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Loading... Evelyn Waugh: A Biography (edition 1992)by Christopher Sykes (Author)
Work InformationEvelyn Waugh: A Biography by Christopher Sykes
  
Best Biographies (20) No current Talk conversations about this book. 1   John_Vaughan | Oct 17, 2011 |    ) Schmerguls | Oct 5, 2008 |
As friend, Sykes knew most of the people Waugh knew, and was able to give first-hand (or at least second-hand “from-the-horse’s-mouth”) accounts of many of the telling incidents he relates. The downside of this equation, for the student of Waugh’s life and writings, is that Sykes seems on more than one occasion reluctant to speak with candor about mutual acquaintances (many who were no doubt still alive at the time of writing), and even, perhaps, about Waugh himself.  This book reinforces my thankfulness that I never met Evelyn Waugh. If I had, my lifelong admiration for most of his work might have taken a sad buffet from what I would surely have received: a courteous invitation to take off my collar if I would really feel more comfortable without it, perhaps, or an interested query about when I hoped to return to Wigan. Or something much, much worse... At a safe distance, one can rather half-heartedly deplore all this, but without this compulsion to say the unsayable he would never have come to be the writer he was... Acrimony and defiance soured his later work. His health broke down before he reached old age. To the end, he kept up several close friendships and, as he had always done, showed generosity and lasting kindness to the unfortunate. He was a man of honour. So much and more to his credit emerges from Mr Sykes's admirable portrait which does not spare the warts but is fair to the attractions too. The book is full of excellent, skilfully recounted anecdotes, but others were omitted 'for the sake of literary economy'.
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.9Literature English English fiction Modern PeriodLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (2.93)
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Wikipedia in English (3)
1
I saw a contradiction in that sentence. Novels then, are all to be considered ‘serious’ – or just the novelist? Evelyn was hilarious, uproariously rude, pedantic, dogmatic, deeply religious, prudish and a true English eccentric. I enjoyed this portrait of his talented wit, courage and privileged life. It seems amazing that simultaneously there were so many great authors in England - craftsmen Evelyn called them, like himself – the entire Greene family, Connolly, J B Priestly and Somerset Maugham, Orwell, Morton, Betjeman … this wealth of art is the reason I suppose that fiction was and is given such respect.
But in closing his most enjoyable biography Christopher Sykes writes that ”Evelyn’s anti-reviewer goading may strike some readers as petty.” This reader was so stuck .. then the next sentence offered me reassurance that my questioning and doubting on the importance given to novels is not unique …”It is to do with the long-surviving notion (against which Jane Austen’s strictures have had no effect) that fiction is essentially trivial.
This is a wonderful life about a great character, written with style and structured to present interesting descriptions of both the author and his craftsmanship.