BIOGRAPHY 2 OF
EVELYN WAUGH
|
Born |
28 October 1903 |
|
Died |
10 April 1966 (aged 62) |
|
Occupation |
Writer |
|
Genres |
Satire, Humour |
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (IPA: /ˈiːvlɪn
ˈwɔː/) (28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was a British
writer, best known for such darkly humorous and satirical novels as Decline
and Fall, Vile Bodies, Scoop, A Handful of Dust, and The
Loved One, as well as for serious works, such as Brideshead Revisited
and the Sword of Honour trilogy that clearly manifest his Catholic
background. Many of Waugh's novels depict British aristocracy and high society,
which he savagely satirizes but to which he was also strongly attracted. In
addition, he wrote short stories, three biographies, and the first volume of an
unfinished autobiography. His travel writings and his extensive diaries and
correspondence have also been published.
Waugh's works were very successful with the
reading public and he was widely admired as a humorist and as a prose stylist,
but as his social conservatism and religiosity became more overt, his works
grew more controversial with critics. In his notes for an unpublished review of
Brideshead Revisited, George Orwell declared that Waugh was "about
as good a novelist as one can be while holding untenable opinions."[1] Martin Amis found that the snobbery of Brideshead
was "a failure of imagination, an artistic failure."[2] On the other hand, American literary critic Edmund
Wilson pronounced Waugh "the only first-rate comic genius that has
appeared in English since Bernard Shaw."[3] Time
magazine, in a 1966 obituary, summarized his oeuvre by claiming that Waugh had
"developed a wickedly hilarious yet fundamentally religious assault on a
century that, in his opinion, had ripped up the nourishing taproot of tradition
and let wither all the dear things of the world."[4]
Early lifeBorn in London, England, Evelyn Waugh was the
second son of noted editor and publisher Arthur Waugh. He was brought up in
upper middle class circumstances in the wealthy London suburb of Hampstead,
where he attended Heath Mount School.[5] His only
sibling was his older brother Alec, who also became a writer. Both his father
and his brother had been educated at Sherborne, an English public school, but
Alec had been asked to leave during his final and he had then published a
controversial novel, The Loom of Youth, which touched on the matter of
homosexual relationships among students and which was otherwise deemed
injurious to Sherborne's reputation. The school therefore refused to take
Evelyn and his father sent him to Lancing College, an institution of lesser
social prestige with a strong High Church Anglican character. This circumstance
would rankle with the status-conscious Evelyn for the rest of his life but may
have contributed to his interest in religion, even though at Lancing he lost
his childhood faith and became an agnostic.
After Lancing, he attended Hertford College,
Oxford as a history scholar. There, Waugh neglected academic work and was known
as much for his artwork as for his writing. He also threw himself into a
vigorous social scene populated by both aesthetes such as Harold Acton, Brian
Howard and David Talbot Rice, as well as members of the British aristocracy and
the upper classes. His social life at Oxford would provide the background for
some of his most characteristic later writing. Asked if he had competed in any
sport for his College, Waugh famously replied "I drank for Hertford."
It has been claimed but not proven that he had homosexual relationships during
his college years. (In his diary Waugh refers in retrospect to "my
homosexual lover".)[6]
Evelyn Waugh as a student, from a portrait by the
British painter Henry Lamb (1883-1960), a member of Walter Sickert's Camden
Town Group, and later the Bloomsbury Group.
Waugh's final exam results qualified him only for
a third-class degree. He refused to remain in residence for the extra term that
would have been required of him and he left Oxford in 1924 without taking his degree.
In 1925 he taught at a private school in Wales. In his autobiography, Waugh
claims that he attempted suicide at the time by swimming out to sea, only to
turn back after being stung by jellyfish. He was later dismissed from another
teaching post for attempting to seduce the matron, telling his father he had
been dismissed for "inebriation".
He was briefly apprenticed to a cabinet-maker and
afterwards maintained an interest in marquetry, to which his novels have been
compared in their intricate inlaid subplots. He also worked as a journalist,
before he published his first novel in 1928, Decline and Fall. The title
is from Gibbon, but whereas Gibbon charted the bankruptcy and dissolution of
Rome, Waugh's was a witty account of quite a different sort of dissolution,
following the career of the harmless Paul Pennyfeather, a student of divinity,
as he is accidentally expelled from Oxford for indecency ("I expect you'll
be becoming a schoolmaster, sir," says the College porter to Paul,
"That's what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for
indecent behaviour") and enters into the worlds of schoolmastering, high
society, and the white slave trade. Other novels about England's "bright
young things" followed, and all were well received by both critics and the
general public.
