[T]he first part of [the novel] is first-rate. Its "portrait of the artist in middle age," before he sets forth on his tedious journey, is a genuine gothic horror, a gargoyle to terrify anyone who has ever contemplated a literary career. Mr. Pinfold is publicly successful; he is so prosperous that he does not write as much as he could, because the tax-gatherer would only take his earnings away from him; but privately he is in such advanced decay that even the most long-standing habits of self-congratulation have failed. The acid bath so often prepared for others has now found its way into his own tub.

This [Penguin ed.] is a terrific edition of a mildly neglected classic. It is an uncomfortable book: not only is it the most faithfully autobiographical of Waugh's novels, it is about Waugh's own period of madness.