Updates: Brideshead Tonite

Posted on May 28, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

The Daily Telegraph offers this rather downbeat description in its TV schedules of the 2008 Brideshead Revisited film adaptation:

In the light of the 1981 TV version of Evelyn Waugh’s novel, you do have to admire the chutzpah of anyone else giving Brideshead a go. Julian Jarrold’s attempt suffers from a desire to force modern conventions upon a story defined by the mores of upper-class interwar Britain. Hayley Atwell and Ben Whishaw are the Flyte siblings, but Catholicism, the tale’s engine, is only pernicious, never seductive.

As metioned in an earlier post, the film will run on BBC2 at 11:25 pm tonight. It will follow a new production of King Lear featuring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson (who also plays Teresa Flyte in Brideshead). The 2008 film keeps on finding hard acts to follow. It will be available on BBCiPlayer for streaming from tomorrow.

The first two episodes of A Very English Scandal managed to combine docudrama and comedy in about the right measure. Ben Wishaw who plays Sebastian in the 2008 Brideshead does better in his role of Norman Scott (Jeremy Thorpe’s former lover) in this series. This is the story of the downfall of Thorpe, who rose to be leader of Liberal Party. As noted previously, Auberon Waugh played a part in the story, making his own contribution to its comic side. The Oldie earlier this month posted an excerpt from Auberon’s autobiography summarizing his participation in the affair. Alexander Waugh has also written an essay on this subject entitled “Rinka’s Revenge” in the current issue of The Oldie. Maybe Auberon will get a mention in the final episode next Sunday on BBC1. A better title for the series, from Auberon’s perspective at least, might have been “The Dog It Was That Died.” The first two episodes are now available for internet streaming on BBCiPlayer.

The Madrid newspaper El Pais interviews Spanish entertainer Javier Garruchaga about his band’s new album ¡Noticia Bomba! (title taken from Spanish translation of Scoop) mentioned in an earlier posting. The El Pais story also includes a video of the interview for those who understand Spanish. There are no subtitles but the interview is transcribed in Spanish in the paper.

UPDATE (30 May 2018): References to The Oldie added.

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Five Books (more)

Posted on May 27, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

Reader Dave Lull has done some additional research in the archives of the Five Books interviews and came up with a July 2012 interview with Waugh biographer Selina Hastings. See previous post. She was asked about books relating to Waugh and the Bright Young People. Here is her list of the top five, but one should really read her interview in its entirety:

  1. Children of the Sun by Martin Green
  2. Fragment of  Friendship by Dudley Carew: (This is a wonderful book. Carew’s portrait of Waugh is so marvellous because you not only see the brilliant young man but also the rather vulnerable school boy…)
  3. My Brother Evelyn and Other Profiles by Alec Waugh: (In a way I feel sorry for Alec Waugh. In his lifetime he always felt that he was the brother who succeeded. During the twenties and thirties, Alec was far better known than Evelyn. He wrote a book a year, and was very pleased with himself, adored by his parents…)
  4. The Picturesque Prison by Jeffrey Heath
  5. The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, ed. by Charlotte Mosley

These probably failed to make it into the Evelyn Waugh Archive because none has Evelyn Waugh listed as its author. Another book outside the “archive” found by Dave is Waugh’s Diaries which was included by Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash in his April 2011 list of five books about the History of the Present:

…It’s a document of its time. It’s full of hugely politically incorrect and, by the end, almost self-parodic episodes but it’s also brilliant at catching the moment that life is turned into art.

That one should have been in the Waugh Archive but may have been missed because it is listed as “ed. by Michael Davie.” Thanks again to Dave for his follow up research.

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Philip Roth (1933-2018)

Posted on May 26, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

The death was announced earlier this week of the American novelist Philip Roth. Like Tom Wolfe, who died the preceding week, much of his early work was written in the comic, satirical tradition of Evelyn Waugh. So far, however, no obituarist has made much of this connection (or, for that matter, even discussed whether there can be said to be one). I can attest to being hugely entertained by the comic elements in Roth’s early works. In these, such as Goodbye, Columbus, he satirized the community and people he knew best, the Jews living in Newark, NJ. He followed the same trajectory as John Updike who also began by writing  satirically about his Protestant family and their community in Shillington, PA. In recognition of their similarities, Updike later did Roth the honor of parodizing his life and works in the Bech stories.

