On "Excursion in Reality" by Evelyn Waugh (4499 words) *****

One of the better tales Waugh tells is "Excursion in Reality"--or perhaps I'm just a sucker for Hollywood stories. In this one, a novelist is recruited to rewrite Hamlet for the motion pictures--but to update it in terms of language. In the process, of course, with studio committees what they are, the play loses much of its actual being. Meanwhile, the novelist's fickle relationship with his girlfriend is put on hold, as he becomes wrapped up in a completely other affair. Methinks Waugh uses the term reality ironically. Read the story here.

On "Brideshead Revisited" by Evelyn Waugh *****

I've come late to this classic novel, in part because the work always seemed like it would be something boring to me: the title, the idea that this is about some kind of life among upper-class Brits. And it is the latter, as most of Waugh's is, but it is magnificent.

What do I like about this book? It has a very strong voice, one that beguiles, that ropes one in, as if it were a true-to-life memoir. And secondly, it takes religion seriously--and respectfully--which is not something one sees in a lot of post-1900 fiction.

The story is about one Charles Ryder, an officer in the army who comes upon the Brideshead estate in his work. This is the frame through which the story of the estate--of his relationship with it--is told.

Most of that relationship is with Sebastian, the younger brother of the four children to whom the estate might one day fall. Sebastian and Charles meet at Oxford, where they do as many college students do: they drink and they party. This is the bulk of the first half of this book. It is a story of friendship. And it feels as if it is going nowhere, and yet, as I noted, it beguiles. I was reminded of On the Road, another book about a friendship that has only a loose plot that somehow manages to keep readers hooked. We're not driven to find out "what happens." We just enjoy learning about these young men, sharing in their fun times and enthusiasm for life. And most of all learning about the fun, strange character Sebastian, who carries a teddy bear with him as a friend.

While one can clearly read the story as one of male friendship, there is a subtext of homosexuality going on as well. Some of the friends of the pair are clearly of that persuasion, and at various times we are provided strange asides: the two too naked in a bedroom to come out to see their sister, the two being denoted as not interested in women by other relatives. But Waugh keeps that in the background; his focus is on friendship. This might be a reflection of the time in which Waugh wrote or it might be more that friendship is Waugh's concern here. Or both.

Alas, a plot does kick in. The drunken escapades become more regular, and from here the novel loses some energy as it becomes more and more concerned with Sebastian's alcoholism. Attempts are made to keep him from drinking, and one sees the strain that is put onto a friendship in which one is confronted with wanting to help one's friend in two different ways: giving the friend the freedom he wants but also keeping the friend from destroying himself.

Eventually, Sebastian wanders off into Europe and Africa and drifts apart from Charles, who has become a kind of member of the family. Eventually, Charles is sent to find Sebastian to tell him of his mother's impending death, but such ends up being the climax and end to the friendship. Years later, having moved into a career as a painter and married, Charles meets again Sebastian's sister Julia. The two have an affair, and one has to think that it is in part an unspoken love for Sebastian and for times past that draws them together.

Charles is the lone cynic among the family of Catholic believers. His agnosticism is the point of view from which the novel is written, and thus much of the book is about Charles attempting to understand the family's devotion to Catholicism. It is in this sense that the book takes religion seriously, for rather than dismiss religion, in the end, Charles comes to have an understanding of its meaning.

Waugh, himself a Catholic, thus wrote a Catholic novel. If we take this as being his view of the church, one would see within it a way to stave off or deal with the issues of modernity and death, a way to put order to the world. It's more a feeling than a logic or way of life, insofar as its enacted in the novel, though I'm sure Waugh would see that to be very much logical in itself.

On "Too Much Tolerance" by Evelyn Waugh (1543 words) ***

Just as "Love in the Slump" seems in part a commentary on Waugh's first marriage, so too on some level does this one, "Too Much Tolerance," which is about a very happy man who lets himself be taken advantage of by his business partner, son, and (ex-)wife. But all is good in his book. Something was odd about this piece to me insofar as I didn't really feel bad for the man--perhaps because even though he had much to complain about, he was so happy despite it all. Maybe there's something to being a Penelope. Read the story here.

On "A Handful of Dust" by Evelyn Waugh ***

Were it not for the masterfully cold ending--one that is an almost verbatim casting of Waugh's great story "The Man Who Liked Dickens"--this novel likely would have been almost entirely forgettable. This is not Waugh the humorist at work here; this is Waugh the bitter divorcee. There is plenty of commentary about English high society, and the story itself is compelling enough to keep one reading, but the book consists in large chunks of dialogue and much of it not very good. Characters speak for paragraphs, expositorily telling the story: "I am going to do X, and then because I feel this way, I will do Y. Do you think that will please my spouse or will it make for hurt? I do so hope for hurt." "I believe that your husband will find your actions to be difficult to adjust to. He has always been . . ." And several of the central characters in the story have little to recommend themselves as people.

The book is forged mostly around the Lasts--Tony and Brenda--who maintain an estate called Hetton and throw regular parties. A man named Beaver comes to visit Tony, a man whom Tony barely knows. Brenda takes a kind of liking to him. He is young and difficult to make love her, and that is precisely why she likes him.

Bored by life in the country and wanting to take up with Beaver, Brenda arranges to rent a flat in London that the family can barely afford. She tells Tony it is so that she can study economics. More and more time is spent away from him--and more and more time with Beaver. Tony never seems to catch on, even as Brenda and Beaver become the talk of high society.

Brenda attempts to set Tony up with another woman. The efforts fails masterfully.

Meanwhile, their son John (whose age is hard to fathom since he too speaks in complete paragraphs) is left without a mom. Reared by nannies and butlers, he has a great liking for horse riding. And it is a tragedy involving him that brings the whole affair to light.

So little sympathy can be thrown Brenda's way by the time that divorce is in the offing, Waugh's description of her next acts make her utterly detestable. She's conned her husband of money for months, ignored her child, and taken up with another man. And now Tony agrees to go through with setting up a divorce for her by faking his own affair. The attempt does not go well, but rather than be happy with the alimony Tony is offering, Brenda opts to sue him for an amount that will force Tony to put the family estate on the auction block, this so that she can be supported in the manner in which she is used to and so that her lover, Beaver, can be supported as well (since he has no means of support for himself). It is this that pushes Tony to run away to the jungles of Brazil, where the story's final tragic ending comes into being.

What readers get then is a sense of the utter desolation that divorce works on a man, one that is put into metaphor by Tony's experiences in the jungle. But because the text seems so one sided, the characters fail ultimately to feel fully forged.