4 ms·

Evelyn Waugh’s Decadent Redemption

musictubes 2y ago
Liberties is a great journal. It covers a lot of intellectual ground and is unapologetically Liberal in all senses of the word. Every issue has political and historical commentary, art (literary, film, dance) criticism, and poetry. It’s like a denser Harper’s.
K7mR2vZq 2y ago
[dead]
- dhosek 2y ago
  His journey doesn’t really follow that pattern though. The Loved One, a deeply iconoclastic satirical novel came after Brideshead.
  - ewgoforth 2y ago
    The movie is pretty good too. Jonathon Winters in a dual row.
    - dhosek 2y ago
      Oh God no, that movie is a horrid mess. It’s why Waugh’s novels were never adapted by Hollywood studios after that.
  - throwaway2562 2y ago
    What of it? The Loved One (1948) was a bit of a squib at best, tonally a throwback to the earlier Waugh. It’s not very good (imho) so you can see why Terry Southern - who had not much taste - liked it enough to make a film of it, also unsuccessful. The Sword of Honour Trilogy written over the next decade or so is much more representative of the later Waugh: the original article has sketched him out correctly. The general continuity in Waugh’s life and writing is contempt for modernity: a turn to religion makes perfect sense in that light. The diaries are worth reading too. He really was quite an unpleasant fellow, as well as a fine writer.
    - cafard 2y ago
      Paul Fussell (I think) said that one should read Waugh's letters rather than his diaries: he wrote the letters in the morning, sober, and wrote the diaries at night, drunk.
    - giraffe_lady 2y ago
      > The general continuity in Waugh’s life and writing is contempt for modernity: a turn to religion makes perfect sense in that light. I'm christian and this describes the most troublesome converts. Both in the trouble they cause the rest of us and the trouble they experience themselves. The thing they miss, and also maybe you, and also probably Waugh, is that religions are in one sense much older but in another much more serious and experiential sense they are modern. They are practiced by modern people, with modern patterns of thought, navigating modern problems in modern ways. The wisdom may be ancient but your life isn't, your belief isn't. You can't go home again, you can't swim in the same river twice, you can't prevent the fall, you can't put the family back together, you can't practice the religion of st anthony or even of your great grandfather. A modern person can only practice a modern christianity and this includes catholicism. Now, I still think you are right about waugh there. He did have contempt for modernity and did probably turn to catholicism to escape it. But I don't believe he found what he was looking for, because it simply isn't there to be found. Charles Taylor explores this problem/contradiction/experience in incredible depth in A Secular Age. I wish waugh had been able to read it but I wonder if he would have.
      - throwaway2562 2y ago
        Thank you. I will explore.
      - geye1234 2y ago
        I'm responding a bit late to this. The objection to your point is that the teachings of Christianity are timeless if true. And therefore so is (the object of) Christians' belief. And so therefore, a 'modern Christianity' is an oxymoron. I happily claim to practise the religion of St. Anthony, since our intellects adhere to the same thing (God's Self-Revelation in the God-Man Jesus Christ), and our wills pursue the same thing (Union with the Divine Nature). The reason for belief and the goal of religious practice is the same in St. Anthony's case as in mien. As for Waugh, he believed that 'modernity', taken to mean the beliefs that inform contemporary thought and behaviour, was contemptible. (Obviously, if we took 'modern' to simply mean 'contemporary', this would make no sense. 'Modern' is a notoriously ambiguous word.)
giraffe_lady 2y ago
I really like this book and while not catholic I'm close enough that the experiences and decisions of the characters are comprehensible to me, which probably helps. The article mentions this briefly but many don't, and they downplay it significantly even here. The first act of this book is extremely homoerotic. Like it is a clear depiction of a chaste but certainly romantic love between these two young men. But it is also a friendship based on normal-for-the-time-and-place male camaraderie and college antics. It's a nuanced and sophisticated depiction, not apparently trying to make any moral or ethical point about it and the book has a small but devoted following among contemporary gay men for this. Nor is this even plausibly deniable as a "sappho and her friend" type accident on the author's part, since homosexuality is pretty explicitly (though euphemistically) referenced elsewhere in the book. IMO one of the best depictions of a romance of its kind in modern literature. It's fascinating that it's here.
philsnow 2y ago
> Why, oh why, must the love stories fail? Well, Julia's (and then Charles's) love for God prevails, in the end. On the face of it, it's not a story where the guy gets the girl, as such. However, there is a sense where Jesus is the bridegroom of the Church, and thus it is that kind of story, just not the way that readers expect (well, as Oliver points out, until they read the title of the section "The Twitch on the Thread").
- lo_zamoyski 2y ago
  In Catholic theology, God is the ultimate end of Man. The created order, with all its good and beauty, can be understood as a sign that points to God. Marriage under a Catholic understanding has both a natural and a supernatural end. The natural end is procreative, but the supernatural end is that of a friendship in which husband and wife help each other on their journey toward Heaven. In Dante, we see Dante's love of Beatrice lead him to God. He never marries her, but through her beauty and his love of her, she becomes a kind of icon through which Dante is led toward virtue and the divine. Eros draws him upward, but he is purified by agape. Agape purifies eros. The willing of the good of the other, self-sacrifice, surpass the satisfaction of one's desires and purify them. (Incidentally, this is why, in this theological light, vile perversions like pornography become even more horrifying and dark. There is a sense in which one is also participating in an act of desecration.)
danielhanlon 2y ago
How unexpected - beautifully written! It's almost surprising that the quoted passages are so familiar - I hadn't realised how affecting they are. Whilst loving the book I can't consider Brideshead Revisited without thinking of the wonderful 1980s Granada TV adaptation. I didn't dare watch the more recent film, lest it spoil the tableaux of the original.
- coyotespike 2y ago
  The Granada TV adaptation apparently was a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, and they simply read out loud parts of the book where they hadn't filled in the script - "a book on film." I loved it.
googlryas 2y ago
Why does HN lie? There are comments in this thread saying they were posted "18 hours ago" (eg from giraffe_lady), but I am positive I read these comments 3 days ago on the same thread.
- mattmanser 2y ago
  Might be some thread merging, dang sometimes does it, or might be a newish automatic feature I haven't heard about. Oddly, if you search the story name it says it was actually posted 3 days ago, but directs tot his thread: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=evelyn%20waugh&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... You can email them and ask, email's in the faq. They do respond.
- detaro 2y ago
  it's a boost feature, which basically resets the clock for a story (and since the ranking algorithm is influenced by newness a lot, it pushes it back up)
- giraffe_lady 2y ago
  Dang was just proud of me for not calling anyone a coward or heretic in this one and wanted to make sure everyone saw.