Roth, like Waugh, also experienced marital problems which, according to an article in the Daily Maverick (a Johannesburg, South African online newspaper), Roth reflected in his writing:

Roth was also known for his written-about feuds with a former wife, Claire Bloom (her memoirs versus his use of a character in his writing who was a lightly disguised version of her),… In his eight and a half decades, before he “retired” from writing some five years earlier at a widely attended public event, Roth completed dozens of novels, as well as short stories, novellas, essays and other bits of critical commentary and writing. While many readers have their favourites from the Rothian ouvre, four books have stood out for me as special peaks from among his vast output – Goodbye Columbus, Portnoy’s Complaint, The Plot Against America and The Human Stain.

His first wife also comes in for her share of attention in the early novels. One of these. Letting Go (1962), could be added to the recommended reading list. It was his second book and first full-length novel . It may now seem dated but, for all that, is an excellent follow up to Goodbye, Columbus as well as a humorous and insightful commentary on the 1950s merging into student life in the early 1960s from one who was directly experiencing those times.

The Daily Maverick also places Roth in another tradition shared with Waugh: the great  writer who fails to score a Nobel Prize. The article (by J Brooks Spector) notes that:

Roth’s failure to be recognised earlier for his vast body of extraordinary work poking hard at the human condition becomes even clearer as Roth has joined the company, just for starters, of such deceased writers as Leo Tolstoy, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and George Orwell – not to mention fellow American John Updike.

It seems unlikely that Waugh ever felt much disappointment at being passed over for a Nobel Prize. Indeed, he was probably more disappointed at failing to receive a knighthood than a Nobel.

Mark Lawson, who has an article on the occasion of Roth’s death in the New Statesman and who had once interviewed Roth, thought that his best writing came towards the end of his life, rather than that reflected in the earlier comic works:

The comic tone of the previous books was increasingly shadowed by tragedy, and reached the destination entirely in a trilogy published during the second Clinton administration. Zuckerman remains as a narrator or catalyst, but the main stories are those of others: “Swede” Levov, a businessman, in American Pastoral (1997); a radio star, Ira Ringold, in I Married A Communist (1998); and a college professor, Coleman Silk, in The Human Stain (2000), the last of which is, for my dollar, Roth’s best novel.

Perhaps Lawson has got it right, and clearly the success and celebrity of Portnoy’s Complaint rather embarassed Roth and caused him to change directions. Waugh experienced much the same phenomenon after the success of Brideshead Revisited. Although its notoriety was different in kind and intensity from that attending Roth’s novel, Brideshead nevertheless became popular for the wrong reason from Waugh’s perspective. Waugh’s last fictional works in Sword of Honour and Pinfold clearly showed he was moving in a new direction and, had he lived as long as Roth, might well have produced his best work toward the end. Indeed, there are those who consider these late novels to be Waugh’s best work. And it should also be remembered that even in his darker works, Waugh’s humor also makes its appearance.

UPDATE (27 May 2018): A few comments were added or edited.

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Roundup: Picture This

Posted on May 25, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

A remarkable photo of Evelyn Waugh has been posted on the men’s clothing website Voxsartoria. This is from 1950, although the name of the photographer is not given. What is most noticeable about the photo is the lighting on the fabric of the tweed suit Waugh is wearing. This is appropriate for the photo’s inclusion in a collection dedicated to promoting the return of tweed suits. There are also several photos of other writers, most prominently T S Eliot and the late Tom Wolfe, wearing suits of that fabric.

Another website (alamy.com) has posted a series of “stock photos” of Evelyn Waugh’s youngest son, Septimus Waugh. He is a woodcarver and sculptor and is depicted at his home and studio in Tiverton, Devon. There are also three photos of modern stained glass windows from County Durham and Yorkshire in the same grouping but there is nothing in the captions to connect Mr Waugh with those windows (although it is quite possible he may have contributed something).

