–Writing in The Spectator, Druin Burch reviews the press coverage of the Lucy Letby case (recently convicted of murdering babies in her care) and recalls the case of an earlier nurse (Benjamin Geen) who was also convicted of murder. The writer (a consultant physician, a former junior doctor, and the author of books on history and medicine) was a co-worker of Geen. The article concludes with this:
…Something in the nature of our interest in murderers has a habit of making us forget logic. News, said Evelyn Waugh, is âwhat a chap who doesnât care much about anything wants to read.â It is interesting, of course, to pay some attention to the affairs of the day. But it is wise as well to monitor the nature of oneâs motives, and sensible to remember that shallow interests yield shallow insights…
–On the website ndnation.com a post by “BejingIrish” discusses a recent visit to Barcelona. Here’a an excerpt:
…I finally fulfilled my long-postponed ambition to visit [Barcelona] this fabled shrine to Catalan culture and spirit, including naturally a visit to Sagrada Familia, GaudĂâs unfinished masterwork and the cityâs iconic symbol. I prepared for the visit by reading Robert Hughesâ masterwork (Barcelona, New York: Alfred P. Knopf, 1992) wherein the author describes Sagrada Familia as ââŠpart eye-sore, part inspirationâŠone is fascinated by the thing in the way one is fascinated by costume jewelryâ. Like many others Hughes comes away wishing it would just get done. DalĂ thought it should be left unfinished and covered by a transparent geodesic dome. On a visit to the construction site in 1930, Evelyn Waugh suggested âthat it would be a graceful action on the part of someone who is a little wrong in the head to pay for its completionâ. Me? Itâs interesting, I guess, but itâs not the first thing I think of when I think of Barcelona. I think about a restaurant off Ramblas where I had lunch that concluded with prune ice cream. But, first of all, I think about that girl in the red shirt.
Waugh’s description of his visit to Sagrada Familia was included in his travel book Labels after having appeared a few months earlier in Architectural Review. It is reprinted in EAR, v 26 CWEW, p. 244.
–The National Review invited its staff to pick the books they most enjoyed reading in 2024. Here is one of the selections:
Mark Antonio Wright, executive editor
I donât know how I managed to spend a decade in journalism without ever having read Evelyn Waughâs Scoop, which may very well be the funniest, zaniest book that Iâve read since Catch-22. Waughâs gonzo satire of the racket that is Big-J journalism â a case of mistaken identity sends the wrong Mr. Boot out from England as a war correspondent to the country of Ishmaelia to cover what could turn out to be (for the press barons) a very promising war â is simply genius. No, the words âfake newsâ do not appear in the book. But I think Waugh would have understood the phrase. He was writing in a time before the Web and, indeed, before Fox News prime time, but anyone who has spent a moment perusing Twitter or CNN.com can see that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Sensationalism is the pressâs lodestar, which means that sometimes a story is too good to check. Scoop, dear friends, is too good a novel to miss.
–The Los Angeles-based Roman Catholic religious journal Angelus has posted an article by Russell Shaw that compares Swift’s A Modest Proposal and Waugh’s The Loved One. Here is the conclusion:
…As the story [of The Loved One] unfolds, a message of profound seriousness emerges. In a culture obsessed with death but entirely without faith, the difference between these two cemeteries is negligible. And one way to escape the implications of that unsettling state of affairs is by cosmeticizing death.
Whispering Glades is the temple of a kind of worldly mysticism in which fear of death and fascination with it come together in something unspeakably grotesque. Itâs religious all right, but this religion bears no resemblance to Christianity. The ritualistic preparation of corpses, the lavish Slumber Rooms, and the elaborate pomposity of the cemetery grounds combine as setting for a monstrous secular paganism focused on death.
The message underlying âThe Loved Oneâ remains as fresh and lively now as it was three quarters of a century ago. But itâs important to understand that message. At a key moment in the story, a cab driver passing a Catholic cemetery casually remarks that Catholics have their own way of handling all that. Itâs the sole apologetical remark Waugh allows himself â and especially appropriate at Christmas. For the horrors of secularization are not found in mortuary procedures but in a world without faith. Whereas true faith rejoices in knowing that the life we celebrate at the stable in Bethlehem is the real answer to death.
The story also appears in other religious papers. The full article is available at this link.