Waugh entered into a brief, unhappy marriage in
1928 to the Hon. Evelyn Florence Margaret Winifred Gardner, youngest daughter
of Lord Burghclere and Lady Winifred Herbert, and granddaughter of Henry
Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon. Their friends called them "He-Evelyn"
and "She-Evelyn." Gardner's infidelity would provide the background
for Waugh's novel A Handful of Dust, but in fact her husband had made
little effort to make her happy, choosing to spend much time on his own. The marriage
ended in divorce in 1930.
Waugh converted to Catholicism and, after his
marriage was annulled by the Church, he married Laura Herbert, a Catholic,
daughter of Aubrey Herbert, and, like Waugh's first wife, a granddaughter of
the 4th Earl of Carnarvon. This marriage was successful, lasting the rest of
his life, producing seven children, one of whom, Mary, died in infancy. His son
Auberon Waugh followed in his footsteps as a notable writer and journalist.
The 1930s
Waugh's fame continued to grow between the wars,
based on his satires of contemporary upper class English society, written in
prose that was seductively simple and elegant. His style was often inventive (a
chapter, for example, would be written entirely in the form of a dialogue of
telephone calls). His conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1930 was a watershed
in his life and his writing. It elevated Catholic themes in his work, and
aspects of his deep and sincere faith, both implicit and explicit, can be found
in all of his later work.
Waugh's conversion to Catholicism was widely
discussed in London society and newspapers in September 1930. In response to
the gossip, Waugh made his own contribution in article entitled,
"Converted to Rome: Why It Has Happened to Me." It wasn't about
ritual, said Waugh, nor about submission to the views of others. The essential
issue, he believed, was making a choice between Christianity or chaos. Waugh
saw in Europe's increasing materialization a major decline in what he felt created
Western Civilization in the first place. "It is no longer possible ...
," he wrote, "to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same
time deny the supernatural basis upon which it is based." He added that
Catholicism was the "most complete and vital form" of Christianity.
His faith and his conviction persisted throughout all the chapters of his life.
At the same time (and perhaps because it
integrated both his beliefs and his natural "dark humour"), Black
Mischief and A Handful of Dust contain episodes of the most savage
farce. In some of his fiction Waugh derives comedy from the cruelty of
mischance; ingenuous characters are subject to bizarre calamities in a universe
that seems to lack a shaping and protecting God, or any other source of order
and comfort. The period between the wars also saw extensive travels around the
Mediterranean and Red Sea, Spitsbergen, Africa (most famously Ethiopia) and
South America. Sections of the numerous travel books which resulted are often
cited as among the best writing in this genre. A compendium of Waugh's
favourite travel writing has been issued under the title When The Going Was
Good.
Second World War
With the advent of the Second World War, Waugh
used "friends in high places", such as Randolph Churchill — son of
Winston — to find him a service commission. Though 36 years old with poor
eyesight, he was commissioned in the Royal Marines in 1940. Few can have been
less suited to command troops. He lacked the common touch. Though personally
brave, he did not suffer fools gladly. There was some concern that the men
under his command might shoot him instead of the enemy. Promoted to captain,
Waugh found life in the Marines dull.
Waugh participated in the failed attempt to take
Dakar from the Vichy French in late 1940. Following a joint exercise with No.3
Commando (Army), he applied to join them and was accepted. Waugh took part in
an ill-fated commando raid on the coast of Libya. As special assistant to the
famed commando leader Robert Laycock, Waugh showed conspicuous bravery during
the fighting in Crete in 1941, supervising the evacuation of troops while under
attack by Stuka dive bombers.
Later, Waugh was placed on extended leave and
later reassigned to the Royal Horse Guards. During this period he wrote Brideshead
Revisited. He was recalled for a military/diplomatic mission to Yugoslavia
in 1944 at the request of his old friend Randolph Churchill. He and Churchill
narrowly escaped capture or death when the Germans undertook Operation
Rösselsprung, and paratroops and glider-borne storm troops attacked the
partisans' headquarters where they were staying. During his time in Yugoslavia
Waugh produced a formidable report detailing Tito's persecution of Catholics
and the clergy. It was "buried" by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden as
being largely irrelevant.