In yesterday’s issue of the newspaper The New European, there is a story describing a photo by Mark Harrison of Conservative Party politician Jacob Rees-Mogg. The article by Bonnie Greer describes Rees-Mogg in the Harrison photo as “presenting the politician as we think we know him.” She goes on to explain that he appears in the photo to look like “a minor character from those two works by Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies and Brideshead Revisited.” That’s not terribly helpful given the large number of characters to choose from. The photo Greer is discussing is this one that was posted several weeks ago on another site. (See update below confirming the identity of the photo.) A better Waugh comparison might be found in another novel: this would be the “questing vole” from Scoop since Rees-Mogg could be fairly described as looking a bit “feather-footed” in this photo (check his hands) and certainly looks as if he might have just arrived in the studio from a “plashy fen” (explaining the need for the makeup). Greer’s story (“A Study in Vanity”) is reposted on PressReader.

One of our readers has sent a link to a literary website called Five Books which contains several references to Waugh’s works. This site invites other writers or experts to propose the best five books they have read in their respective fields of knowledge. The database created may then be mined for specific writers, and this is what reader Dave Lull has done, producing an archive of Waugh references from this website. It is perhaps not surprising that the greatest number of interviewees (7) included Scoop on their lists. Their topics were not all related to journalism, however, but included comic writing (Andy Borowitz) and books that inspired them (William Boyd). Humorist P J O’Rourke included Put Out More Flags on his list of books about political satire. Waugh’s collected Letters was among the 5 best literary letter selections, Decline and Fall, the best of schoolmasters, Sword of Honour, the best of WWII and Robbery Under Law, the best of Mexico. As a sample of the explanatory material available on the database, here’s the entry for Robbery Under Law by Hugh Thomson:

This is a good one. There was a big fashion in the 1930s for making the most of the trip by writing both a novel and a travel book about Mexico, as Greene and Lawrence did, but Waugh only wrote a travel book. It is little known and should be more widely read. It may be little known because of its awful title. The book has an odd genesis – it was a commission from the Pearson family who had oil holdings in Mexico that had been expropriated by the revolutionary government. They were so outraged that they paid Waugh to write a book about how arbitrary and unjust this was.

So, it’s an odd, sponsored book and while Waugh fulfils the brief, he also ranges far and wide across Mexico. He sees that its history is not as simple as ‘noble Indians and brutal Europeans’ and thinks Mexicans should celebrate their post-Columbian inheritance as much as their Aztec history. There is a fair amount of ‘dog eat dog’ in the Mexico Waugh describes – it was a tough place to live and work, and Waugh shows this with no sentimentality.

These interviews are dated from 2012 or earlier except for the one on Schoolmasters which is from March 2018. Oddly missing are lists including Waugh’s best selling novels Brideshead Revisited and The Loved One. Perhaps topics into which they would fit have not yet been assigned: Dysfunctional Roman Catholic Families, Weird Burial Customs, Film Adaptations?

Back to the subject of film, BBC2 will rebroadcast the 2008 film adaptation of Brideshead Revisited next Monday, 28 May. The BBC was one of the film’s backers, as was Harvey Weinstein (Miramax), who was recently arrested in the USA and charged with sexual criminal offenses. He was reported last year as having harassed one of the cast members of the 2008 film adaptation on a visit to the film location in Yorkshire. This was Hayley Atwell who played Julia and was told by Weinstein to lose weight. Another cast member, Emma Thompson, who played Teresa Flyte, told him to back off, which he reportedly did. See previous posts. This film will air at 23:25 and will be available on BBC iPlayer to stream on the internet thereafter. A UK internet connection will be required.

Thanks once again to Dave Lull for sending the Evelyn Waugh archive from Five Books.

UPDATE (27 May 2018): Information about dates of Five Books interviews was added. In addition, The New European story now appears on the paper’s website, and this will confirm that its reference is, indeed, to the photo of Jacob Rees-Mogg linked above in our posting. That photo now appears at the top of the story.

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Terence Greenidge and Degenerate Oxford?