Liberties is a great journal. It covers a lot of intellectual ground and is unapologetically Liberal in all senses of the word. Every issue has political and historical commentary, art (literary, film, dance) criticism, and poetry. It’s like a denser Harper’s.

K7mR2vZq 2y ago

[dead]

dhosek 2y ago
His journey doesn’t really follow that pattern though. The Loved One, a deeply iconoclastic satirical novel came after Brideshead.
- ewgoforth 2y ago
  The movie is pretty good too. Jonathon Winters in a dual row.
  - dhosek 2y ago
    Oh God no, that movie is a horrid mess. It’s why Waugh’s novels were never adapted by Hollywood studios after that.
- throwaway2562 2y ago
  What of it? The Loved One (1948) was a bit of a squib at best, tonally a throwback to the earlier Waugh. It’s not very good (imho) so you can see why Terry Southern - who had not much taste - liked it enough to make a film of it, also unsuccessful. The Sword of Honour Trilogy written over the next decade or so is much more representative of the later Waugh: the original article has sketched him out correctly. The general continuity in Waugh’s life and writing is contempt for modernity: a turn to religion makes perfect sense in that light. The diaries are worth reading too. He really was quite an unpleasant fellow, as well as a fine writer.
  - cafard 2y ago
    Paul Fussell (I think) said that one should read Waugh's letters rather than his diaries: he wrote the letters in the morning, sober, and wrote the diaries at night, drunk.
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    > The general continuity in Waugh’s life and writing is contempt for modernity: a turn to religion makes perfect sense in that light. I'm christian and this describes the most troublesome converts. Both in the trouble they cause the rest of us and the trouble they experience themselves. The thing they miss, and also maybe you, and also probably Waugh, is that religions are in one sense much older but in another much more serious and experiential sense they are modern. They are practiced by modern people, with modern patterns of thought, navigating modern problems in modern ways. The wisdom may be ancient but your life isn't, your belief isn't. You can't go home again, you can't swim in the same river twice, you can't prevent the fall, you can't put the family back together, you can't practice the religion of st anthony or even of your great grandfather. A modern person can only practice a modern christianity and this includes catholicism. Now, I still think you are right about waugh there. He did have contempt for modernity and did probably turn to catholicism to escape it. But I don't believe he found what he was looking for, because it simply isn't there to be found. Charles Taylor explores this problem/contradiction/experience in incredible depth in A Secular Age. I wish waugh had been able to read it but I wonder if he would have.
    - throwaway2562 2y ago
      Thank you. I will explore.
    - geye1234 2y ago
      I'm responding a bit late to this. The objection to your point is that the teachings of Christianity are timeless if true. And therefore so is (the object of) Christians' belief. And so therefore, a 'modern Christianity' is an oxymoron. I happily claim to practise the religion of St. Anthony, since our intellects adhere to the same thing (God's Self-Revelation in the God-Man Jesus Christ), and our wills pursue the same thing (Union with the Divine Nature). The reason for belief and the goal of religious practice is the same in St. Anthony's case as in mien. As for Waugh, he believed that 'modernity', taken to mean the beliefs that inform contemporary thought and behaviour, was contemptible. (Obviously, if we took 'modern' to simply mean 'contemporary', this would make no sense. 'Modern' is a notoriously ambiguous word.)

