Successful Failures at Oxford

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Jeffrey Manley

An Oxford student blog has compiled a list of students who were academic failures at Oxford but went on to become successful writers. At the top of the list is Evelyn Waugh. His entry begins with a quote:

“You spend the first term at Oxford meeting interesting and exciting people and the rest of your time there avoiding them”…So intently did Waugh try to avoid his contemporaries that he actually dropped out – but mostly because his scholarship was revoked when he got a third. Just proves no good can come from writing for Cherwell. In a letter to a school friend he confessed, “I do no work here and never go to Chapel,” which cements our belief that he was just like us but probably more of a bastard. As well as penning Brideshead Revisited, he spent a lot of time offending people, being described by James Lees-Milne as “the nastiest-tempered man in Britain.” Insufferable, yes – but sounds like a hoot.

The opening quote seems to be a variation of the advice given Charles Ryder by his cousin Jasper on Charles’ arrival in Oxford: “You’ll find you spend half your second year shaking off the undesirable friends you made in your first” (Brideshead Revisited, London, 1960, p. 55). The letter quoted was to his friend from Lancing, Tom Driberg (Letters, p. 7).

Other failures include Philip Pullman who also got a third but says he would have bagged a fourth if they were still given; John Betjeman who was bullied by his tutor C.S. Lewis and left without a degree; W.H. Auden who got a third in English; Percy Shelley who was sent down after one year in which he attended only a single lecture; and A.E. Housman who left without a degree after scoring a first in his classics exam and ended his life at Cambridge.

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Director of Decline and Fall Film Version Dies.

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Jeffrey Manley

John Krish, who directed the 1968 film adaptation of Waugh’s novel Decline and Fall has died at the age of 92. His death is announced in the Daily Telegraph. The film was written by Ivan Foxwell and released under the title Decline and Fall of a Birdwatcher, apparently to avoid confusion with Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The best part of this otherwise forgettable film is Leo McKern’s portrayal of Capt. Grimes. Krish later became known for his graphic documentaries, winning an award in 2011 for A Day in the Life: Four Portraits of Postwar Britain. He may be most noted for the short film The Finishing Line (1977) designed to warn school children of the dangers of playing along railroad lines. The film was so graphic that it was banned after several incidents of overreaction during school showings and a single TV broadcast.

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Simon Heffer Links Waugh and Greene

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Jeffrey Manley

Critic and columnist Simon Heffer has written an essay assessing Graham Greene’s work in the Telegraph. He admits to having had a problem with some of Greene’s work, especially the Roman Catholic bits, but after setting out to read though the complete works and the 3-volume biography by Norman Sherry, he became convinced of Greene’s entitlement to a high literary standing:

…once I had reached the end of his canon, and digested the biography – and Greene himself intrudes so often into his work that biographical context is more important with him than it is with other writers – I realised two positive things above all about him. First, he was a magisterial short story writer; and second, that he unquestionably wrote novels, thrillers and, as he called them, entertainments of the highest quality and originality. His exact contemporary Evelyn Waugh had a different sort of genius; but in English novelists of their era they stand alone for the consistent excellence of their work over many years.

The essay will be of special interest to Waugh readers because of Heffer’s description of how he came to reconcile himself (a non-Catholic) to the religious passages.

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Waugh and the Hollywood Novel

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Jeffrey Manley

A feature length article in this week’s Los Angeles Review of Books is entitled “In Search of the Great Hollywood Novel.” This is by Graham Daseler who begins by wondering why there is no genre for Washington novels but then notes that Hollywood has had more than its fair share. One of the first he mentions is Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One. This comes up under the topic of spotting the source of the characters in a town that is full of them:

One need not have a PhD in film studies to recognize the actual movie folk wandering through Charles Bukowski’s 1989 novel Hollywood because Bukowski barely bothered to disguise them (for instance, “Wenner Zergog” and “Jean-Luc Modard”)…It takes a somewhat sharper eye to spot C. Aubrey Smith — the wizened, well-mustachioed supporting player in such films as The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) and Four Men and a Prayer (1938) — sipping gin and tonics in the opening of Evelyn Waugh’s satire The Loved One. In the novel, Smith is renamed Sir Francis Hinsley and made a screenwriter rather than an actor, but his aristocratic posturing and taste for cricket give him away. Sir Aubrey, a veteran of the London stage who transplanted to Hollywood in the early 1930s, was the doyen of what later became known as the Hollywood Raj, a faux gentleman’s club of Brits working in Southern California during the Great Depression. Like his fictive counterpart, Sir Aubrey was president of the Hollywood Cricket Club and, as if to compensate for his émigré status, played up his Englishness in California, where the locals were unlikely to notice the histrionics of the performance. In the beginning of The Loved One, Sir Francis and his friend Sir Ambrose Abercrombie are having their drinks on the porch at sunset, chatting about the climate and the natives as if they’re living in some far-flung outpost of the Empire.

This identification runs counter to most of Waugh’s biographers and critics who have concluded that Waugh used C. Aubrey Smith as the primary model for Sir Ambrose Abercrombie, not for Sir Francis Hinsley. Indeed, Stannard notes some correspondence in which the Cyril Connolly (who first published the book in Horizon) said his printer’s lawyers expressed concern that “Aubrey Smith might have a case which would be awkward…I imagine the answer would be that being the President of the Cricket Club was but one attribute of many taken from all kinds of English actors.” Stannard II, p. 205, n. 82. Christopher Sykes, Robert Murray Davis, Paul Doyle and Lisa Colletta also take Smith to be the model for Sir Ambrose. It is true that in the novel it was Sir Francis, not Sir Ambrose, who had been president of the cricket club. Since that was a position also held by Smith, he may have contributed something to both characters. But Sir Ambrose had surpassed Sir Francis as the spokesman for the English expatriate community in Hollywood at the time of the novel, and that was a role Smith still very much performed.

 

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Evelyn and Kick (More)

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Jeffrey Manley

Another review appears in today’s Irish Times of Paula Byrne’s new book about Kathleen (“Kick”) Kennedy. See earlier post. Also reviewed is a competing book about the same subject by Barbara Leaming, Kick Kennedy. The reviewer, Selina Guinness, summarizes Kennedy’s life and adds an anecdote about Evelyn Waugh that appears in Byrne’s book but was not mentioned in the previous review:

Evelyn Waugh unmasked a further charm when he asked at dinner about the size of her “dot”. According to Byrne, Kick retorted that her navel was probably much the same as any girl’s. Only later did she learn that Waugh had been asking what kind of dowry a financier’s daughter could command.

Guinness also provides a comparative assessment of the two books:

Paula Byrne, an experienced literary biographer, declares a personal investment in her subject as the Liverpudlian descendant of “Irish Kennedys”. She accounts it a personal triumph that Kick ended her days as Kathleen Cavendish, marchioness of Hartington, buried at Chatsworth in a simple grave.

Barbara Leaming provides by far the more perspicacious and politically astute of the two books. Extensive interviews with surviving members of the Devonshire circle richly supplement the Kennedy archive to present a complex portrait of how English Protestant power and privilege came to admit this American Catholic during the social upheaval of the second World War.

Be that as it may, I suspect that Byrne’s book will have more on offer for Waugh enthusiasts, given her previous writing on his life and works. 

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The Loved One to Feature on BBC Radio 4

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Jeffrey Manley

Waugh’s 1948 novella The Loved One will be one of the choices on the next edition of A Good Read on BBC Radio 4. This will be broadcast on Monday, 16 May at 1830 (repeated at 0030) and will be available worldwide thereafter on the internet via BBC iPlayer. The panelists are Mariella Fostrup, Bianca Jagger and Matthew Parris. The other two books are Redmond O’Hanlon’s In Trouble Again and Ahmed Rashid’s Taliban.