Posted on May 23, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

Peter Harrington Booksellers in London are listing a copy of the 1930 book by Terence Greenidge entitled Degenerate Oxford? A Critical Study of Modern University Life. He is also credited with several later books in his Wikipedia entry, including fiction, poetry and drama. He was a year ahead of Evelyn Waugh at Hertford College, but they were fairly close friends. They collaborated on the film The Scarlet Woman in 1924 which Greenidge produced and directed from a script written by Waugh and in which Waugh played two parts. Waugh is also listed as having appeared in two other Greenidge films made about this same time; these are entitled 666 and Mummers.

Waugh reviewed Greenidge’s book about Oxford in the Fortnightly Review (March 1930) and declared it a “treatise” as distinguished from the novels many of his friends were writing at the time. In the review, Waugh describes Greenidge as a prominent member of the University during his student days “in athletic, intellectual and social circles.” He goes on to note some of Greenidge’s more eccentric characteristics: “…he usually carried about with him a large tobacco tin, his razor and his tooth-brush, several books and an assortment of whatever of his own and his friends’ possessions excited his momentary interest.”

The review describes the book as “a thorough and unsophisticated examination of the nature and value of Oxford education.” Waugh comments specifically on the sections dealing with Athletes (“sound and witty”), Aesthetes (“good up to a point”) and the university authorities  (“will probably excite most discussion”). He takes issue with Greenidge on one question: “I could do with more plain speaking about homo-sexuality. By his implied assumption that homo-sexual relations among undergraduates are merely romantic and sentimental he seems to avoid the most important questions at issue.” Waugh’s review is collected in Essays, Articles and Reviews 1922-1934 (CWEW v26), p. 208. Waugh also wrote about Greenidge at some length in his autobiography A Little Learning.

The Peter Harrington copy of Greenidge’s book is described as “good” and has what looks like a largely intact dustwrapper. Less expensive copies are also available from Amazon traders.

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Scoop X 3

Posted on May 22, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

BBC News opens a report on whether there will be a second independence referendum in Scotland with a reference to Waugh’s novel Scoop. The report is filed by the BBC’s Scotland political editor Brian Taylor:

So is that it, then? Are we definitely set on course for an early rerun of the independence referendum? Up to a point, Lord Copper. Fans of Evelyn Waugh’s fine novel, Scoop, will recall that phrase is a circumlocution. It means, in practice, no. Without being too precise about it. The reason for this Boot-like vacillation? There is seldom much that is certain about politics. And these Brexit times are particularly redolent of disquiet and imprecision…But, to be clear (OK, to approximate clarity), Nicola Sturgeon has not set out detailed plans for a second independence referendum. Not in yesterday’s interview with the commendable Robert Peston. Nor anywhere else.

In its latest author interview, Powell’s Books talks with Mark Adams who has written several travel books, most recently Tip of the Iceberg about explorations in Alaska. When asked for his favorite quote from another writer, Adams came up with this:

From Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop:

“Mr. Salter’s side of the conversation was limited to expressions of assent. When Lord Copper was right, he said, ‘Definitely, Lord Copper’; when he was wrong, ‘Up to a point.’
‘Let me see, what’s the name of the place I mean? Capital of Japan? Yokohama, isn’t it?’
‘Up to a point, Lord Copper.’
‘And Hong Kong belongs to us, doesn’t it?’
‘Definitely, Lord Copper.’”

Finally, to complete the journalistic hat trick, Waugh’s novel has been selected by Stylist.co.uk as one of its recommended summer reads:

Scoop, Evelyn Waugh. William Boot, owing to an editorial mix up, is taken away from his column of nature notes and sent to a (fictional) African country as a war reporter. He is innocent and inept and eventually ends up in the middle of a civil war stirred up by the British press. Scoop is one of Waugh’s funniest novels.

Why is it a holiday read? Steal Boot’s telegram style for postcards home: “Weather here good stop no news today.”

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Evelyn Waugh and London Magazine

Posted on May 21, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

The Bookseller, a journal covering news of the British publishing industry, carries a story about a new literary prize sponsored by London Magazine. This will:

 …celebrate “exceptional” literary fiction and the 2018 edition will award a stand-out debut novel published in the UK between 1st January 2017 and 31st December 2017. The judging panel will be chaired by London Magazine reviews editor Matthew Scott and comprise of journalist Suzi Feay, book critic Houman Barekat, and partner at [co-sponsoring law firm] Collyer Bristow, Steven Heffer. Scott said: “The London Magazine has a long history of publishing young fiction writers, including T.S Eliot, Doris Lessing, Evelyn Waugh and Barney Norris, at the beginning of their careers, and we want to take this opportunity to continue celebrating debut fiction writers from the UK.”

