Review of The Loved One DVD

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

A Connecticut-based newspaper weblog contains a feature-length article that is essentially a review of the DVD of the 1965 film based on Waugh’s novella, The Loved One (1948). The review concludes that the film begins well with the early scenes satirizing Hollywood and its British film colony but then falls apart when it tries to depict the love affair between Dennis Barlow and Aimee Thanatogenous. But where it really goes to pieces is in the story concocted by the scriptwriters in which the director of the Whispering Glades cemetery (played by comedian Jonathan Winters) adopts a project for reburying his clients in space to convert the graveyard into a real estate development. Sounds funny but it doesn’t work. A copy of the promotional poster for the film is attached to the article. If you look very closely indeed, you may see Waugh’s name in minute print below the name of Rod Steiger (who played Mr. Joyboy).

Thanks to Robert Murray Davis for calling this article to our attention. Those wanting to know more about how this film came about and Waugh’s reactions might want to consult Prof. Davis’s Mischief in the Sun: The Making and Un-Making of The Loved One (1999)

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Waugh’s Advice Quoted in Middle East Conflict

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

Conservative internet news site Newsmax carries an article (“Russia’s Presence a Bad Sign for Israel”) in which it considers the impact on Israel of Russia’s active entry into the civil war in Syria. Their correspondent, Herbert London, cites Evelyn Waugh in this vexing context:

Israelis, realize what Evelyn Waugh once noted, that “barbarism is never finally defeated; given propitious circumstances, men and women who seem quite orderly will commit every conceivable atrocity.” Israel has experienced those atrocities with knifings on the street, often from unexpected quarters.

The quote comes from the concluding paragraph of Waugh’s Robbery Under Law (1939; p. 279; in U.S. entitled Mexico: An Object Lesson). Waugh was concerned that the political system in Mexico (in which leftist elements had excluded other parties such as more conservative groups) had lead to actions such as expropriation of private property–e.g., the oil industry–and suppression of the Roman Catholic church. His conclusion continued with some more advice which might be also helpful to the Israelis in their present situation:

Unremitting effort is needed to keep men living together in peace; there is only a margin of effort left over for experiment however beneficent.

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The African Epoch

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

A Georgetown University blogger (Paul Elie, Everything That Rises) was recently reminded of Waugh’s 1949 Life Magazine article “The American Epoch in the Catholic Church” (Essays, Articles and Reviews, p. 377). What called it to his mind was the story that Nigerian-American novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, had returned to the church in response to the teachings of Pope Francis. Elie explains that in his Life article Waugh had:

spelled out what might be called a geographic or tectonic account of the movements of religious faith in different eras: “It seems that, in every age some one branch of the Church, racial, cultural, or national, bears peculiar responsibilities toward the whole,” he declared, and went on to say that responsibilities had shifted away from Europe and toward the United States – taking Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton as two examples.

Adichie’s action suggests to Elie that another such shift has taken place. Given the problems that have roiled the Roman Catholic Church in the United States since Waugh’s visits, during what may have been its “Golden Age” in the 1940s, it may well be the case that Waugh would agree. Indeed, as was once suggested to me by the late John Howard Wilson, Waugh himself seems to have foreseen this shift in his 1933 story “Out of Depth”  (Complete Short Stories, p. 146).

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Waugh and the Italian Ham

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

The internet site of a translation service has posted a brief article on the derivation of the word prosciutto as their word of the day for 14 October. In English, it has come to mean Italian ham, but in Italian, it is much more complicated:

In Italian, the word derived from the Latin prefix pro, meaning “before,” and the verb exsuctus, which means “to suck the moisture out.” So, while the word defines a product when used in English, it describes the process (aka dry-curing) of making the product in Italian. There are 3 basic types of prosciutto: smoked, which is called affumicato, and the other 2 depend on whether or not the ham is served cooked (cotto) or uncooked (crudo).

The article concludes with a quote from Waugh:

Finally, perhaps painting an elegant and romanticised usage of our ham, Evelyn Waugh tempts us with “Melon and prosciutto on the balcony” in his 1945 classic, Brideshead Revisited.

The bloggers might have made a bit more of this reference if they had noticed that in the first U.K. edition (May 1945, p. 90), the word (which is, after all, a bit of a spelling challenge for English speakers) was misspelled. It appears in a long list of Charles Ryder’s memories of the visit to Lord Marchmain in Venice (Book 1, Chapter 4): “…of melon and prosciuto [sic] on the balcony in the cool of the morning.” The U.S. editors caught the error and italicized the correct spelling in the first U.S. trade edition (January 1946, p. 101).