Some of Waugh's best-loved and best-known novels
come from this period. Brideshead Revisited (1945) is an evocation of a
vanished pre-war England. It's an extraordinary work which in many ways has
come to define Waugh and his view of his world. It not only painted a rich
picture of life in England and at Oxford University at a time (before World War
II) which Waugh himself loved and embellished in the novel, but it allowed him
to share his feelings about his Catholic faith, principally through the actions
of his characters. Amazingly, he was granted leave from the war to write it.
The book was applauded by his friends, not just for an evocation of a time now
— and then — long gone, but also for its examination of the manifold pressures
within a traditional Catholic family. It was a huge success in Britain and in
the United States. Decades later a television adaptation (1981) achieved
popularity and acclaim in both countries, and around the world; a film
adaptation has been released in 2008. Waugh revised the novel in the late 1950s
because he found parts of it "distasteful on a full stomach" by which
he meant that he wrote the novel during the gray privations of the latter war
years.
Much of Waugh's war experience is reflected in the
Sword of Honour trilogy. It consists of three novels, Men at Arms
(1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955) and Unconditional Surrender
(1961), which loosely parallel his wartime experiences. His trilogy, along with
his other work after the 1930s, became some of the best books written about the
Second World War. Many of his portraits are unforgettable, and often show
striking resemblances to noted real personalities. Waugh biographer Christopher
Sykes, felt that the fire-eating officer in the Sword of Honour trilogy,
Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook, "...bears a very strong resemblance
to..." Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC, a friend of the
author's father-in-law. Waugh was familiar with Carton de Wiart through the
club to which he belonged. The fictional commando leader, Tommy Blackhouse, is
based on Major-General Sir Robert Laycock, a real-life commando leader and
friend of Waugh's, whom he greatly admired.
Later years
The period after the war saw Waugh living with his
family in the West Country, first at Piers Court, and from 1956 onwards, at
Combe Florey, Somerset, where he enjoyed the life of a country gentleman and
continued to write. (Combe Florey was bought from his widow by their son
Auberon.[7]) Waugh was highly critical of
Vatican II's 1960s changes to his beloved Tridentine liturgy, which he in part
loved for what he saw as its timelessness. (Cf. Bitter Trial by Waugh
and ed. by S. Reid)
For a base in London, he was a member of White's
and the St James's Club in Piccadilly.[8]
The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (1957) depicts its hero's steady descent
into madness — the experience was actually Waugh's own, the result of mixing sleeping
medication with alcohol that induced a severe bout of paranoia that reached its
peak on a sea voyage to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).[9]
During this period he wrote Helena (1953), a fictional account of the
Empress Helena and the finding of the True Cross, which he regarded as his best
work.[10]
Waugh's health declined in later life. He put on
weight, and the sleeping draughts he continued to take, combined with alcohol,
cigars and little exercise, weakened his health. His productivity also
declined, and his output was uneven. His last published work, Basil Seal
Rides Again, revisiting the characters of his earliest satirical works, did
not meet critical or popular approval, but is still read today. At the same
time, he continued as a journalist and was well received.
He appeared in two television interviews with the
BBC in the early 1960s, the only time his appearance was recorded publicly,
during which the interviewers sought to corner him as an anachronistic figure.
He overcame them, particularly in the second interview with novelist Elizabeth
Jane Howard on the Monitor programme in 1964.[11]
(The other interview was on John Freeman's Face to Face series broadcast
on 18 June 1960.) An earlier radio interview on the BBC Home Service in 1953
was somewhat less convivial.[12]
Waugh's diaries, published in the 1970s, were
widely acclaimed. His correspondence with lifelong friends, such as Nancy
Mitford, is still published today. He is a fruitful source for biographers;
three major works have been produced since Christopher Sykes's friendly and
familiar account of Waugh's life was published in the 1970s.
