Tag Archives: Evelyn Waugh

Everything about me is new again

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The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerourac
1958 paperback edition of the hardcopy original… a bit worse for wear :)

Not really. In fact, the opposite is true.

Everything about me has already happened, somewhere, to someone else.

That’s just how it is, when you are one of 7+ billion and that doesn’t count the dead.

And yet, as I experience life and interpret the complex events that unfold around me — in my relationships, the accidents that befall me, the consequences of my decisions — it certainly feels unique and new. It feels like this subjective model of reality that my brain-mind builds and that my awareness occupies is “mine” and mine alone.

And so there is this paradox. My experience is unique; my experience is universal. I may not have an exact doppelganger, but if you break “me” down into granular enough pieces, they will each have exact replicas out there, somewhere.

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Monday Musing: Whoa. Wow. Waugh.

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Musing Mondays from Should be ReadingToday’s Monday Musing prompt from Should Be Reading:

  • Are you currently collecting any authors? Why?
  • Do you have all of their books? If not, why not?
  • Did you buy all the books in the collection at the same time, or did you buy a book here, a book there? Have you actually read all of the collection? If not, why not?

Currently? No.

But I have done, and when I do I like to not only collect the author but also read things like bios and collected letters.

The last author I collected, for instance, was Evelyn Waugh. I read a number of his novels: Decline and Fall, Scoop, Vile Bodies, Handful of Dust, The Loved One, Helene. (I’d already read Brideshead some years earlier.)

Around the same time, I also read Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family by Evelyn’s grandson, Alexander Waugh. I read Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London’s Jazz Age by D. J. Taylor.

Reading related non-fiction books enriches the reading experience for me, and may even  help me become a better writer.

What is your response to the prompt?

Reading Evelyn Waugh

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I need to update my sidebar. I’ve finished 2 more Waugh novels. Handful of Dust first. Freaked me out because I’d read Scoop and Handful of Dust is no comedy. It’s a flippin horror novel. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just hated seeing the only decent character in the book come to such an unthinkable end. (Nice to have the background from his grandson’s memoir under my belt before reading btw — pretty obvious that Evelyn was processing the breakup of his first marriage, not to mention the rather monstrous way his father treated him.)

Next: Decline & Fall. Comic novel. Loved it.

Conclusion after Handful of Dust and Decline & Fall : the man was a masterful craftsman. The books are absolutely flawless IMO. The structure, pacing, character development, the weight he gives various aspects of the narrative — I didn’t notice a single wrong note. Haven’t been that impressed by a piece of fiction in a looong time. And all the more impressive considering D&F was his first novel.

Another not-original-observation — Evelyn considered becoming a cabinetmaker originally, and the books have a very constructed feel to them. You do feel like you’re experiencing something 3-dimensional, with drawers that you open and find something important inside, and depth & weight, and just the right touch of artful decoration here & there. Like the glimpse of an inside joke or a throwaway line about a minor character that makes the hair on your neck stand up, it’s so well done.

Reading Vile Bodies now. Enjoying it. Still in the first half. His first wife left him while he was writing it; I understand you can tell, the book changes midway through, where he stopped writing and then later picked it up again . . .

Vocabularious contrarionous

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So I finished reading Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London’s Jazz Age by D.J. Taylor (part of an Evelyn Waugh thing I’ve taken on — g*d I’m such a lit nerd! lol). Some similarities between that generation & the trailing edge boomers — those of us who were too young to serve in Vietnam (like the English kids who were too young to serve in WWI) but hit our late teens/early 20s in the direct shadow of those who did.

Found I needed a dictionary beside me while I was reading, too — a kick in & of itself — not often I encounter a writer whose vocabulary is such a mismatch to mine.

Tatterdamalion — congeries — badinage — louche — farouche.

There were others but I misplaced the third index card I used to record them.

I plan to drop them in future posts though. I hear a vast vocabulary boosts SEO. ha ha ha ha ha