Bright Young Things discussion

Hi guys, this question will make me sound like an idiot, but here it goes. I'm only 16, so, I'm new to reading good books and older books for pleasure and not just for school purposes. Anyway, I'm on Chapter 2 of Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh and I notice it has lots of " . . . " in the writing, especially in the dialogue. Is that just Mr. Waugh's style? What do they mean? Thanks, sorry I'm an idiot but it's bugging me that I don't know.

Navied wrote: "Hi guys, this question will make me sound like an idiot, but here it goes. I'm only 16, so, I'm new to reading good books and older books for pleasure and not just for school purposes. Anyway, I'm ..."

Hi Navied.
The three dots is used to show that something is missing, usually from a quote or if a conversation is broken off.
Goodreads put one at the end of your copied post to show that was not all of it. If I wanted to show the rest of your post, I would put another three dots to show the continuation.
Like this:
"...on Chapter 2 of Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh and I notice it has lots of " . . . " in the writing, especially in the dialogue. Is that just Mr. Waugh's style? What do they mean? Thanks, sorry I'm an idiot but it's bugging me that I don't know."

I hope that makes sense.
It is a bit of punctuation that is not used very much these days, so you may not have not seen it before.
I think Waugh is using it a lot to show that some of the people in his book are such shallow, self-centred airheads that they can't even concentrate on anyone else for long enough to hold a proper conversation.
I hope you enjoy the book.

Celine did this a lot. Drove French readers nuts -- not sure why. In Celine it's a sort of trailing off of the voice, or else a form of "yadda yadda" -- but I think Waugh's style is too formal for this to make sense. I go with Val.

I suppose Waugh and Celine are using it in the same general way, to break off a conversation. I imagine Waugh's party-goers as rushing from person to person without staying still long enough to listen to what someone else has to say, while perhaps Celine's stay but stop listening because the conversation is dull, developing that glazed eye look I sometimes see if I am talking about punctuation for example.

I tend to agree with the above comments. The use of ellipsis is a method used to indicate missing sections of a quotation; i.e. "Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers..........".
Another less common use is something that I am guilty of when writing posts here, i.e.: 'Her attitude may have negative influences for the future.........her marriage, bearing children,loss of position in society." It is used for emphasis rather than omission.
I would think that Waugh used ellipsis for the first example.

Thanks guys!