The absurdity of the book is only matched by its selection in the Modern Library list.

I don't usually read things so cynical as this, but it was too artful to put down! I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in a wittier, more intellectual P.G. Wodehouse experience. It is also #59 on the Modern Library 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century list.