 

The sponsors are to be congratulated on their efforts, and no one can quibble with their claim of London Magazine’s long history of supporting the work of fledgling fiction writers. One wonders, however, what they had in mind when they mention London Magazine’s “support” of Evelyn Waugh at the “beginning” of his career. There was, according to Wikipedia, an earlier iteration of London Magazine that was published between 1900 and 1933.  This belonged to the Harmsworth interests in the late 1920s-early 1930s when Waugh was starting his career. There is no record in the Evelyn Waugh Bibliography (ed. R M Davis et al.) of that journal publishing or reviewing anything by Evelyn Waugh. Nor does The Complete Short Stories (ed. by Ann Pasternak Slater) record any first publication of a story by Waugh in London Magazine. The Harmsworths also owned the Daily Mail which was indeed an early supporter of Waugh’s work, but that was a separate publication.

When the London Magazine resumed publication after the war, first under John Lehmann and later under Alan Ross, they did publish some of Waugh’s writings, in particular excerpts from his Sword of Honour trilogy. But by that time, Waugh was well established, and it is difficult to determine who was “supporting” whom by these efforts.

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Brideshead at the Mille Miglia

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

Columnist and humorist writing as Don Alphonso reports in the weblog of the German paper Der Welt about his visit to this year’s Mille Miglia Storica event in Italy. This is an annual vintage car rally based on an auto race that took place between 1927 and 1957 over a 1500 km course between Brescia and Rome. It was discontinued after a series of accidents and later, beginning in 1977, converted into a less stressful rally of cars built before 1957. Several of this year’s entries are pictured in the story as it appears in the welt.com website.

The article is entitled “Der indiskrete Charme der lauten Motoren” (The indiscrete charm of the loud engines) and begins with an extended and somewhat mistifying reference to Brideshead Revisited. The story opens with Charles Ryder’s recall of his youth at the time he is preparing for the invasion of Normandy (translation by Google with minor edits):

…This youth, full of brittle friendships, cautious, complex or even downright spoiled characters, makes up the charm of the narrative, as none of the characters is uncomfortable or evil on the surface while their existence lurches into the abyss. There is the deeply innocent anecdote about the outing that Charles Ryder and his friend Sebastian Flyte are making along with the teddy bear Aloysius.

And yesterday, when I was in Cortona, with fantastic views of the border region between Tuscany and Umbria, with the blue shimmering Lake Trasimeno on the horizon and the chattering beasts of the Mille Miglia in front of me, I thought myself in many a picture to look [as] Charles and Sebastian must also have looked at the time when they went to Oxford in the 20s…

Not everyone appreciates Evelyn Waugh’s book. I know some who think all the characters who were born into their immense privileges and who also have so much charm and talent, should start doing something with their lives at least starting on page 100. Instead, people chatter, talk a little bit backwards, small events cause catastrophes that do not really have to be, and God is also kind and does not do anybody any good until circumstances force people to make decisions that are not always beautiful. Some may even wait for a punishment for the relaxation [auch auf ein Strafgericht für die Erschlaffung], but what is actually remembered is the provocatively displayed carelessness that covers every failure with charm. Charles and Sebastian are not good. But you would like to travel with them in the springtime.

Now, that’s always the case with the charm and the childish hyperbole that often accumulates in its slipstream. Charm is learned and not “the good”, charm is commonly used to hide a lack of virtues. The truly virtuous, who only know the smell of curd soap and cabbage wraps and fear sins, would let themselves be dragged into the debauchery of other people, often go to the wall and think that whoever is so charming can not really be a bad person. Of course they are right, but at the same time they also realize that “not bad” and charm together can not cover up the blatant lack of substantial values.

