On "Critical Essays on Evelyn Waugh" edited by James F. Carens ***

This book collects various essays about Waugh's work from over the course of time to about 1980, when it was published. As such, it includes reviews, in addition to actual critical work--mostly the opinions of any critic who was famous and then some, so we're talking people like George Orwell, Edmund Wilson, and Malcolm Cowley. As such, it's a good way to read how Waugh has been perceived over the course of his career.

The first section features chiefly reviews that look out of the course of Waugh's career up to the time of the individual book being reviewed. I got the general feeling from the reviews that Waugh's early satirical work was looked upon well but that his work from Brideshead Revisited onward not so much (except in a few cases where he returns to outright satire, such as in The Loved One). Even Scoop here doesn't seem as often pointed out as great as one would expect. What I mean is that on the list of 100 great works, the books that generally make it are Scoop, Brideshead, and Handful of Dust, but it seems that the latter is the only one almost wholly respected.

Certainly, all the critics recognize something different about Brideshead and to an extent the later work. At least one essay acknowledges that this difference actually makes for richer art: the characters are more fully drawn, the texts that much more personal in tone. But many of the critics point out Brideshead's faults: the turn to Catholicism at the end from a narrator who has been anti-Catholic seems false. The former should have colored the latter all the way through. They don't like the moralizing Waugh; they prefer the Waugh who makes fun of things and thus keeps his moralizing toned back in the form of satire.

Surprisingly, his final war trilogy often is seen in a fairly good light, in comparison to the middle work, bringing the satire and the deeper characterizations together. Also of note are some comments about the ways that Waugh revised the trilogy after its initial publication. I read the first printing and so did not know of these changes. The main character's remarriage, for example, in the revised version does not end with children of his own, thus meaning the bastard son of his ex-wife is his heir, suggesting in many ways Guy's total cuckolding and his truly final generous act (any kind of war work or work for others on a bigger level is pointless, as it leads to nothing; it is only in the small, familial act that Guy can manage any sort of value, but even this is a final expunging of himself).

Another common theme in the reviews is Waugh's traditionalism and his snobbery. He likes Catholicism at least in part because it espouses tradition and "rightful class." In a world that is falling apart, in which there is nothing to believe in, there is only tradition to keep us whole. The morality of the upper classes may be questionable (just as it is of the lower classes), but tradition can carry us through, keep us from burying ourselves in the waste. (Never mind if you are one of the lower classes, struggling to get ahead--that's your lot in life, so accept it.) Waugh's writing is seen as being about the fall of England from the world scene, the fall of the landed class, the tragedy of it. (Indeed, I got this feel as I read his works, which probably explains why I didn't care as much for it as I thought I would based on the one book I'd read decades ago.)

The second section of the book deals with specific books. Most appear to justify or show why a particular work is great--and often Waugh's very best. One review looks at Helena, which was generally panned in other essays, showing how Waugh's turn to legend is a model novel. Two reviews look at The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, one mocking Waugh himself and one, by Waugh, defending the work and pointing out how the review was largely personal rather than professional. One review extols the virtues of Put Out More Flags. Richard Wasson's review of A Handful of Dust looks at it as a critique of Victorianism, pointing out again how Waugh essentially knocks down Victorian values and class but notes that there is little to replace them with (they may be empty values and the order imposed may be less-than-ideal, but it's all we have). James F. Carens looks at the final trilogy by Waugh and sees in it the absolute climax of his work, one that balances perfectly satire and sentimentalism, class critiques and class upholding, and so forth. Reading the review, I was almost persuaded that Sword of Honor is a great work of literature; alas, having read it, I'd say it fails on one main point that Henry James once noted as the essence of good literature: it was simply not that interesting of a read to me. So while Sword of Honor shows how war and our desire to change the world on the big scene are actually harmful and how the best way to affect our society for the good is through small, familial roles, the work seemed too scattered to me, the tone inconsistent. Several other essays assess the differences between the final version Waugh created and the earlier, single-published volumes.

A final section of the book looks at Waugh's nonfiction and more generally at Waugh's career, drawing out themes similarly noted in the reviews previously featured. One review of his autobiography claims it to be a stellar work, the other is much less enthusiastic, denoting that Waugh reveals too little about himself. A review of his travel writing denotes that it is great for its genre no matter the author but it is also a great insight into Waugh's fiction, which often covered similar themes and incidents. Waugh, the author notes, was not a person who liked the adventure of travel, which gives his writing a rather peculiar air. One gets the sense he'd rather be at home relaxing. Still, the travel gives him a view of home he would not have otherwise--and that not all good. A final essay looks at Waugh's faith and how it affected even the earliest works, before he became Catholic; there is, in a sense, a theme running through his work, even the early pre-Catholic work, that England holds a certain vacuity of the spiritual, since in adopting Anglicanism it accepted a counterfeit in place of the true Catholic Christianity.

The book overall was a nice reminder to me of how reading criticism can be fun. It was also a reminder of how much aesthetic criticism (this is good and this isn't) is in the eye of the particular reader. Most literary analysis, so far as what I see being published today, has strayed from the idea of simply deciphering whether a work is good or not, but earlier reviewers weren't shy to offer opinions on the matter.