Waugh and “Dickensian”

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

A reviewer in the Guardian has written a survey of earlier reviews of a new BBC TV series. This is Dickensian which began with 4 of the 20 episodes earlier this week. The idea, conceived by Tony Jordan (of East Enders),  is to take some of the more memorable characters from various Dickens novels and create a “mash-up” in which they interact in a new plot having little or nothing to do with the original novels.  It sounds like a bad idea, and your correspondent’s viewing of the first episode confirmed that. The characters were hard to identify and distinguish from one other and there were way too many plot lines. This was made worse by the overall darkness of the scenes and muddiness of the sound track.

The initial reviews were decidedly mixed, and the Guardian’s commentator, Stephen Moss, was also skeptical. But he watched all 4 of this week’s episodes and now is hooked. He thinks the characters are developing new depths not achieved in their original surroundings. He also thinks Waugh’s ending of A Handful of Dust (originally published separately as a story entitled “The Man Who Liked Dickens”) supports the idea of the mash-up. The production:

has reminded [him] why, at the end of Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust, the illiterate Mr Todd is so determined to keep Tony Last at his settlement in the Amazonian jungle forever, reading Dickens’ novels aloud to him (apart, that is, from the unnamed two that have been consumed by insects) on what amounts to a continuous loop.

Waugh was dismissive of Dickens’ emotionalism, and inflicting the latter’s novels on the doomed Last as an eternal punishment might be seen as part of that critique. Mr Todd is a madman, yet perhaps in his unquenchable devotion to Dickens he is more perceptive than those who, adopting an austere adult sensibility, grow out of him. “It is delightful to start again,” says Mr Todd. “Each time I think I find more to enjoy and admire.” Truly, the occupation of a lifetime.

Well, maybe it’s worth a look at the other episodes (or at least a few of them). They are available online to stream on BBC iPlayer for the next 3 weeks. A proxy server is required to watch them online outside the U.K. but they may end up on a U.S. channel later on.

 

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Waugh and the Turtleneck

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

The latest New York Times Magazine has a story by Troy Patterson predicting the comeback of the turtleneck. Evelyn Waugh figures in the background material. The turtleneck’s introduction as a fashion statement is traced to the 1920s when Noel Coward brought it out of its working class origins. Waugh is cited as remarking on the turtleneck’s appearance in Oxford:

…Evelyn Waugh marveled at the popularity of the new high-necked sweater on the party scene, judging it ‘‘most convenient for lechery because it dispenses with all unromantic gadgets like studs and ties.’’ Further, the garment offered cosmetic benefits: ‘‘It also hides the boils with which most of the young men seem to have encrusted their necks.’’ That these two aspects of the turtleneck — easy access, convenient concealment — are mutually useful has forever since been appreciated by teenagers whose dates have been so rash as to raise hickeys.

The quote comes from’s Waugh’s diary entry for 18 November 1924 (Diaries, p. 188). He describes the garment as a “new sort of jumper,” not a sweater which is something worn by Americans. He found it “rather becoming” on the young men gathered at a party. This took place at Merton College in “Billy’s” rooms, apparently referring to Billy Clonmore  (Lord Clonmore, later 8th Earl of Wicklow).  Because Waugh’s diaries were not published until 1976, he cannot be claimed to have contributed much to the spread of the turtleneck’s popularity but is evidently cited as recording the beginning of its first fashionable period.

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Rex Mottram, the Weather Forecast and Papal Infallibility

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

Rex Mottram’s casual acceptance of Roman Catholic dogma scores a twofer in this week’s conservative Catholic websites. Earlier in the week, it was his understanding of sacred monkeys in the Vatican that rated a mention. Now another site, The Stream, carries a story linking Rex’s acquiescent understanding of Papal authority to a recent Vatican pronouncement on global warming. According to blogger John Zmirak:

Catholics now have it on good authority that the pope can predict the weather a hundred years out. The claim confirms as true something Evelyn Waugh once wrote as a joke. In Brideshead Revisited, the character Rex Mottram is a scheming, insincere convert to Catholicism. Eager to please, he tells the priest instructing him whatever he thinks he will want to hear. Hence the following priceless exchange, which starts with a question from the priest:

“So you understand the dogma of papal infallibility?”
“Oh yes Father.”
“Suppose the pope says that it’s going to rain tomorrow. Does that mean it will rain?”
“Oh yes Father.”
“But supposing it doesn’t rain, what then?”
“Well … Uh … I guess it would be, ah, spiritually raining. Only … We were too sinful to see it!”

