Well, I managed to stretch it out just over a week. The last of the book was very tense in that I knew there couldn't be much more, but I wanted there to be so very much more.

I had never read any Waugh and I didn't precisely have any expectations when I started the book. I had bought it because it was on dollar sale and I knew it was a "classic." I started reading and thought, "This is like some serious Wodehouse." And the more I read, the more I fell in love with the words and the characters and the book as a whole.

It really is something that has to be experienced. Aside from the amazing language and structure, it's one of those rare books that induces all sorts of feelings simultaneously. There's a constant thrum of nostalgia and, page by page, you are treated to anxiety, gaiety, melancholy, yearning, scorn, hilarity and everything else. Through it all, the nostalgia never wanes, even when the melancholy peaks hard, and it does.

I am so glad to have read this.