Total Page : 384
Publisher : HarperPress
Publication Date : 2009 08 20
>> A GREAT COMPANION TO BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
While I love literature I am very rarely interested in books that accompany it biographies collections of letters or books that purport to tell the real story behind the book This is delightful exception
I was intrigued by the real family that inspired Brideshead and the author does a great job of explaining Waugh s close relationship them how he did or did not disguise them in the novel and the reaction of teh family to the book Did anyyone ever really belive the author s note I am not I thou art not he or she they are not they
In addition to the
biographical information that helps us understand Waugh and the world he created the author does a good job of placing the real people and events in context giving us a better understanding of the intersection of Catholicism and the peerage that is so important to the novel and of the theme of people struggling to reconcile their lives with God and theology A must read for anyone who has read and loved Brideshead Revisited
>> A book as good as its subject
I freely admit to an aversion to most biographies those half ton tomes stuffed to overflowing with superfluous information regurgitated facts that represent the flotsam and jetsam of the life in question as opposed to actual milestones and achievements Happily this is not the case with Paula Byrne s Mad World Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead Mad World a biography as witty and amusing as its subject which in the case of Evelyn Waugh is saying a great deal
As is the case with most historical biographies Mad World follows Waugh s life from cradle to grave As we trek along we are treated to brief portraits of Waugh s parents and brother Alec all those Mitford sisters his annulled first marriage and life long second his conversion to Catholicism as well as pointedly detailed descriptions of his published works including Vile Bodies A Handful of Dust and Brideshead Revisited
The pace picks up and never flags once Waugh enters Oxford where he quickly develops friendships with the likes of Harold Acton and Brian Howard and enters into a series of homosexual relationships the most profound and lasting with Hugh Lygon second son of the 7th Earl Beauchamp and the inspiration for Brideshead s Sebastian Flyte
Waugh is taken under Lygon s wing and is introduced to the family becoming a life long friend and confidante of sisters Mary and Dorothy as well as a fixture at the family manse Madresfield hence Mad World and was witness to the disgrace of Earl Beauchamp forced to flee the country or face charges of Gross Indecency and the family s dishonor
Byrne has painstakingly researched her material and though her finished text is rich in detail and critical observances it seems never heavy handed or in the least tedious Indeed her work reads as though it were a novel a modern day retelling of Waugh s classic Brideshead Revisited which is the kindest compliment it could be paid
>> Mad World and Secrets of Brideshead
A biography needs to have a Point of View Usually it is its subject and should be so if he is unlikely to be portrayed more than once Evelyn Waugh is not such a case The interest in him is sufficiently wide to accommodate different Points of View Mad World is written from the Point of View of the Lygon family with whom Waugh was friendly and whose members are in part associated with individual characters in Brideshead Revisited
Paula Byrne has done her subject proud and if one puts a price on the pleasure something provides it is hopelessly under priced Mad World reveals much of what I did not know of Evelyn Waugh even though I have read about him to a considerable degree It reveals much more about the Lygon family members How interesting it is that seemingly insignificant events in Brideshead Revisited happened in one degree or another to people mentioned in this biography Two villains make their appearance The first is the second Duke of Westminster a character as malignant to the seventh Earl Beauchamp as the appalling Marquess of Queensbury was to Oscar Wilde The second villain was King George V He abandoned his loyal servant Beauchamp to the Duke of Westminster s knavery in a manner only less reprehensible to the way he abandoned his cousin Tsar Nicholas II
After Brideshead Revisited life did not proceed smoothly for any of the people in this book I remind myself of the conversation between Cordelia and Charles in Brideshead
such an engaging child grown up a plain and pious spinster full of good works Did you think thwarted
It was no time for prevarication Yes I said I did I don t now so much
It s funny she said that s exactly the word I thought for you and Julia when we were up in the nursery with nanny Thwarted passion I thought
Thwarted That s what happened to them all
Paula Byrne s style is free of journalistic puffery therefore this biography is authoritative I find very few vague points