Evelyn Waugh died, aged 62, on 10 April 1966,
after attending a Latin Mass on Easter Sunday. He suffered a heart attack while
at prayer in his home, Combe Florey. His estate at probate was valued at
Ł20,068. This did not include the value of his lucrative copyrights, which
Waugh put in a trust (humorously named the 'Save the Children Fund') for his
children. He is buried at Combe Florey, Somerset.[citation
needed]
Critical reception
The American conservative commentator William F.
Buckley, Jr. found in Waugh "the greatest English novelist of the century,"[13]
(though Waugh was dismissive of Buckley) while Buckley's liberal counterpart
Gore Vidal called him "our time's first satirist."[14]
Even the "overt racism" of his African writings has been forgiven by
Ethiopian luminaries because his humour, satire, cruelty and wit were spread
even-handedly, attacking the foibles of his own country at least as vigorously
as those of foreigners.[15]
© http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Waugh
Academic
year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Gala Rodríguez Montesano
garomon@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de
Valčncia Press
Born in London, England, Evelyn Waugh was the
second son of noted editor and publisher Arthur Waugh. He was brought up in
upper middle class circumstances in the wealthy London suburb of Hampstead,
where he attended Heath Mount School.[5] His only
sibling was his older brother Alec, who also became a writer. Both his father
and his brother had been educated at Sherborne, an English public school, but
Alec had been asked to leave during his final and he had then published a
controversial novel, The Loom of Youth, which touched on the matter of
homosexual relationships among students and which was otherwise deemed
injurious to Sherborne's reputation. The school therefore refused to take
Evelyn and his father sent him to Lancing College, an institution of lesser
social prestige with a strong High Church Anglican character. This circumstance
would rankle with the status-conscious Evelyn for the rest of his life but may
have contributed to his interest in religion, even though at Lancing he lost
his childhood faith and became an agnostic.
After Lancing, he attended Hertford College,
Oxford as a history scholar. There, Waugh neglected academic work and was known
as much for his artwork as for his writing. He also threw himself into a
vigorous social scene populated by both aesthetes such as Harold Acton, Brian
Howard and David Talbot Rice, as well as members of the British aristocracy and
the upper classes. His social life at Oxford would provide the background for
some of his most characteristic later writing. Asked if he had competed in any
sport for his College, Waugh famously replied "I drank for Hertford."
It has been claimed but not proven that he had homosexual relationships during
his college years. (In his diary Waugh refers in retrospect to "my
homosexual lover".)[6]
Evelyn Waugh as a student, from a portrait by the
British painter Henry Lamb (1883-1960), a member of Walter Sickert's Camden
Town Group, and later the Bloomsbury Group.
Waugh's final exam results qualified him only for
a third-class degree. He refused to remain in residence for the extra term that
would have been required of him and he left Oxford in 1924 without taking his degree.
In 1925 he taught at a private school in Wales. In his autobiography, Waugh
claims that he attempted suicide at the time by swimming out to sea, only to
turn back after being stung by jellyfish. He was later dismissed from another
teaching post for attempting to seduce the matron, telling his father he had
been dismissed for "inebriation".
He was briefly apprenticed to a cabinet-maker and
afterwards maintained an interest in marquetry, to which his novels have been
compared in their intricate inlaid subplots. He also worked as a journalist,
before he published his first novel in 1928, Decline and Fall. The title
is from Gibbon, but whereas Gibbon charted the bankruptcy and dissolution of
Rome, Waugh's was a witty account of quite a different sort of dissolution,
following the career of the harmless Paul Pennyfeather, a student of divinity,
as he is accidentally expelled from Oxford for indecency ("I expect you'll
be becoming a schoolmaster, sir," says the College porter to Paul,
"That's what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for
indecent behaviour") and enters into the worlds of schoolmastering, high
society, and the white slave trade. Other novels about England's "bright
young things" followed, and all were well received by both critics and the
general public.
Waugh entered into a brief, unhappy marriage in
1928 to the Hon. Evelyn Florence Margaret Winifred Gardner, youngest daughter
of Lord Burghclere and Lady Winifred Herbert, and granddaughter of Henry
Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon. Their friends called them "He-Evelyn"
and "She-Evelyn." Gardner's infidelity would provide the background
for Waugh's novel A Handful of Dust, but in fact her husband had made
little effort to make her happy, choosing to spend much time on his own. The marriage
ended in divorce in 1930.
