On Waugh Novels

Most folks who've read any Waugh novel have read Brideshead Revisited. Although that's a great novel, it should also be read in the context of Waugh's shorter comic novels. There's a nice little Everyman Library volume with the four:

• Black Mischief
• Scoop
• The Loved One
• The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold
  

upon which I'll be commenting later.

Waugh's clearly focused, precise novels strike me as a totally different genre than the sprawling epics that are commonly taken to epitomize the novel genre.