Evelyn Waugh: Good, Bad and/or Ugly?

[angrysoba]

As a sort of homage to Christopher Hitchens, I have decided to read a few of the authors he enjoyed to see if they were as good as he made them out to be. I'd already read Graham Greene and a bit of Nabokov before I started reading Hitchens but I knew nothing about Evelyn Waugh.

So, late last year, I picked up Decline and Fall, Waugh's first novel, which is considered hugely funny and classic of a certain genre.

It was written in the Thirties and has a somewhat P.G Wodehousian quality to it but it was indeed funny with some amusing characters: Paul Pennyfeather, Mr Prendgast, Captain Grimes, Lady Circumference and her son, Lord Tangent and the unusual butler, Philbrick.

For the first 100 or so pages I really enjoyed it until suddenly the appearance of Mr Cholmondley who, being black, seems to give the novel the excuse to descend into some of the most gobsmacking racism.

After that it dragged a little and never really got back to the pace it was at at the beginning. I would give it about 6 out of ten although it started with some promise.

Undaunted I opened Scoop two days ago to see if it could be better. Well, it was! Much funnier, more cynical, better characters and, for the most part the book didn't slacken like Decline and Fall (which declined and sagged towards the end!).

It was also racist. There was no way any author would try and get away with writing that sort of stuff today.

Sometimes when I read books like that I hope that the racism is just a feature of one of the characters but this really doesn't seem to be the case with Waugh. He seems to be a very casual racist completely unconcerned even with the possibility that someone might object to it.

That said, I think I might still read more Waugh. Any advice? Any opinions?

 

[crimresearch]

'Black Mischief' should help you decide if Waugh was a racist, or an equal opportunity ridiculer of human foibles with an ear for dialogue.

 

[Brainache]

The Loved One was the first Waugh I ever read and I loved it. A nice little satire on superficiality of the type seen in Hollywood.

Brideshead Revisited is a lot more serious and deals with the end of an era. A poignent and moving eulogy to the old British Empire.

 

[angrysoba]

'Black Mischief' should help you decide if Waugh was a racist, or an equal opportunity ridiculer of human foibles with an ear for dialogue.

It's on my list.

The Loved One was the first Waugh I ever read and I loved it. A nice little satire on superficiality of the type seen in Hollywood.

Brideshead Revisited is a lot more serious and deals with the end of an era. A poignent and moving eulogy to the old British Empire.

I also want to read Brideshead Revisited.

From what I understand, Waugh seems to have had a few different stages in his writing with Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Black Mischief and Scoop part of his lighter, satirical and comedic novels.

In his later days, he seems to have become heavy and reactionary while Brideshead Revisited is supposed to be somewhere in between taking the virtues of both. Written as clearly as the early ones but with a serious theme. Is that about right?

 

[Brainache]

...

I also want to read Brideshead Revisited.

From what I understand, Waugh seems to have had a few different stages in his writing with Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Black Mischief and Scoop part of his lighter, satirical and comedic novels.

In his later days, he seems to have become heavy and reactionary while Brideshead Revisited is supposed to be somewhere in between taking the virtues of both. Written as clearly as the early ones but with a serious theme. Is that about right?

Yeah, I think so. It does have a few lighter moments early on, but as the narrator ages it becomes a bit more serious. Wonderfully written. Waugh seems to be lamenting the loss of that idle Aristocratic lifestyle of his youth and the fact that post-war Britain just wasn't fun anymore.

 

[Verde]

I also want to read Brideshead Revisited.

I read a couple of his earlier works, and didn't enjoy them.

I have not read that book, but did see a couple of the segments that was made into a TV movie (ITV/BBC; I really don't remember). It was so amazingly boring that it was hence fore referred to as Brideshead Regurgitated .

V.

 

[stilicho]

....

It was also racist. There was no way any author would try and get away with writing that sort of stuff today.

Sometimes when I read books like that I hope that the racism is just a feature of one of the characters but this really doesn't seem to be the case with Waugh. He seems to be a very casual racist completely unconcerned even with the possibility that someone might object to it.

That said, I think I might still read more Waugh. Any advice? Any opinions?

Some Mark Twain couldn't be published today either.

Waugh was an antiquarian and most of his characters are cardboard cutouts. He is an equal opportunity satirist. I liked Vile Bodies more than Decline and Fall. A Handful of Dust has some great moments in it too.