Waugh converted to Catholicism and, after his
marriage was annulled by the Church, he married Laura Herbert, a Catholic,
daughter of Aubrey Herbert, and, like Waugh's first wife, a granddaughter of
the 4th Earl of Carnarvon. This marriage was successful, lasting the rest of
his life, producing seven children, one of whom, Mary, died in infancy. His son
Auberon Waugh followed in his footsteps as a notable writer and journalist.
The 1930s
Waugh's fame continued to grow between the wars,
based on his satires of contemporary upper class English society, written in
prose that was seductively simple and elegant. His style was often inventive (a
chapter, for example, would be written entirely in the form of a dialogue of
telephone calls). His conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1930 was a watershed
in his life and his writing. It elevated Catholic themes in his work, and
aspects of his deep and sincere faith, both implicit and explicit, can be found
in all of his later work.
Waugh's conversion to Catholicism was widely
discussed in London society and newspapers in September 1930. In response to
the gossip, Waugh made his own contribution in article entitled,
"Converted to Rome: Why It Has Happened to Me." It wasn't about
ritual, said Waugh, nor about submission to the views of others. The essential
issue, he believed, was making a choice between Christianity or chaos. Waugh
saw in Europe's increasing materialization a major decline in what he felt created
Western Civilization in the first place. "It is no longer possible ...
," he wrote, "to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same
time deny the supernatural basis upon which it is based." He added that
Catholicism was the "most complete and vital form" of Christianity.
His faith and his conviction persisted throughout all the chapters of his life.
At the same time (and perhaps because it
integrated both his beliefs and his natural "dark humour"), Black
Mischief and A Handful of Dust contain episodes of the most savage
farce. In some of his fiction Waugh derives comedy from the cruelty of
mischance; ingenuous characters are subject to bizarre calamities in a universe
that seems to lack a shaping and protecting God, or any other source of order
and comfort. The period between the wars also saw extensive travels around the
Mediterranean and Red Sea, Spitsbergen, Africa (most famously Ethiopia) and
South America. Sections of the numerous travel books which resulted are often
cited as among the best writing in this genre. A compendium of Waugh's
favourite travel writing has been issued under the title When The Going Was
Good.
Second World War
With the advent of the Second World War, Waugh
used "friends in high places", such as Randolph Churchill — son of
Winston — to find him a service commission. Though 36 years old with poor
eyesight, he was commissioned in the Royal Marines in 1940. Few can have been
less suited to command troops. He lacked the common touch. Though personally
brave, he did not suffer fools gladly. There was some concern that the men
under his command might shoot him instead of the enemy. Promoted to captain,
Waugh found life in the Marines dull.
Waugh participated in the failed attempt to take
Dakar from the Vichy French in late 1940. Following a joint exercise with No.3
Commando (Army), he applied to join them and was accepted. Waugh took part in
an ill-fated commando raid on the coast of Libya. As special assistant to the
famed commando leader Robert Laycock, Waugh showed conspicuous bravery during
the fighting in Crete in 1941, supervising the evacuation of troops while under
attack by Stuka dive bombers.
Later, Waugh was placed on extended leave and
later reassigned to the Royal Horse Guards. During this period he wrote Brideshead
Revisited. He was recalled for a military/diplomatic mission to Yugoslavia
in 1944 at the request of his old friend Randolph Churchill. He and Churchill
narrowly escaped capture or death when the Germans undertook Operation
Rösselsprung, and paratroops and glider-borne storm troops attacked the
partisans' headquarters where they were staying. During his time in Yugoslavia
Waugh produced a formidable report detailing Tito's persecution of Catholics
and the clergy. It was "buried" by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden as
being largely irrelevant.
Some of Waugh's best-loved and best-known novels
come from this period. Brideshead Revisited (1945) is an evocation of a
vanished pre-war England. It's an extraordinary work which in many ways has
come to define Waugh and his view of his world. It not only painted a rich
picture of life in England and at Oxford University at a time (before World War
II) which Waugh himself loved and embellished in the novel, but it allowed him
to share his feelings about his Catholic faith, principally through the actions
of his characters. Amazingly, he was granted leave from the war to write it.