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Folio Society Issues New Edition of Vile Bodies

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

The Folio Society recently issued an illustrated edition of Waugh’s second novel, Vile Bodies. It has an introduction written “for this stylish new edition” by David Lodge, Honorary President of the Evelyn Waugh Society, and is illustrated by Kate Baylay. According to the Folio Society’s press release, Professor Lodge explains why Vile Bodies is his favorite among Waugh’s novels. A review of this new edition appears in the latest issue of The New Criterion.

The Folio Society previously published a boxed set of Waugh’s first six novels, including Vile Bodies. This set, entitled “Comedies,” was issued in 1999 with illustrations by John Holder. Some descriptions mention an introduction by David Lodge that appeared in the Decline & Fall volume of that earlier edition. How, if at all, that may relate to his introduction in this new solo edition of Vile Bodies is not explained in the press release. Other Folio Society editions of Waugh’s works include The Loved One, Brideshead Revisited and a boxed set of Sword of Honour. Some of the novels in the Comedies set have also been issued separately.

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Paula Byrne to Lecture at Oxfordshire Museum

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

Literary biographer Paula Byrne will lecture at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock on the subject of her book Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead (2009).

The lecture, sponsored by the Woodstock Literature Society, is scheduled for Saturday, 24 October at 3pm (admission £6 adults, under 18 free). Byrne has presented at two Evelyn Waugh conferences, most recently in Leicester earlier this year where she spoke about her upcoming biography of Kathleen Kennedy, sister of JFK. Her topic was Kathleen’s little-known friendship with Evelyn Waugh. See video here.

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Article Compares Waugh Views on Abyssinia

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

The latest edition of British-based journal History Today (access to full article requires subscription) contains a survey of previous writings relating to Haile Selassie, late emperor of Abyssinia.

The article, entitled “Abyssinia Out of the Shadows,” is written by literary critic and biographer Jeffrey Meyers. In it, he compares and contrasts the books of three writers who addressed the career of Selassie from different perspectives: Waugh, who “satirised what he saw as a barbaric country and the splendiferous coronation of the Emperor” in Remote People and “returned six years later to report and praise the Italian invasion” in Waugh in Abyssinia; Wilfrid Thesinger, who spent his childhood in Addis Ababa and later wrote in his autobiography (The Life of My Choice) how Selassie “helped drive out the Italian oppressors…and remained fiercely loyal to Selassie”; and Ryszard Kapuscinski who described the revolution that overthrew Selassie in 1974 in his book The Emperor.

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Waugh in North Devon

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

Following his recent appearance at the Appledore Literary Festival, Duncan McLaren has posted two new articles to his website. “Evelyn in Appledore” and “When Henry Met Evelyn” recount the details of Evelyn Waugh’s visit to that town where he worked on the second half of Vile Bodies while staying at the Royal George Hotel.

The articles also explore Waugh’s relationship with novelist Henry Williamson who lived in nearby Georgeham, North Devon. He is best known for Tarka the Otter but also wrote a series of novels entitled Chronicles of Ancient Sunlight in which a character based on Waugh appears in the volume The Power of the Dead (1963). As McLaren explains, Williamson was a close friend of John Heygate and his wife Evelyn, former wife of Waugh, who also appear as characters in Williamson’s novel.

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Alexander Waugh to Speak on Combe Florey

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

The University of Leicester has announced a lecture by Alexander Waugh on Evelyn Waugh’s views on the English country house, with particular reference to his own house, Combe Florey, in Somerset. The talk is open to the public (£3 admission) and will take place at Leicester’s New Walk Museum on Monday, 19 October, at 7:30 p.m.

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New Book On Campion Anticipated by Waugh

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Jeffrey Manley

A new book on the life of Edmund Campion was recently published. This is Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life by UCL Professor Gerard Kilroy issued by Ashgate Publishing. The publisher’s announcement mentions Waugh’s anticipation of such a scholarly work when he wrote what he described as his own

short, popular life to bridge the gulf between [Richard Simpson’s Edmund Campion (1867)] and the definitive, scholarly biography which will doubtless appear in due course from some more suitable pen than mine. [Waugh, Edmund Campion (1935), p. x.]

Waugh deemed Simpson’s work outdated in some respects. Waugh’s book remains in print. It is cited by Professor Kilroy in his preface to the new study:

Evelyn Waugh’s gripping Edmund Campion, first published in 1935, and written with style in five months, elegantly captures the courage and glamour of Campion, even if his assessment of the political context now seems historically, and personally, conditioned.

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