Brideshead Revisited is one I've never managed to get that excited about.

 

[angrysoba]

Last night I read Hitchens' introduction to another edition of Scoop, which I found in an anthology of his essays.

He introduces the racism charge after referring to Waugh's description of the fictional country of Ishmaelia which is one of the funniest parts of Scoop.

In particular he quotes this bit about the unfortunate missionaries who preceded the journalists:

They were eaten, every one of them: some raw, others stewed and seasoned - according to local usage and calendar (for the better sort of Ishmaelites have been Christian for many centuries and will not publicly eat human flesh, uncooked, in Lent, without special and costly dispensation from the bishop.

Is Mr Waugh, by employing the "stereotype" of the cannibal stewpot, not reaching for the baser instincts of his readers? Do his characters not also use words like "darky" and "coon" and even "******" without any evident compunction? Well, there's no real point in trying to acquit Mr. Waugh in front of the sort of modern jury he would have despised or ignored. But he himself employs no term of hatred or contempt; his main fools and dolts are English or Swedish or German, and his villain - the memorably-sketched Dr. Benito - is a suave and elegant and fluent black man.

I have no problem with the cooking pot but I think it is not true to say that Waugh himself doesn't employ such words, unless this is providing an interpretation of events from the viewpoint of his characters such as this occasion:

"I'm damn well sure it's not," Corker said. "Hi you! Station, you black booby!"

The coon turned around in his seat and smiled. "All right," he said.

But I agree with Hitchens when he says that Waugh probably would despise or hold in contempt those modern juries who disapproved and he too notices the lack of "evident compunction" with which the words are used which is partly why I have the impression that Hitchens is clutching at the same straw I considered myself and rejected.

Sometimes when I read books like that I hope that the racism is just a feature of one of the characters but this really doesn't seem to be the case with Waugh. He seems to be a very casual racist completely unconcerned even with the possibility that someone might object to it.

 

[mercian]

I thought Vile Bodies was good, but the film by Stephen Fry based on it (Bright Young Things) was better! Peter O'Toole's Colonal Blount is much better than the one in the book. This is probably sacrilege.

It's a rare thing, but I also thought Fightclub the film was better than the book

 

[crimresearch]

Last night I read Hitchens' introduction to another edition of Scoop, which I found in an anthology of his essays.

He introduces the racism charge after referring to Waugh's description of the fictional country of Ishmaelia which is one of the funniest parts of Scoop.

In particular he quotes this bit about the unfortunate missionaries who preceded the journalists:





I have no problem with the cooking pot but I think it is not true to say that Waugh himself doesn't employ such words, unless this is providing an interpretation of events from the viewpoint of his characters such as this occasion:



But I agree with Hitchens when he says that Waugh probably would despise or hold in contempt those modern juries who disapproved and he too notices the lack of "evident compunction" with which the words are used which is partly why I have the impression that Hitchens is clutching at the same straw I considered myself and rejected.

Do you also think that Randy Newman hates short people?

 

[angrysoba]

Do you also think that Randy Newman hates short people?

What is the parallel between Waugh and Randy Newman? Does the truth about one have any bearing on the truth about another?

 

[angrysoba]

I thought Vile Bodies was good, but the film by Stephen Fry based on it (Bright Young Things) was better! Peter O'Toole's Colonal Blount is much better than the one in the book. This is probably sacrilege.

It's a rare thing, but I also thought Fightclub the film was better than the book

I can very much imagine Stephen Fry (in General Melchett-mode) playing Lord Copper of the Daily Beast in a film version of Scoop.

Maybe Stephen Fry could also play Brad Pitt's character in a remake of Fight Club as well.

 

[crimresearch]

If I have to explain that Randy Newman himself does not personally believe the bigoted and racist lyrics he sings in the personae of *fictional* characters he has created in order to lampoon their real life counterparts, then the comparison is probably wasted.

 

[angrysoba]

If I have to explain that Randy Newman himself does not personally believe the bigoted and racist lyrics he sings in the personae of *fictional* characters he has created in order to lampoon their real life counterparts, then the comparison is probably wasted.

