The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold - Hardcover

Waugh, Evelyn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316216658 ISBN 13: 9780316216654

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2012

Synopsis

"The very model of the modern paranoid novel" (New York Times) and an ambitious work of semi-autobiographical fiction from one of England's greatest novelists.

Gilbert Pinfold is a reclusive Catholic novelist suffering from acute inertia. In an attempt to defeat insomnia he has been imbibing an unappetizing cocktail of bromide, chloral, and creme de menthe. He books a passage on the SS Caliban and, as it cruises towards Ceylon, rapidly slips into madness.

Almost as soon as the gangplank lifts, Pinfold hears sounds coming out of the ceiling of his cabin: wild jazz bands, barking dogs, and loud revival meetings. He is convinced that an erratic public-address system is letting him hear everything that goes on aboard ship . . . until instead of just sounds he hears voices. And not just any voices. These voices are talking, in the most frighteningly intimate way, about him!

About this title

About the Author:

Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), whom Time called "one of the century's great masters of English prose," wrote several widely acclaimed novels as well as volumes of biography, memoir, travel writing, and journalism. Three of his novels, A Handful of Dust, Scoop, and Brideshead Revisited, were selected by the Modern Library as among the 100 best novels of the twentieth century.

Review:

"The very model of the modern paranoid novel."―John Leonard, New York Times

"Unblinking candor informs Waugh's dark, comic vision."―William Boyd, Daily Telegraph

"Waugh's 'portrait of the artist in middle age' . . . is a genuine gothic horror, a gargoyle to terrify anyone who has ever contemplated a literary career. . . . The acid bath so often prepared for others has now found its way into his own tub. . . . Waugh draws an intimate picture of a distinguished author at bay."―Gerald Sykes, New York Times Book Review

"The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold is a masterpiece of self-portraiture, one of the very best in English fiction."―John Bailey

"A masterpiece. . . . Waugh's clear-sightedness about himself . . . is something which, in this taut, brilliantly phrased and crafted story, is itself an assertion of order out of chaos."―A. N. Wilson

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0316216658
• ISBN 13: 9780316216654
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208