The book was applauded by his friends, not just for an evocation of a time now
— and then — long gone, but also for its examination of the manifold pressures
within a traditional Catholic family. It was a huge success in Britain and in
the United States. Decades later a television adaptation (1981) achieved
popularity and acclaim in both countries, and around the world; a film
adaptation has been released in 2008. Waugh revised the novel in the late 1950s
because he found parts of it "distasteful on a full stomach" by which
he meant that he wrote the novel during the gray privations of the latter war
years.
Much of Waugh's war experience is reflected in the
Sword of Honour trilogy. It consists of three novels, Men at Arms
(1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955) and Unconditional Surrender
(1961), which loosely parallel his wartime experiences. His trilogy, along with
his other work after the 1930s, became some of the best books written about the
Second World War. Many of his portraits are unforgettable, and often show
striking resemblances to noted real personalities. Waugh biographer Christopher
Sykes, felt that the fire-eating officer in the Sword of Honour trilogy,
Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook, "...bears a very strong resemblance
to..." Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC, a friend of the
author's father-in-law. Waugh was familiar with Carton de Wiart through the
club to which he belonged. The fictional commando leader, Tommy Blackhouse, is
based on Major-General Sir Robert Laycock, a real-life commando leader and
friend of Waugh's, whom he greatly admired.
Later years
The period after the war saw Waugh living with his
family in the West Country, first at Piers Court, and from 1956 onwards, at
Combe Florey, Somerset, where he enjoyed the life of a country gentleman and
continued to write. (Combe Florey was bought from his widow by their son
Auberon.[7]) Waugh was highly critical of
Vatican II's 1960s changes to his beloved Tridentine liturgy, which he in part
loved for what he saw as its timelessness. (Cf. Bitter Trial by Waugh
and ed. by S. Reid)
For a base in London, he was a member of White's
and the St James's Club in Piccadilly.[8]
The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (1957) depicts its hero's steady descent
into madness — the experience was actually Waugh's own, the result of mixing sleeping
medication with alcohol that induced a severe bout of paranoia that reached its
peak on a sea voyage to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).[9]
During this period he wrote Helena (1953), a fictional account of the
Empress Helena and the finding of the True Cross, which he regarded as his best
work.[10]
Waugh's health declined in later life. He put on
weight, and the sleeping draughts he continued to take, combined with alcohol,
cigars and little exercise, weakened his health. His productivity also
declined, and his output was uneven. His last published work, Basil Seal
Rides Again, revisiting the characters of his earliest satirical works, did
not meet critical or popular approval, but is still read today. At the same
time, he continued as a journalist and was well received.
He appeared in two television interviews with the
BBC in the early 1960s, the only time his appearance was recorded publicly,
during which the interviewers sought to corner him as an anachronistic figure.
He overcame them, particularly in the second interview with novelist Elizabeth
Jane Howard on the Monitor programme in 1964.[11]
(The other interview was on John Freeman's Face to Face series broadcast
on 18 June 1960.) An earlier radio interview on the BBC Home Service in 1953
was somewhat less convivial.[12]
Waugh's diaries, published in the 1970s, were
widely acclaimed. His correspondence with lifelong friends, such as Nancy
Mitford, is still published today. He is a fruitful source for biographers;
three major works have been produced since Christopher Sykes's friendly and
familiar account of Waugh's life was published in the 1970s.
Evelyn Waugh died, aged 62, on 10 April 1966,
after attending a Latin Mass on Easter Sunday. He suffered a heart attack while
at prayer in his home, Combe Florey. His estate at probate was valued at
Ł20,068. This did not include the value of his lucrative copyrights, which
Waugh put in a trust (humorously named the 'Save the Children Fund') for his
children. He is buried at Combe Florey, Somerset.[citation
needed]
Critical reception
The American conservative commentator William F.
Buckley, Jr. found in Waugh "the greatest English novelist of the century,"[13]
(though Waugh was dismissive of Buckley) while Buckley's liberal counterpart
Gore Vidal called him "our time's first satirist."[14]
Even the "overt racism" of his African writings has been forgiven by
Ethiopian luminaries because his humour, satire, cruelty and wit were spread
even-handedly, attacking the foibles of his own country at least as vigorously
as those of foreigners.[15]
© http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Waugh
Academic
year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Gala Rodríguez Montesano
garomon@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de
Valčncia Press