Reviews
Thanks are due . . . to English critic D. J. Taylor, who brings [the Bright Young People] back to life in Bright Young People . Some were distinguished, others once famous only for being famous and now pretty much forgotten--but they were almost invariably fascinating., Compelling and ultimately touching . . . A witty and sensitive account of the pathos and the glamour of the generation fated to 'sorrow in sunlight.', There are . . . plenty of juicy anecdotes to go around . . . The text is enlivened by several Punch cartoons from the period, vividly depicting the hold these rich young partygoers once held on the public's imagination., "[Taylor] tells this story with a good deal ofessayistic flair, precision and flyaway wit. Just as important, he relates this ultimately elegiac narrative with a surprising amount of intellectual and emotional sympathy." -Dwight Garner,The New York Times "[An]incisive social history. . . [A]richly detailed work." -Caryn James,The New York Times Book Review "InBright Young PeopleTaylor is writingsplendid social history, not fiction, and he brings a more tempered and rueful approach, showing the sadness beneath an entire generation's compulsion to waste its promise and dance in the spotlight. Scott Fitzgerald, a writer admired by Waugh (who was no soft touch), called his own 'lost' contemporaries 'the beautiful and damned'; here, Taylor makes us feel the full force of the reckoning implied in that sad conjunction . . .Taylor has a nice way with a one-liner-'The books Brian Howard never wrote would fill a decent-sized shelf'-and isexcellenton the evolution of BYP argot . . . By placing generational tensions and tenderness center-stage, Taylor gives his booka beating emotional heart." -Richard Rayner,Los Angeles Times Book Review "That rarest of books-one you can safely recommend both to scholars of Evelyn Waugh and the entourage of Paris Hilton . . . Taylor's skillful reconstruction of the whole hazy time feels like a lasting party favor." -Troy Patterson, NPR "[An]entertainingand incisive group portrait." -Barbara Fisher,The Boston Globe "Jampacked and delicious, crammed with a cast of selfish, feckless, darling, talented, almost terminally eccentric, good-looking men and women,Bright Young Peoplechronicles the doings of London's gilded youth in the Roaring Twenties. Even if you think you know a lot (or enough) about them; even if you've read the acerbic novels of the early Evelyn Waugh or plowed your way through Anthony Powell'sA Dance to the Music of Time,there's bound to be material here you haven't seen or heard of." -Carolyn See,The Washington Post "Thanks are due . . . to English critic D. J. Taylor, who brings [the Bright Young People] back to life inBright Young People. Some were distinguished, others once famous only for being famous and now pretty much forgotten-but they were almost invariably fascinating." -Martin Rubin, The Wall Street Journal "Absorbing. . . The book really takes hold when Taylor seizes on the actual trajectory of the lives of individual members, most . . . poignantly that of Elizabeth Ponsonby . . . The pages devoted to her, enriched by Taylor's access to the Ponsonby family papers, are all the biography her lack of accomplishments and frittered-away youth warrant; yet they greatly deepen this study of a social phenomenon." -Katherine A. Powers,The Boston Globe "One yearns to have been a fly on the wall at the 'fancy dress ball . . . featuring a gang of fashionable debutantes dressed as the Eton rowing eight,' or the notorious Bruno Hat exhibition of faked modernist paintings. Taylorexpertlyconnects this shrill game-playing to memorable depictions of it in Waugh'sVile Bodies, Powell'sAfternoon Menand Henry Green'sParty Going, while never neglecting the actual achievements of their lesser peers (e.g., Beverley Nichols's forgotten novelSi, Absorbing . . . The book really takes hold when Taylor seizes on the actual trajectory of the lives of individual members, most . . . poignantly that of Elizabeth Ponsonby . . . The pages devoted to her, enriched by Taylor's access to the Ponsonby family papers, are all the biography her lack of accomplishments and frittered-away youth warrant; yet they greatly deepen this study of a social phenomenon., Jampacked and delicious , crammed with a cast of selfish, feckless, darling, talented, almost terminally eccentric, good-looking men and women, Bright Young People chronicles the doings of London's gilded youth in the Roaring Twenties. Even if you think you know a lot (or enough) about them; even if you've read the acerbic novels of the early Evelyn Waugh or plowed your way through Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time , there's bound to be material here you haven't seen or heard of ., One yearns to have been a fly on the wall at the 'fancy dress ball . . . featuring a gang of fashionable debutantes dressed as the Eton rowing eight,' or the notorious Bruno Hat exhibition of faked modernist paintings. Taylor expertly connects this shrill game-playing to memorable depictions of it in Waugh's Vile Bodies , Powell's Afternoon Men and Henry Green's Party Going , while never neglecting the actual achievements of their lesser peers (e.g., Beverley Nichols's forgotten novel Singing Out of Tune ). A note of genuine pathos is struck in his description of how the increasingly straitened economic and political circumstances of the '30s began rendering this gaudy subculture obsolete. Immensely readable, and of real value as a sharply pointed cautionary tale., In Bright Young People Taylor is writing splendid social history , not fiction, and he brings a more tempered and rueful approach, showing the sadness beneath an entire generation's compulsion to waste its promise and dance in the spotlight. Scott Fitzgerald, a writer admired by Waugh (who was no soft touch), called his own 'lost' contemporaries 'the beautiful and damned'; here, Taylor makes us feel the full force of the reckoning implied in that sad conjunction . . . Taylor has a nice way with a one-liner --'The books Brian Howard never wrote would fill a decent-sized shelf'--and is excellent on the evolution of BYP argot . . . By placing generational tensions and tenderness center-stage, Taylor gives his book a beating emotional heart ., Fascinating . . . A complex study of family, fear and breakdown . . . Taylor's achievement is to remind us that there are few periods of recent history more culturally interesting than the years between the wars., [Conveys] precisely the aspect of the Bright Young People that is most difficult to give expression to on paper: not books or parties, but 'an atmosphere . . . An outlook, a gesture, an essence.', [Taylor] tells this story with a good deal of essayistic flair, precision and flyaway wit . Just as important, he relates this ultimately elegiac narrative with a surprising amount of intellectual and emotional sympathy., That rarest of books--one you can safely recommend both to scholars of Evelyn Waugh and the entourage of Paris Hilton . . . Taylor's skillful reconstruction of the whole hazy time feels like a lasting party favor., Taylor, for years a journalist, is fascinated by--and authoritative on--the lucrative relationship forged between the shrewdest of the Bright Young People and the glamour-hunting press . . . Shrewd and absorbing in his analysis of the way Waugh and Nancy Mitford . . . promoted the world they would soon skewer in fiction., Excellent . . . the brightest of the Bright Young People [make] their fictional counterparts in Waugh pale into insignificance . . . [Taylor] lays bare their cavortings with an archeological eye.
