La Helena de Waugh es un personaje del que se nos muestra toda su trayectoria, desde su nacimiento en Britania hasta su viaje en busca de la Vera Cruz, centrándose sobre todo en el carácter y la psicología de un personaje femenino fuerte y de firmes convicciones al que le tocó vivir uno de los grandes momentos de crisis de nuestra civilización, cuando el cristianismo fue reconocido como religión de un Imperio romano devastado por la insensatez, la corrupción y las intrigas, trasfondo histórico que Waugh retrata con brillantez. Es esta combinación de lo personal y lo histórico lo que permite además una lectura de la novela como interesante reflexión sobre los procesos evolutivos de las sociedades y como una exposición de las contradicciones nunca resueltas por completo de la civilización occidental.
La madre de Constantino el Grande se revela aquí como la gran mujer que había tras un gran hombre. ( )

Helena is the intelligent, horse-mad daughter of a British chieftain who is thrown into marriage with the man who will one day become the Roman emperor Constantius. Leaving home for lands unknown, she spends her adulthood seeking truth in the religions, mythologies, and philosophies of the declining ancient world, and becomes initiated into Christianity just as it is recognized as the religion of the Roman Empire. Helena--a novel that Evelyn Waugh considered to be his favorite, and most ambitious, work--deftly traverses the forces of corruption, treachery, enlightenment, and political intrigue of Imperial Rome as it brings to life an inspiring heroine.

Evelyn Waugh writes a fictional account of Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, who is reputed to have found the true cross in Jerusalem. We know so little about her; however the story Waugh invents seems plausible. In an age when those close to the emperors didn't live long, Helena was said to live to a ripe old age. She is revered as a saint today in many Christian denominations.

Since we don't really know what's true and what is not, we need not judge Helena on the details, just on a good story by a good author. ( )

Although Waugh’s trademark humour makes this a distinctive work, Helena is not anything like A Handful of Dust or Brideshead Revisited or any of the other droll masterpieces of social commentary that you’ve heard of. It is a novella of just over 200 pages, and it’s historical fiction – a fictionalised life of Helena, Empress of the Roman Empire and the mother of Constantine the Great who reigned from 306–337. The Catholics (and Waugh was a Catholic) made her a saint because she purportedly discovered the True Cross, the one on which Jesus was crucified.

As Waugh acknowledges in his brief and witty introduction, not much is known about Helena even though she was such a profound influence on her offspring that he was the first emperor to desist from persecuting the Christians, he issued the Edict of Milan which allowed them to practise their faith without being fed to the lions, and he prudently got himself baptised on his deathbed, thereby cleansing his soul of a lifetime of sins just in time for entry to the Pearly Gates. The Brits have acknowledged his pivotal role in establishing Christianity and Western Civilisation &c with an imposing statue at York Minster, because it was in York that his soldiers rebelled against the expectation that another Caesar would become Emperor and proclaimed him their leader instead.

So what? you may be thinking. What makes this a worthwhile book to read? Well, for a start, it’s always a good thing to have the role of women acknowledged in history, even belatedly. And secondly, loosely based on the vaguest of historical fact, it allows Waugh full reign to create a most interesting story, enabling a critique of the excesses of the age which counters versions of Imperial Rome that focus more on murder and mayhem than the problem of political corruption and governance.

And it’s often droll, with surprisingly sensitive portraits of women in an era when men have so successfully hogged the limelight. Helena is a plain, horsey girl enjoying reading Homer’s Iliad with her tutor Marcias, when she attracts the attention of Constantius when he is deployed as a junior officer in Britain. The marriage begins well but after the birth of her only child Crispus Constantius’s ambitions take over and she is neglected for long periods of time. Helena however does not mope. She makes a life for herself, farming in Dalmatia and sustaining her father’s contempt for Roman politics.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/08/20/helena-by-evelyn-waugh-bookreview/ ( )

Witty and sometime humorous novella of St. Helen, mixed with a good deal of hagiography. The last few chapters were my favorite part: a "Golden Legend"-type pilgrimage to Jerusalem where Helena finds the True Cross and other relics. I also relished the literary or classical allusions such as Helena's father, King Coel of the Trinovantes calling for mead and music then dismissing his bowl, fiddlers three and pipe. Also Helena takes the young Constantine to "Government House" in her husband's posting and upon seeing the ocean, the little boy cries, "The sea; the sea!"

Delightful! ( )