Preface: Evelyn Waugh
by Neal J. Conway
The question Evelyn* Waugh always raises for me is as perplexing as the question about the zebra. Is the zebra black with white stripes or white with black stripes? Was the English convert to Catholicism a lousy hack-writer with moments of greatness or was he a great writer with moments of lousiness?
Hiking through Waugh's opera, one is led upward to heights of hilarity by a genius at portraying the absurdity of Godless life only to be shortly hurled into chasms of just plain bad storytelling. There are reasons that English professors--back when they used to teach English--declared that a good short story is either a) epiphanic (the characters or the reader learns/realizes something) or b) a good character sketch. These make a story work. "Charles Ryder's Schooldays" is epiphanic and therefore pleasing. "Mr. Loveday's Little Outing" is nothing but an argument for locking 'em up and throwing away the key. I don't know what the Hell "The Balance" is about.
And I know some of you are saying, "Well, a Catholic conservative. What do you expect?" And I see what you mean.
However, Waugh's failure to follow form, deliver his purported messages and other lapses into incompetence may have been the rocket fuel that propelled him into the firmament. The lit'ry set is prone to concluding that because a work is obtuse, it's brilliant. Two of the best-known Catholic writers--Waugh being one, Fl. O'Connor the other--are probably recognized at all because they often didn't make any sense.
The road goes up hill and down dale in Waugh's novels as well. His "War Trilogy"**: forget it! The parts that are better than the whole don't redeem it. However "Vile Bodies," and "A Handful of Dust" are worth the trouble. "The Loved One" and "Scoop," especially "Scoop," shouldn't be missed.
And what of "Brideshead Revisited,"*** Waugh's chef d'oeuvre**** the only fiction-work I know of that was rewritten extensively after first edition. It's OK, but Charles Ryder's conversion to Holy Church is a bit sudden, isnt it? In nine-tenths of the book, he's an atheist. Then BOOM: in just two pages he's saying his "Paters" and "Aves." Someone with a better eye to plausibility would have had the seed of conversion popping its coat by page 100, if not 50.
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*The pronunciation is not like Evelyn Wood, but like Adam's wife.
**War Trilogy="Men At Arms" + "Officers & Gentlemen"+ "The End of The Battle"
***BR was, on one level, a smirk at certain student species. Every prep school class features a Sebastian. Every U. has its artsy-fartsies like Charles Ryder. The TV version's producers didn't get that the characters are supposed to be ridiculous, took them seriously and so issued a grand gay miniseries that few outside Tenleytown could suffer through.
****Pronounced "sheff doofer"
Copyright 2001 by Neal J. Conway.
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Copyright © 2003 by Neal J. Conway. All rights reserved.