And so the narrative continues over several pages, somewhat defensively justifying the columnist’s falling under the charm of the vintage car rally. He seems to be addressing an audience which he feels opposes such events but is trying to convince himself (if not necessarily them) that it is nonetheless acceptable to allow oneself to be charmed by them. Perhaps one needs to know more about the columnist (who has appeared in these pages before) or about German humor to appreciate more fully his most recent Wavian references. His real name is Rainer Meyer and he has also written a novel and published collections of his other writings.

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Roundup: From Ocean Liners to The Fiddlers Elbow

Posted on May 18, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

The V&A is running an exhibit on Ocean Liners, which remains open until 17 June. Rosemary Hill has written an article about it in the London Review of Books. She discusses the history of luxury liners back to the prewar age that preceded the “modern” style that was introduced after WWI and reached its apogee in the 1930s:

Most modern of all was the Orion, designed by Brian O’Rorke for the Orient Line in 1934. O’Rorke declared war on ‘plush and chintz’, instead using Bakelite, chrome and fabrics by Marion Dorn. The Orion was ‘the first British ship to truly adopt modernist principles’ and was probably what Evelyn Waugh had in mind in Brideshead Revisited: ‘Yards and yards of biscuit-coloured wood … that had been bent round corners … blotting paper carpet’ all ‘designed perhaps by a sanitary engineer’.

The U & Non-U story continues in the “N.B.” column of the TLS. In the latest installment the  columnist “J, C.” or James Campbell discovers that the series has had a noticeable impact on the prices for used copies of Nancy Mitford’s book Noblesse Oblige. The series began when Campbell found a “perambulatory” copy of a 1959 Penguin at a book stall for £3. When a friend asked him if he could find aother copy, Campbell looked online and the best he could do was a Penguin 1960 second printing for £25. Other copies on ABE varied from £34.99 up to £400 depending on the edition. This would suggest that, contrary to what many believe, the power of the press continues to exert itself. Thanks to a reader for passing this along. Maybe a new “print-on-demand” or digital edition will suggest itself to some canny publishing house.

The Leicestershire Times reports that a panel at Loughborough University will address the subject of “Art Portraiture & Biography.” This will consist of Alastair Adams, Dr Barbara Cooke and Sarah Parker dicsussing how the artist or writer tries to capture the essence of the individual. Dr Cooke teaches at Loughborough and is Co-Execuive Editor of the CWEW. Her edition of Waugh’s autobiography was among the first Collected Works volumes published and more recently she has written a book entitled Evelyn Waugh’s Oxford published by the Bodleian Library. Alastair Adams is an artist and is a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters while Sarah Parker also teaches at Loughborough, with a special subject of women’s poetry. Admission is free. Here are the details:

Wed 6 June 2018
6pm – 7.30pm
Leonard Dixon Studio, Martin Hall
Loughborough University, LE11 3TU

Dr Cooke’s book Evelyn Waugh’s Oxford is reviewed by Lauren de Lisle in the latest issue of The Tablet (you may need to register to read a copy):

The elephant in the room, which Barbara Cooke addresses in the first few pages, is that Waugh only spent two and a half years at Oxford. And yet, spiritually, he never left – it was “the place he inhabited, literally, during his student years and, artistically, for the rest of his life”. The first half of the book looks at how Waugh depicted Oxford in his works. The second, much stronger – and brought to life by Amy Dodd’s beautiful, characterful illustrations – is a kind of literary tour of the city, describing places that held particular resonance for Waugh.

The review notes that Dr Cooke extends her consideration of Waugh’s Oxford writings beyond Brideshead to include those in his autobiography. While de Lisle has a few reservations relating to Cooke’s writing, she concludes that “this is still a fascinating exploration of the effect which man and city had on each other.”

From Spain comes news that actor/musician Javier Garruchaga and his Mondragon Orchestra have released a 42-track recording called ¡Noticia Bomba!  This release is on the occasion of the 42nd anniversary of the orchestra. During that period they have made several recordings and Garruchaga has appeared in numerous films, TV programs and films. He explains in a press report on RTVE.es (a Spanish entertainment guide): “It is also a tribute to Evelyn Waugh’s humorous novel of the 30s, which is very appropriate for these lively and sensational times in which we live.” He is referring to Scoop which was published in Spanish as ¡Noticia Bomba! (Translation by Google.)