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Swiss Magazine Notes Waugh Anniversary

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Jeffrey Manley

The Swiss German magazine Die Weltwoche has published a longish article marking the 50th anniversary of Waugh’s death. In the heading of the online version, it is attributed to Rolf Huerzeler, but there is also a reference in an indent to the text to Rolf Bollmann. The Google translate English version is of a fairly low quality; that program doesn’t seem to do very well from German into English.  Here’s a link to the German language original. It appears to be a summary of Waugh’s life and work up to Brideshead Revisited, with not much detail after that.

From what your correspondent can gather by reading the Google translation, the text follows in broad outline familiar biographical details. It begins badly, however, by suggesting that his first wife, Evelyn Gardner, was a journalist from a prominent Catholic family, and that when they divorced he lost his connection to the upper class, which his  Catholic and minor aristocrat (kleinadlige) wife had provided. I may have this all wrong, perhaps one of our readers who understands German might like to comment. Otherwise, the translated text seems to follow the usual biographies (with the usual prejudices). It concludes by describing a project of the Swiss publisher Diogenes to make Waugh’s works available in German. Most recently, it republished Tod in Hollywood, which is the German title of The Loved One, and will reissue Ohne Furcht und Tadel  (Sword of Honour) later this year.

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Brideshead Reviewed in The Tablet

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Jeffrey Manley

Mark Lawson (presumably the one by that name whose day job is a BBC TV presenter) reviews the stage production of Brideshead Revisited in this week’s issue of The Tablet. He saw the play when it was performed last week in Bath. Here’s a summary: 

… Director Damian Cruden and designer Sara Perks eschew any sense of palatial wealth in a production that takes place on a mainly bare stage… A number of chairs do versatile service as cars, trains, boats and even occasionally seats…Waugh radically revised the novel in 1959, trimming a lavishness of language that he attributed to an over-compensation for wartime privation. Lavery strips back the words even further…

The play is more faithful religiously…The theatrical version proves surprisingly sensitive to this intention, honouring, for example, the prolonged debate about whether the adulterous apostate Lord Marchmain should be given the final sacrament on his deathbed… For absolute devotees of either the novel or the ITV series, the experience will be akin to Waugh having to hear Mass in a language other than Latin. But the play is generally an elegant act of compression and reimagination and will give pleasure …

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Brideshead Reviewed (Southampton)

Posted on May 12, 2016 by Jeffrey Manley

The English Touring Theatre’s production of Brideshead Revisited opened Tuesday at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton and is reviewed in today’s Daily Echo by Brian McCusker. Either the performances are getting better through experience or the critics less demanding as the tour progresses. The Echo’s review is wholly favorable. The adaptation “works brilliantly… managing to sweep the audience across the world and through the decades in two hours of compelling dramatic storytelling.”  The review continues

The stage set is wonderfully creative, music and lighting subtly evocative, and direction by Damian Cruden is flawless. Locations are beautifully established…The stormy Atlantic crossing is masterfully and realistically conveyed. As the sexually curious and artistic Charles Ryder, Brian Ferguson is utterly convincing. Playing the damaged and doomed alcoholic Sebastian, Christopher Simpson elicits sympathy, despair, and love from other characters and the audience…

The final scene, which several previous critics thought tedious, is described as  “ingeniously handled” and “movingly stunning.” The play continues at the Nuffield until Saturday and then moves to Cambridge where it opens next Tuesday, 17 May  at the Cambridge Arts Theatre for a 5-day run.

NOTE (14 May 2016): Another review of the Southampton performance appears on the theatrical news website London Theatre 1. This is by Paddy Briggs and is mixed but more favorable than not:

Most, if perhaps not quite all, of Waugh’s characters and key plot elements are present in this play. They are, however, represented by brief extracts rather than by the full scene from the book (or, indeed, the TV Series)… For aficionados of the novel this is not a problem – we mentally fill in the missing bits. But I did wonder whether anyone who is not familiar with the story from either the book of the TV Series (or both) would “get it”.

