Roundup: Handful and Helena

–Several Spanish language papers have reported a new Spanish translation of A Handful of Dust. This is by Society member Carlos Villar Flor who has participated in several EWS events. Here’s an edited translation of the announcement:

Professor of English Literature at the University of La Rioja , Carlos Villar Flor, has written the new translation of the novel A Handful of Dust , by the British writer Evelyn Waugh, now published by the publishing house Impedimenta. The work, written in 1934 , is considered one of the most representative novels of 20th-century English literature . In it, Waugh creates a sharp satire of the British aristocracy of the interwar period , marked by decadence and moral decay.

Carlos Villar Flor not only completed the translation but also wrote the prologue to this new edition. This marks a new milestone in his career as a translator of Waugh, an author to whom he has dedicated a significant portion of his academic and literary career. Waugh’s previous works translated by Villar Flor include Men at Arms, Officers and Gentlemen, Unconditional Surrender, Scott-King’s Modern Europe, and Put Out More Flags, published between 2003 and 2012 by various publishers.

The English title of the work translated into Spanish as Neutralia is Scott-King’s Modern Europe.

–Here’s a biographical sketch of the new Pope’s mother based on reports that appeared in the Chicago Tribune:

Mildred A. Martinez Prevost (mother)

Raised in Chicago with five sisters — including two who became nuns — she graduated from Immaculata High School for girls in June 1929, according to Chicago Tribune archives.

The contralto was a soloist in a 1940 Mundelein College performance and as a competitor in the 1941 Chicagoland Music Festival. Mildred Prevost obtained a graduate degree from DePaul University’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in February 1947 and a master’s degree in education in 1949.

Her post-college exploits all appear to be rooted in faith. In December 1950, Mildred Prevost presented a book review of “Helena” by British author Evelyn Waugh to the Chicago circle of the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae. The book chronicles the life of Helena of Constantinople, whose son was Roman conqueror Constantine I. In October 1951, she was a member of a committee that produced a concert by the Gay Twins, dual pianists and nuns who were sightless since birth. Described as a homemaker in March 1952, Mildred Prevost participated in a forum called “The Catholic Woman in the Professional World.”

As president of the Mendel Catholic High School Mothers Club, Mildred Prevost organized a spaghetti dinner in April 1967 and presided over a hootenanny in September 1968 that featured Father Gale White and the Firemen. She also served as a librarian at the school, the Archdiocese of Chicago said.

Mildred Prevost died in 1990. Her death notice in the Tribune requested that contributions be made to the Augustinian Mission in Peru in lieu of flowers.

–The Collegium Institute has scheduled four internet reading group sessions on Waugh’s novel Helena. Here are the details:

The British Catholic writer Evelyn Waugh once described his historical novel Helena (1950) as his personal favorite among his works. The novel explores the life of Saint Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine and discoverer of the True Cross. Waugh follows Helena from her humble origins in Roman Britain (an invention by the author) to her central role in Christianizing the Roman Empire. Waugh artfully explores faith, politics, and the nature of history in this imaginative novel.

Undergraduate and graduate students are invited to join us for the Summer 2025 Faith in Fiction virtual reading group in which we will read Evelyn Waugh’s Helena. We will meet virtually via Zoom on Wednesday evenings in June.

Date: Wednesday evenings in June

• June 4

• June 11

• June 18

• June 25

Location: Virtual via Zoom

To register, click the button below. All participants will receive a free copy of Helena by Evelyn Waugh. Questions? Please contact Quinn Moore ((click to email)).

It may be the case that this is open only to registered students.

–Finally, the editors of the journal First Things have made a list of their recommendations for summer reading. One of them (by Claire Giuntini) relates to Helena:

I wish I could say that I was amiably receptive when beginning Evelyn Waugh’s Helena, a fictionalized account of Helena of Constantinople’s quest to find the relics of the True Cross, but I anticipated being soured. As a friend once said, Waugh likes to crush your soul, and I don’t particularly enjoy having my soul crushed. Helena, his only historical novel, is full of Waugh’s characteristic hopelessness, but also didactic smugness. Waugh himself called the book didactic in the BBC interview with John Freeman appended to my copy. He also said it was his favorite work, though no one else’s.

I despise didactic novels, and I despised the didactic elements in this novel, which I had suspected and resented from the start. It would be unfair of me, however, to say I disliked the book entirely. It was, of course, humorous, if often darkly. As a classics major, I enjoyed how he rendered ancient Roman culture and society understandable and relatable. His skill in fabulating aspects of Roman culture and effortlessly familiarizing them made it difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction; a beneficial attribute for a novel, a hindering attribute for one interested in accuracy.

Historicity, however, wasn’t Waugh’s goal. He said in the preface that he made up a great deal of the plot and details, mostly because he was writing a novel, which is an exercise of the imagination, but also because we don’t really know anything about Helena or the finding of the True Cross. His last introductory remark is that “[t]he story is just something to be read; in fact a legend.” Zoomers out there, what he means is, “this is fan fiction.” Don’t forget it’s “didactic” fan fiction. If that interests you, I recommend you read it.