The Less Than Golden Age
The 1930s are often termed the "golden age" primarily because of the many greats of entertainment and the arts who came together at the same time. However, one of the book's key themes is the fact that this gilding was not quite so shiny after all. The champagne lifestyle that the wealthy and the young portrayed was nothing but a facade;; this front also masked the troubles going on in the world as a whole at the time too. Thus the characters were obsessively concerned about their ruined party when the rest of the nation were concerned about the outbreak of war looming. A golden age for the arts, most certainly, but not a golden age in of itself because of the unrest and uncertainty that took place within it.
Hollow Lives
From the outside, the characters are very fortunate people; they are wealthy, beautiful, intelligent and fun. They zip around the country, and across to France, for parties, they celebrate life, they are exuberant - and they are bored. All the parties in the world do not make these characters interesting. They are vacuous, self-centered people, who require others to entertain them. They do not like the railway hotel because there is "nothing to do". In reality there is plenty to do at the hotel, but they don't like doing any of it. They need constant entertainment, because apart from the time they spend at parties, their lives are actually empty and hollow.
Back in the Real World
A minor theme in the novel is the fact that World War II is looming large in England. The majority of the population are experiencing austerity as the nation tightens her belt in preparation for the hardships that are to follow. There is also general unease because people fear being conscripted again, World War I still being a vivid memory in the minds of the majority of people, except for the characters in the novel, who are largely in a bubble and do not seem to consider the bigger picture very much at all.