This quote, however, isn’t exactly the way Waugh wrote it. The question Fr. Mowbray put to Rex was, “…does our Lord have more than one nature?” To that, Rex replied, “Just as many as you say, Father.” The questioning then continues more or less as in the quote. (Brideshead Revisited, Penguin, p. 185).  Zmirak goes on to argue that the recent Papal pronouncement is being interpreted by Papal spokesmen to mean that global warming is the result of human activity and not natural causes. This in turn means, according to Zmirak, that Roman Catholics “who deny that human beings are causing catastrophic global warming, and that it must be stopped through drastic restrictions on our use of energy” are committing a sin. This may be an oversimplification, but in essence Zmirak posits that, once again, as with the sacred monkeys, Rex inadvertently got it right.

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Cordelia’s Sacred Monkeys

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

A Roman Catholic traditional rite weblog has posted an article arguing, somewhat tongue in cheek, that Cordelia Flyte’s fanciful tutorial for Rex Mottram’s religious instruction in Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited has, in part at least, come true. Among the beliefs she jokingly told Rex were held by Roman Catholics were, as he later naively recited them to his sponsors:

“that you have to sleep with your feet pointing East, because that’s the direction of Heaven, and if you die at night you can walk there…. And what about the Pope who made one of his horses a cardinal? And what about the box you keep in the church porch, and if you put in a pound note with someone’s name on it, they go to Hell.”

When the sponsors, Lady Marchmain and Fr. Mowbray, wondered where Rex had heard these things, Cordelia confessed:

“What a chump! … who would have dreamed he’d swallow it all. I told him such a lot besides … About sacred monkeys in the Vatican…”

These quotes come from the novel (Penguin, pp. 186-87). According to the weblog, Cordelia’s “prophesy” has now come true (if you can follow this reasoning):

On December 8, at the opening of Francis’ “Year of Mercy,” an ecological light show projected animals and endangered species onto the façade of St. Peter’s at the Vatican. Its goal was to display Francis’ Laudato Si in vivid imagery. Environmentalism effectively raises animals and all of nature to the realm of the ‘sacred,’ claiming that “everything is interconnected,” trees, mushrooms, worms, fish, apes, man, the divine. Once again, Evelyn Waugh is prophetic — sacred monkeys at the Vatican.

The article is supported by a photo from the light show.

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Battle at “Brideshead”

Posted on December 27, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

The Sunday Telegraph and Mail on Sunday both carry reports of a sibling battle at Castle Howard over the running and occupancy of the estate. The North Yorkshire estate was the setting for both film adaptations of Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited. Waugh himself had little contact with the Castle Howard estate or the family that owns it, and aside from a day trip to house in 1937 recorded in his Diaries (p. 420) doesn’t mention any visits.

According to the Telegraph, the current occupant, younger son Simon Howard, offered to take over management of the estate several years ago when his elder brother, Nicholas, decided he would rather be a rock star. The papers report that an eviction notice has now been issued to Simon and his family. This seems more akin to a Trollope novel that to one by Waugh. On the other hand, Waugh’s novel also involved a conflicted inheritance theme. In Brideshead Revisited, Lord Marchmain changed his will to arrange that the estate pass to his daughter Julia, rather than to his elder son “Bridey”, who would have inherited in the normal course of things. This decision seemed inspired primarily by Lord Marchmain’s dislike of Bridey’s wife, Beryl.

COMMENT (28 December 2015): Here’s a drawing by Ian Hampton inspired by this dispute.