Finally, in the British music website of the Camden NW5 venue The Fiddlers Elbow, a newly formed band based in Bath and self-described as a “Piano Punk Trio playing cool music for uncool people” is seeking fans with special qualifications:

The Wedlocks are warm-hearted, sensitive and up for a good time. They’re looking for someone who shares their love of post war literature and Shostakovich’s Jazz efforts. Must be hip enough to quote the works of Evelyn Waugh but not in a way that might prompt jealousy or self-doubt. Must also be ok with band bios being written in the form of lonely hearts ads.

They are scheduled at The Fiddlers Elbow on 20 May 2018.

 

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Tom Wolfe 1930-2018

Posted on May 17, 2018 by Jeffrey Manley

American novelist, Tom Wolfe, died earlier this week. He will probably be best remembered for his innovative journalism of the 1960s, 70s and 80s but he also branched into fiction with a satirical novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, in 1989. Several of the articles relating to his passing mention that novel as well as his other writing in connection with the satirical tradition of Evelyn Waugh. The Catholic Herald posts online an article by William Cash it had recently published in its print edition. See earlier post. This is entitled “Tom Wolfe–the Evelyn Waugh of Wall Street”. Cash read Wolfe’s first two novels obsessively and used the first as a basis for his undergraduate Eng Lit thesis at Cambridge. He writes:

There are two things that people forget about Wolfe. First, judging himself by his contemporaries – who included John Updike and Norman Mailer – he was positively historic to be publishing his first novel at the ripe literary age of 56. Wolfe found this almost an embarrassment. … Wolfe’s skewering of the white plump meat of American capitalism came out just as Wall Street suffered the greatest single-day loss since the Crash of 1929. Bonfire was number one on the New York Times bestseller list for two months and sold more than 800,000 copies in hardcover. The phrase “Master of the Universe” came to sum up the aspirations of a generation of would-be Gordon Gekkos in the red-braces world of Wall Street in the late 1980s. Bonfire drew on a tradition of conservative satire harking back to Evelyn Waugh. Wolfe’s brand of politically incorrect social criticism remains so important in a world where the Left seems to have an ever-increasing cultural monopoly, from the theatre to the BBC, news, arts, film, publishing and, most blatantly, the well-manicured groves of academia.

Writing in the German paper Die Zeit, Jens Jessen says much the same thing (translation by Google with minor edits):

Tom Wolfe was an American writer who started out as a baseball player, ended up as a novelist and preferred to wear white or cream suits. Similar to Truman Capote, with whom he invented the New Journalism …, he liked to be invited to rich people, then turned ugly when writing about them. In that sense, he could also be described as the Evelyn Waugh of the United States, which would also appreciate the fact that he was like his British colleague a highly talented, but not perfect, good writer. … Like many other dandies in literary history, he was essentially a moralist, a deeply startled child. He needed the white suits to hide the bleeding heart. … In his hatred of modern architecture (From Bauhaus to Our House, 1981) he even showed populist features. But all in all we have reason to complain that Wolfe’s despair over the never-released, always-betrayed promises of modernity was profound.

Finally, the Daily Telegraph has an article by Ben Lawrence about the dearth of comic writing in the UK having caused the Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction be placed on hold for the current year. Wolfe’s death is sadly noted in the context of a comment that, in the United States, the comic genre manages to continue to live on, if not exactly thrive. In a brief survey of comic fiction in England, casting back to its beginnings with Lawrence Sterne and Henry Fielding, Lawrence offers this observation on the generation that produced Wodehouse:

Near contemporaries [of Wodehouse] such as Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell  took the form to an even higher level (and in Waugh’s case brought a blackness never matched in humorous fiction), but it was the publication of Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim in 1954 which changed the literary landscape for decades. This story of a young man’s wry existential crisis in provincial academia became a default setting for how British novelists should view the British world around them. Certainly there were pale imitations which followed in the wake of Lucky Jim, but writers such as Barbara Pym and Muriel Spark offered biting accounts of British mores, sometimes strange but always utterly unique.

 

 

 

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