Category Archives: Unconditional Surrender/The End of the Battle

War Trilogy: Fake Novels and an Anniversary

In the latest issue of TLS, D J Taylor has written an essay on what he calls “Made-up Stories” or fake novels. What reminded him of the genre (if that’s what it is) was his recent re-reading of Anthony Powell’s … Continue reading

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Cyril in Fiction: Roundup

–In his latest posting, Duncan Mclaren discusses yet another of Waugh’s friends. This time it is Cyril Connolly’s turn. McLaren looks at Cyril’s appearances in several of Waugh’s novels, at first obliquely as a name assigned to an unrelated character … Continue reading

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Not Wanted: Coronavirus Novels (At Least, Not Yet)

In the latest issue of Literary Review, literary critic and novelist D J Taylor has an article entitled “Why I Won’t Be Writing a Coronavirus Novel”. This begins with his fears that some half baked ideas may already be forming … Continue reading

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Waugh and Celebrations, or not, as the Case May Be

–The Guardian in an editorial recently addressed various proposals to celebrate (or gloat over) Brexit. These range from suggestions of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson that Big Ben be temporarily brought back into service to ring in their victory and Leave … Continue reading

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Roundup: Witchcraft and Victory

–The Daily Telegraph reviews a new history of witchcraft since 1800 entitled Cursed Britain by Thomas Waters. The review is by Robert Leigh-Pemberton and opens with this: The “Swahili witch doctor”, installed in rooms “off the Edgware Road” by the … Continue reading

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Waugh and “Mrs Bluefeet” in New Book

The latest Literary Review has an essay by novelist and literary critic D J Taylor about what he calls “biographer’s luck”. The was inspired by his latest biography to be published next month in the UK. An American edition entitled The … Continue reading

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Roundup: Party Fiction and Personal Libraries

–The National Review has published a symposium on the subject of personal libraries in which participants explain the pleasure and burden they impose. Here’s the contribution of American literary critic Terry Teachout: My Manhattan apartment contains a thousand-odd books, but … Continue reading

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Waugh’s “Hungry Novels” in TLS

Literary journalist and critic Laura Freeman writes in this week’s TLS of a subgenre she defines as the “hungry novels” which flourished in the 1940s-50s. Her essay opens with an extended reference to the scene in Brideshead Revisited where Waugh … Continue reading

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Something for the New Year

Constable has announced the publication later in the new year of a book by D J Taylor entitled Lost Girls: Love, War and Literature: 1939-51: Who were the Lost Girls? At least a dozen or so young women at large in … Continue reading

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CĂ©line, Muriel Spark and Lloyd Cole

Frederic Raphael is still best known for the TV adaptation of his own 1976 novel The Glittering Prizes, which is often compared with Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the popular and critical success … Continue reading

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