Word: metroland
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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From the true Catholic point of view, his novels are depraved, perverted and, above all, malicious, in the strict theological sense of the word. His favorite characters, like Lady Metroland and Basil Seal in Black Mischief and Put Out More Flags, do evil gratuitously, for the sheer fun of the thing...
...Fall, at once playful and lethal, was peopled with a rout of sinister caricatures tagged with unforgettable names (Waugh is probably the most inspired creator of synthetic surnames since Charles Dickens). There were Lady Circumference and her numskull son, little Lord Tangent; Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde (later Lady Margot Metroland) and her son, Peter Pastmaster; Sir Alastair Digby-Vaine-Trumpington and Viola Chasm. This glittering, blandly selfish, pretentiously stupid upper-class riffraff was to romp through most of Waugh's later books, sharing their futile power for pointless and appalling mischief with such later creations as raffish, rascally Basil Seal...