DECLINE AND FALL

One of the funniest novels ever written in English revolves around a man teaching in a second-rate institution. Well, second-rate may be a bit charitable in the case of the ghastly public school in Evelyn Waugh's DECLINE AND FALL. The book's innocent hero, Paul Pennyfeather, finds a post after being sent down from Oxford for an act visited on him by a blow of fate. The events that overtake the hapless hero are not only funny at face value, but also allude to a cosmic scenario that gives the whole thing real comic majesty. David Case's reading sounds a little distant and dim at first, but soon this begins to reflect the netherworld into which the hero is plunged. K.A.P. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB 96]