Yes, but that is the very question I have about Waugh. I am not convinced that the racism is merely an aspect of his characters. Which is why I said:

Sometimes when I read books like that I hope that the racism is just a feature of one of the characters but this really doesn't seem to be the case with Waugh. He seems to be a very casual racist completely unconcerned even with the possibility that someone might object to it.

Then I quoted Hitchens, who raised the very same possibility:

Do his characters not also use words like "darky" and "coon" and even "******" without any evident compunction? Well, there's no real point in trying to acquit Mr. Waugh in front of the sort of modern jury he would have despised or ignored. But he himself employs no term of hatred or contempt

And I pointed out that I didn't find it convincing because:

"I'm damn well sure it's not," Corker said. "Hi you! Station, you black booby!"

The coon turned around in his seat and smiled. "All right," he said.

Corker, a character, uses the expression "black booby" in this case. But it is Waugh, who is not a character, who seems to be using the expression "coon". And using it as casually as one of his characters would.

 

[Brainache]

That kind of casual racism was pretty much the norm for upper-class Englishmen of Waugh's generation, wasn't it?

I think it would be remarkable if he wasn't racist. I'm sure you'll find sexism and snobbery in there as well.

At least he wasn't as bad as Kipling...

 

[angrysoba]

That kind of casual racism was pretty much the norm for upper-class Englishmen of Waugh's generation, wasn't it?

I think it would be remarkable if he wasn't racist. I'm sure you'll find sexism and snobbery in there as well.

At least he wasn't as bad as Kipling...

Yes, you're probably right.

Having said that, there were writers of his time who didn't appear to be racist in the same way: George Orwell, F Scott Fitzegerald etc... (although I could be wrong).

In fact, his prejudices actually make him seem like someone from another, older age but he was born in 1903, the same year as Orwell and a number of years after Fitzgerald and one year before Graham Greene. Kipling was much older.

 

[crimresearch]

The image is that Waugh carefully cultivated an outward appearance of being brusque, supercilious, and disliking his fellow man of every type.

When he wrote, his characters were created from what he saw all around him, which obviously included classism, sexism, and racism.
In order to claim that he personally thought that everyone with a different skin color was inferior to everyone with white skin, we're going to have to come up with more than his fiction.

It is worth noting that the few people he let get close to him, insisted that the real Waugh was the opposite of what the public perceived.

It is trendy these days to run around proclaiming Waugh, Mencken, Kipling, Clemens at al. as racists along with the obligatory 'they were the product of their times'.
Thing is, they were among those during their time that went against the flow in so many ways... If someone came along in 200 years and pronounced Martin Luther King Jr. a racist because he said 'colored' and 'negro', we would find that ludicrous.

But I'll bet they come along and proclaim Randy Newman a racist and homophobe using the same superficial evidence.

 

[angrysoba]

But I'll bet they come along and proclaim Randy Newman a racist and homophobe using the same superficial evidence.

What's your thing about Randy Newman?

 

[angrysoba]

It is trendy these days to run around proclaiming Waugh, Mencken, Kipling, Clemens at al. as racists along with the obligatory 'they were the product of their times'.

Is it really trendy "these days"? And is it the supposed modishness of thinking Waugh's writing contains a lot of racial epithets that you object to most?

 

[fuelair]

That kind of casual racism was pretty much the norm for upper-class Englishmen of Waugh's generation, wasn't it?

I think it would be remarkable if he wasn't racist. I'm sure you'll find sexism and snobbery in there as well.

At least he wasn't as bad as Kipling...

If it helps, middle and upperclass Brits and Americans - or at least the literary and film versions of them - seem generally to have had no problem considering other races lazy, inept, childlike, etc. in the 20's and 30's (and other times, but we are looking at Waugh and, for me, Thorne Smith). Apparently there was no hatred involved in this, simply casual racism.

My suspicion is that other races largely and simply took up the position of jester/fool in the toolbox of literary/comedic
characters as they had since, at least, the 1800s.

To keep this short, I won't go into detail on the equivalent uses of frontier persons, yankee, Yorkshire and (later) midwest farmers and the like, the genteel poor, the Irish etc. who were frequently used in the same way (and, oh lordy, I have not begun to mention the poor in detail..........).

Ahh, it's a grand tradition and to sort out only the part on race is to miss a rich variety of looking down on and making fun of the Other!!.