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New Book Challenges Waugh’s Views of Selassie

Posted on December 26, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

A new book on the life and career of Emperor Haile Selassie challenges the views of his earlier critics. The book, King of Kings: The Triumph and Tragedy of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, translated from the original German, is reviewed in a recent issue of the Guardian. The author is Asfa-Wossen Asserate, a relative of Selassie. According to the review

Selassie projected an image of himself as a paternalistic ruler. His ambition was to found a dynasty and “modernise” his country’s feudal system through a forward-looking (if paradoxially absolute) monarchy. His coronation in 1930 – attended by Evelyn Waugh, who Asserate describes as a “notorious sneerer” – drew ridicule for its display of sumptuously plumed and gold-braided uniforms and other regalia. Yet in lampooning Selassie as a tinpot Caesar, Waugh and other critics rather missed the point. The Napoleonic hats and gowns were part of Selassie’s vision of a parallel world equal to that of the white man. Why should the European powers have all the pomp and ceremony?

Waugh wrote about Selassie’s coronation in Remote People (1931), in the U.S. entitled They Still Were Dancing. He later wrote a fictionalized version of the same events in Black Mischief (1932).

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1949 New York Times Interview with Evelyn Waugh

Posted on December 26, 2015 by Antony F. P. Vickery

On Twitter, Terry Teachout draws our attention to a “forgotten” 1949 New York Times interview with Evelyn Waugh:

“The best American writer, of course,” Mr. Waugh said, “is Erle Stanley Gardner. . . . Do I really wish to say that? By all means.”

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Santa Claus Day

Posted on December 24, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

The columnist for the TLS, who writes their “NB” page and goes by the initials J.C. (said to be the abbreviation of critic James Campbell), had a Waugh encounter described in the latest issue.

On a day trip to Lewes, he found a copy of Waugh’s Love Among the Ruins at a secondhand bookshop. This was on the day that the Paris climate agreement was concluded and, when he opened the book, the first sentence immediately struck him: “Despite their promises at the last election, the politicians had not yet changed the climate.” Hooked, he thought he’d better have the book:

The politicians’ promise was for snow on what, in this irreligious near future, was called Santa Claus Day. But the weather “continued from day to day as it had of old, most anomalously.” The Department of Euthanasia has logically superseded  the Department of Pensions and is “the one department that’s expanding”; the Ministry of Art only sanctions politically approved–we now say “correct”–output; drinking is monitored by the government.

In the pre- holiday period (what Waugh called “Santa-Claus-Tide”), the bookshop was “quiet but active.” Although tempted by a copy of J.M. Barrie’s My Lady Nicotine, J.C. opted for

Waugh’s “amusement for the still civilized” instead. A first edition, complete with dust jacket designed by Waugh himself (he also drew most of the illustrations in the text, including one  [that accompanies the article] of a bearded transgender figure receiving a garland) cost 10 pounds.

Santa Claus Day indeed! Sounds like a real bargain. My copy purchased 20+ years ago cost $50. For those not so fortunate as the TLS columnist, the novella can also be found in the collection of Waugh’s complete stories.

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Next St Austin Review Devoted to Waugh

Posted on December 24, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

The next issue (January/February 2016) of the St. Austin Review will feature several articles on Evelyn Waugh. The StAR, as it is sometimes called, is a Roman Catholic journal devoted to cultural matters. A summary of the coming issue’s Waugh-related contents has been published on the internet:

Sr. Joanna McCormack confronts the “Empty Minds and Vile Bodies” of the “Bright Young People” in Waugh’s early novel.

James Morris waxes lyrical on Waugh’s “Critical Heritage”.

Zach Krajacic admires “The Novelist and the Saint” in his discussion of Waugh’s life of St. Edmund Campion.

Joseph Pearce is “Revisiting Brideshead”.

Frank Brownlow laments the woeful state of modern Waugh criticism in “Waugh Mistaken and Brideshead Unvisited”.

Nathan Turner compares “Evelyn Waugh and Hunter S. Thompson on the Human Condition”.

James Morris waxes lyrical once again, this time on “The Characters in Brideshead”.

Lux Kamprath is “Redeeming the Times in Waugh’s Sword of Honour”.

Individual copies are available for $8 on the webpage under “subscribe”.

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Dates Announced for Brideshead Stage Production

Posted on December 23, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

The schedule of the world premiere performance of Bryony Lavery’s stage adaptation of Brideshead Revisited has been announced for 22-30 April 2016 at the Theatre Royal, York (see earlier post). Performances by the English Touring Company have also been set for 10-14 May at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton and 14-18 June at the Oxford Playhouse.

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