Waugh! What Is He Good For?

The Penguin paperback editions of the 70's / 80's are design classics.

"Sword of Honor" is the dodgy one, despite some brilliant bits you have to wonder when Guy Crouchback thinks WWII is no longer a just cause when the "godless" Russians join the Allies side.

Actually, he wasn't. That was his problem, he came to hate the culture of his period. Orwell called his views "untenable" and Waugh's stance on the Vatican II reforms in the Catholic church was out of step with the times.

even devoting the intellectual power necessary to *question* - religious views in books almost half a century old is akin to being offended by "Fanny" and "Dick" or wondering what Melville really meant by "white whale"

Half a century isn't that long ago you know. That's a really bizarre statement anyway.

And I don't think anyone here is offended, I certainly ain't, I fucking love Waugh and I'm an atheist lefty.

This is my opinion. I'm not interested in what makes a writer tick. I'm only interested in whether or not he's any good. If a book cannot stand up without the author attached to it, then it is fundamentally worthless. You obviously feel differently and kudos to you for it.

Well, okay, but at a certain point 'well-written' might come into conflict with 'untenable opinions'. I really like Waugh up to 'Brideshead,' and his stuff sure is well-written, but there's a lot that's hard to take even in Brideshead. Where before he saw the old Tory county culture as as dead (in 'A Handful of Dust') as the London culture of 'Vile Bodies' he later created a bogus high Tory mirage that I find makes his stuff hard-going.

A mention for Labels too. A cracking travel book round the Mediterranean. Constantly referenced by later writers treading the same path. A slight volume full of beauty.

Strange to be called an "irritant" in a thread you started yourself as a gushing fan of the man. But moving along...

So, after meaning to read some Waugh for a long time, I picked up nearly his whole works at a Canadian book fair -- all those lovely 80s Penguin pbks, about $20 the lot.

Not to begin on an insufferably PC note, but what's with the "Chokey" character in DaF? What's he trying to say here?

does anyone in the current ILB cohort rate waugh's later (brideshead and after) output?

actually, i wish i'd revived the thread without the dodgy pun title

I especially like the Sword of Honour trilogy and The Loved One from the kater stuff--and Gilbert Pinfold is mad, but very entertaiuningly and deliberately so.

I rate brideshead but haven't read anything later

I sort of rate it. In general, it's got lots of virtues: he builds carefully, and the flexibility of his style keeps thing moving: lightly ironic omniscience going into serious melancholy, elegant descriptive detail, and the fragmentary mode is still around in places. Oh, and still brilliant at tricks with dialogue.

So I find the later stuff in general very pleasant to read when I'm in the mood, but it never quite feels like it's got the fun, compression, blank cruelty or young-man sadness of the first four in particular, so I don't really get enthusiastic.

More specifically: The Loved One was fun, but didn't make a huge impression on me. Sword of Honour I remember as his best serious book, but I'm a bit dubious about, or uninterested in, the kind of proper old-school Brit literariness it manages. Brideshead: first time out I raced through it, but it left a bad taste: soapy, toff infatuation. I started again recently but put it down. Same grounds, sort of: so good at pushing buttons - 'melancholy', 'decline', 'gilded youth' - and all in the service of (Enrique OTM upthread) batshit High Toryism and recusant-fetish Catholicism.

Speaking of: I enjoyed Helena when I read it recently. Maybe it's because the historical setting cordons off the craziness, but it didn't wind me up in the way Brideshead does. It's a funny mix of things: legend, historical novel, an extension of his aristo-girl portraiture, an essay on religion and politics, etc. Throws in a few funnies. Strange little book.

And I love Pinfold. It's such a strange self-portrait, honest about and critical of this buffer self he ended up building. And I don't read huge amounts of fiction, but the straight-face narration of deepening madness seems like a really nice piece of work: both funny and terrifying. The voice-transmitting box and conspiracy are made to make sense (personal interest: had a relative with drink issues who after withdrawal/sleep problems also (briefly, thank the lord) went off into lucidly explaining about a conspiracy to drive them mad via a box for transmitting voices into the head, so was fascinated by this.)

Absolutely. Pinfold is great - written at an age when to all intents and purposes he seemed an ossified parody of reactionary bullshit, without any self-awareness, Pinfold is vulnerable and tolerant, and also very funny. Well, funny and terrifying.

Kinglsey Amis has got a couple of amusing anecdotes about Waugh, which I'll dig out when the person I've lent the book to gets up.

did he really call a second son 'septimus'?

i had forgotten reviving this / not seen the replies / huh

i'd just moved to oxford and was thinking about reading brideshead. also jude. also etc.

i ended up rereading x4 other waugh books and x2 i hadn't before before i got around to brideshead. which has more to it than i'd expected. the stuff about buggery seemed a lot better than the stuff about god.

most of the criticisms of it by purpose seem a little off? because the moments where the objectionable viewpoints come through are the most artistically cack-handed? which goes some way to redeeming it for me? i guess?

Absolutely. Pinfold is great - written at an age when to all intents and purposes he seemed an ossified parody of reactionary bullshit, without any self-awareness, Pinfold is vulnerable and tolerant, and also very funny.

this also - i feel like i always want to ascribe waugh self-awareness, possibly because i like him, and in my head it is like that redeems him somehow

i read 'noblesse oblige' recently also and he seems to have much more ironic distance from the whole thing than mitford does, although i guess that's not saying a great deal

http://theweek.com/articles/751856/evelyn-waugh-fanatics