The pace of the production, the minimalist staging, the limited but clever props all contribute to making this an engaging couple of hours which authentically tells Waugh’s story…The performances are very good and the actors get into their roles (for some multiple roles) convincingly. A special mention for Christopher Simpson’s fine Sebastian and Kiran Sonia Sawar’s nicely pitched Cordelia. The casting fell down on Aloysius the Bear though – he was a bit too large for the part! Director Damian Cruden has achieved a really authentic version of Brideshead Revisited as adapted by Bryony Lavery. The audience at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton was a bit sparse – I hope that the word gets around and that the houses are full as it moves around the country before arriving in London at Richmond Theatre at the end of June.

 

 

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Evelyn Waugh, Winston Churchill and Boris Johnson

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Jeffrey Manley

Boris Johnson, ex-Mayor of London and gadfly without portfolio of the Conservative Party, has written a book about his hero Winston Churchill. Entitled The Churchill Factor, this was published to much acclaim in 2014 and was excerpted in the Daily Telegraph. In the book, Johnson mentions several times Evelyn Waugh’s enmity toward Churchill. Your correspondent, alas, missed this discussion when the book was published, even though a portion of it was included in the Telegraph’s excerpt. But it is mentioned in a recent weblog posting. creating a new opportunity for our consideration. Here is Johnson’s basic position:

There are some people…who may be tempted to dismiss or downplay the virtuosity of Churchill as a writer …. Indeed, he has always had his detractors. Evelyn Waugh, that inveterate Churchill-basher, said he was a “master of sham-Augustan prose”, with “no specific literary talent but a gift of lucid self-expression”. After reading Churchill’s Life of his father Randolph, Waugh dismissed it as a “shifty barrister’s case, not a work of literature”…

Why did Waugh sneer at Churchill’s writings? Notice that he–Waugh–had actually tried to emulate Churchill in the 1930s and got himself sent out to cover a war in Abyssinia. He produced Scoop of course, one of the great stylistic landmarks of the twentieth century. But his reporting had nothing like the same journalistic impact as Churchill’s. Is it that Waugh was just a teensy bit jealous? I think so; and it was not just because Churchill had become so much more famous than Waugh had been, by the time he was twenty five, but that he had made such stupendous sums from writing. And that for most journalists, alas, is the truly sensitive point for comparison

Johnson calls up Waugh’s criticism again to compare his reporting to Churchill’s reports from Malakand and the Sudan:

The reason Churchill has lasted, and the reason his phrases are still on people’s lips, is that he could employ so many styles, not just the pseudo Gibbonian periods [attacked by Waugh], but Anglo-Saxon pith. Some chicken, some neck. We will fight them on the beaches. Blood, toil, tears and sweat, etc. 

Finally, Johnson refers to Waugh’s dismissal of Churchill’s ability to rally the nation:

Here is our old friend Evelyn Waugh taking the opportunity of [Churchill’s] death in 1965 to put the boot in again. ‘Rallied the nation indeed! I was a serving soldier in 1940. How we deplored his orations.’ Churchill was a ‘radio personality’ who had outlived his prime, said Waugh.

Although not mentioned by Johnson, there is an element of ingratitude in Waugh’s positions since Churchill was among those instrumental in securing Waugh a commission in the Royal Marines at a time when the service establishment was inclined to reject him because of his age, if nothing else. And Churchill was at least indirectly responsible for lifting him out of bureaucratic limbo in 1944 by backing Fitzroy McLean’s decision to support the Partisans in Yugoslavia and posting his son Randolph there on a liaison mission, where Waugh joined his staff. A more detailed and balanced account of Waugh’s attitude may be found in the essay by John Howard Wilson on the subject in the 2005 collection edited by Carlos Villar Flor and Robert Murray Davis, Waugh without End. 

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