Love Among The Ruins - Evelyn Waugh.

 

"Love Among the Ruins. A Romance of the Near Future", is a dystopian novel by Evelyn Waugh, which was published in 1953. It takes its title from a poem by Robert Browning called "Love Among the Ruins", published in 1855.

Waugh's novel is a satire and an attack on the welfare state and the quasi-egalitarianism, that the Labour government was building in Britain, in the early 1950s. The author despised socialism, plastic, and the modern age. Waugh wrote the novel in response to the Labour Party's victory in the 1950 General Election.

The hero of the story, Miles Plastic, an orphan, is a semi-reformed arsonist, a pyromaniac, who is nearing the end of a term of imprisonment for arson. Waugh says that his parents had been ruined and reduced to poverty by the impositions of socialism and high taxes, and forced to divorce. He was handed over to an aunt who died of boredom from working in a factory. He was then raised in an orphanage. Evelyn Waugh says of Miles, "Huge sum were thenceforward spent upon him; sums which, fifty years earlier, would have sent whole quiversful of boys to Winchester and New College and established them in the learned professions..."

In Satellite City, where Miles is sent on his release, crime is dealt with leniently and there is a high level of recidivism. There are no criminals, only victims of inadequate social services. Miles goes to work in the euthanasia centre run by Dr Beamish. It's one of the cushier jobs in Satellite City and there is no shortage of customers or "welfare weary" citizens, who are queueing up to die. Although Dr Beamish runs the centre, Miles finds that the doctor is rather indignant that people can't find another way to die.

In Satellite City, orphans and offenders like Miles Plastic, are always given priority when it comes to getting jobs, and he's the envy of all his colleagues. One of his colleagues says to him, "Great State! You must have pull. Only the very bright boys get posted to Euthanasia. I've been in Contraception for five years. It's a blind alley."

Miles begins a romance with Clara, a bearded ballerina - a side effect of a botched sterilisation operation - who is a "priority case" at the centre. Clara doesn't wish to die, but she's been referred to the centre by the department where she works. Miles and Clara fall in love and she becomes pregnant. One day, Clara disappears and when Miles eventually finds her, he finds she has a rubber jaw replacing her formerly bearded face and his child has been aborted. In anger, Miles sets fire to his former prison but he's not identified as the perpetrator of the crime.

As a model rehabilitated prisoner, Miles gets promoted and he's sent to London to give a series of lecture tours on the worthiness of the prison system. He loses interest in Clara and is forced to marry the "gruesome" Miss Flower, a civil servant. Miles is whisked off to the registry office and half way through the wedding service, Miles starts to fidget with his cigarette lighter. We're left wondering whether Miles is just about to start another fire.