–A Scottish blogger, posting on Hole Ousia, has expressed his admiration for Waugh’s Diaries. Here’s his discussion of selections from the diaries which he has recently read:
I recently read ‘The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh‘ as edited by Michael Davie. What is shared below is a small selection of entries, often partial, which do not present the whole. I am interested in Evelyn Waugh for his writing [his art] and have read much of his work.
As a retired doctor I find that I also have some interest in the life he led which, it is fair to say, was anything but healthy: his excessive drinking and the powerful drugs prescribed for him cannot be ignored. I have no wish to focus on this, particularly as my view is that the discipline of ‘pathography‘ has inherent difficulties. Most important of these difficulties are that the subject is dead and the world that they lived in has passed.
Whilst it is tempting to ‘diagnose’ in retrospect, such a ‘pathological lens’ fails to see a much wider bigger, necessary, picture that it is impossible to capture.
The text of his discussion may be read on his website.
—The Times has an article by Oliver Berry who recommends 16 of the most romantic locations for short city-break visits in England which rival competing foreign sites. Number 10 is Oxford and here is his description of its possibilities:
Oxford is littered with literary love stories, from the doomed passion of Charles and Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited to the heart-rendingly sad conclusion of Lyra and Will’s story in His Dark Materials. Much of Evelyn Waugh’s novel is set in and around the grounds of Merton College, while the Botanical Gardens provide the location for the devastating denouement of The Amber Spyglass. Magdalen College’s Addison’s Walk, where many of the city’s most famous writers (including Tolkien, CS Lewis and TE Lawrence) wandered for inspiration, is a romantic spot for a stroll — and, for the best view, head to the spire of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin on the High Street. A former rectory surrounded by gardens, the Old Parsonage Hotel feels like quintessential Oxford — but inside it’s more Scandi-chic than olde England, with sleek rooms, an upmarket restaurant and Velorbis bikes to borrow.
The emphasis in Waugh’s novel was more Hertford College and Christ Church than Merton but since they are rather clustered together and within easy walking distance, these could also easily be included in a brief visit.
–An article in the Oxford paper Cherwell also mentions Waugh. This is by Tarana Varma and is entitled “Why you should talk to your scout more.” Here is an excerpt:
…The Oxford cohort of the 19th and early 20th century was almost entirely made up of men from the landed gentry and clergy; it was therefore necessary that the services provided by the University matched those that these young men had been accustomed to during their childhood. Cultural depictions of Oxford life before the 21st century, such as in Evelyn Waugh’s classic Oxford novel Brideshead Revisited, show these men in all their self-assurance, lording it over the menial labourers who are so clearly seen as belonging to a different world. Luckily, most of us have now moved away from such reprehensible treatment of those who work for our colleges, and from such discreditable attitudes towards class division. Do we then have nothing to learn from the past as regards the university’s workforce?
–Journalist Hannah Betts, who has previously expressed her admiration of Evelyn Waugh’s work, has recently chosen Handful of Dust as one of the 20 best books about love affairs. The selection appears in a story in this week’s Sunday Telegraph. Although her full article is not posted on the internet, her selection of Waugh’s novel is evident from the Telegraph’s promotional material which mentions the novel by title and refers to “Dull, obvious Tony Last…” Betts is also mentioned in previous posts as an admirer of Brideshead Revisited, which along with Handful features an affair as important theme.
