—Prospect Magazine has posted an interview of novelist William Boyd by Cosmo Adair. It begins with a discussion of Boyd’s latest novels (several dealing with spies) and proceeds back from that. Here’s an excerpt:
…Of all the spy writers, Graham Greene is Boyd’s most obvious forebear: they share an enviable commercial success, an unfashionable devotion to plot, and a craftsman’s immunity to writer’s block (“I’m not one of those writers who sweats over the working day,” Boyd says.) But it’s Evelyn Waugh who presides over the moral framework of his novels. He paraphrases Waugh: “Fortune is the least capricious of deities, and he will ensure that nobody is going to be very happy for very long.”
–A Hertfordshire community network has posted an article about Evelyn Waugh whom it claims as one of the county’s native sons. The claim is based on Waugh’s early schooldays in the county. Here are the opening paragraphs:
Heath Mount School at Watton-at-Stone in Hertfordshire is one of the oldest prep schools in the country. Previously known as Hampstead Heath Academy, Heath Mount Academy and Heath Mount Grammar, the school was founded in 1796 in Heath Street, Hampstead, London, as a boarding school for the education of ‘boys and young gentlemen’. The school moved to its current home as part of the Woodhall Estate in January 1934.
One of Britain’s sharpest and most enigmatic writers, Arthur Evelyn St John Waugh, was a pupil here. Born on 28 October 1903 in West Hampstead, London, into a literary family, he attended Heath Mount as a preparatory step into the elite world he would later both critique and crave. Although records of his early school years are sparse, Waugh later recalled his time at Heath Mount with a mix of nostalgia and sharp humour, noting both its discipline and its rigid expectations. According to The Heath Mount Register 1865–1992, Waugh stayed there for seven years from 1910 to 1917. Whilst at Heath Mount, he was known for his bullying, most notably of fellow pupil Cecil Beaton, and his behaviour resulted in the foundation of the Anti-Waugh Society.
According to the text, when Waugh was a schoolboy at Heath Mount (1910-17) the school seems to have been located in North London; indeed, Waugh could probably walk from his home in North End to the school in Hampstead. The school moved to its Hertfordshire location only in 1934. Be that as it may, Waugh clearly qualifies as a Heath Mount old boy.
—The Spectator has an article about the Bright Young People of the twenties updated to today. Here are the some excerpts from The Spectator’s coverage:
A far cry from the ‘roaring twenties’ of the early 20th Century, the 2020s can be characterised as the ‘boring twenties’, argue Gus Carter and Rupert Hawksley in our new year edition of the Spectator…
The original Bright Young People cavorted across the country, holding scandalous parties. ‘Please wear a bathing suit and bring a bath towel and a bottle,’ read one invitation. The Metropolitan Police filled Bow Street’s cells with hundreds of nightclub revellers, mainly girls in fancy dress. Dancing, according to one clergyman, was a ‘very grave disease which is infecting the country’. This was the era of Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies, a novel of £1,000 wagers and orgies in 10 Downing Street. The old world was dying and the new one had yet to crawl out of bed…
[Today, by contrast] record numbers of young people are out of work but even those with jobs face such a dire cost-of-living situation that they have no money left over to spend on fun. Traditional cultural outings – like going to the theatre – are increasingly confined to older, richer generations. This is long-standing issue, but compounded by Labour’s economic policies. A slightly downbeat start to the new year here at the Spectator, but at least the episode provides a free dose of fun…
–The Los Angeles County Library has announced an event for later this month that may be on interest:
Join the LGBTQ+ Book Club for a hybrid (in-person and online) discussion of Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. For adults.
This is a hybrid event and will be hosted in-person in the West Hollywood Library Community Meeting Room as well as on Zoom. Please register at the link below to receive the link to the meeting via email.
https://library-lacounty-gov.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0pd-Goqz4uGNNbzVuW720zsRrGxTK1VeLG
West Hollywood Library’s LGBTQ+ Book Club meets on the last Tuesday of the month to discuss literary works of relevance and interest to the LGBTQ+ community.
Please contact the library to borrow a print copy of the book. eBook is available through Libby app/OverDrive.
The date is Tuesday, 27 January, 6-7 pm at the West Hollywood branch. Here’s a link.