giraffe_lady 2y ago

I really like this book and while not catholic I'm close enough that the experiences and decisions of the characters are comprehensible to me, which probably helps. The article mentions this briefly but many don't, and they downplay it significantly even here. The first act of this book is extremely homoerotic. Like it is a clear depiction of a chaste but certainly romantic love between these two young men. But it is also a friendship based on normal-for-the-time-and-place male camaraderie and college antics. It's a nuanced and sophisticated depiction, not apparently trying to make any moral or ethical point about it and the book has a small but devoted following among contemporary gay men for this. Nor is this even plausibly deniable as a "sappho and her friend" type accident on the author's part, since homosexuality is pretty explicitly (though euphemistically) referenced elsewhere in the book. IMO one of the best depictions of a romance of its kind in modern literature. It's fascinating that it's here.

philsnow 2y ago

> Why, oh why, must the love stories fail? Well, Julia's (and then Charles's) love for God prevails, in the end. On the face of it, it's not a story where the guy gets the girl, as such. However, there is a sense where Jesus is the bridegroom of the Church, and thus it is that kind of story, just not the way that readers expect (well, as Oliver points out, until they read the title of the section "The Twitch on the Thread").

lo_zamoyski 2y ago
In Catholic theology, God is the ultimate end of Man. The created order, with all its good and beauty, can be understood as a sign that points to God. Marriage under a Catholic understanding has both a natural and a supernatural end. The natural end is procreative, but the supernatural end is that of a friendship in which husband and wife help each other on their journey toward Heaven. In Dante, we see Dante's love of Beatrice lead him to God. He never marries her, but through her beauty and his love of her, she becomes a kind of icon through which Dante is led toward virtue and the divine. Eros draws him upward, but he is purified by agape. Agape purifies eros. The willing of the good of the other, self-sacrifice, surpass the satisfaction of one's desires and purify them. (Incidentally, this is why, in this theological light, vile perversions like pornography become even more horrifying and dark. There is a sense in which one is also participating in an act of desecration.)

danielhanlon 2y ago

How unexpected - beautifully written! It's almost surprising that the quoted passages are so familiar - I hadn't realised how affecting they are. Whilst loving the book I can't consider Brideshead Revisited without thinking of the wonderful 1980s Granada TV adaptation. I didn't dare watch the more recent film, lest it spoil the tableaux of the original.

coyotespike 2y ago
The Granada TV adaptation apparently was a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic, and they simply read out loud parts of the book where they hadn't filled in the script - "a book on film." I loved it.

googlryas 2y ago

Why does HN lie? There are comments in this thread saying they were posted "18 hours ago" (eg from giraffe_lady), but I am positive I read these comments 3 days ago on the same thread.

mattmanser 2y ago
Might be some thread merging, dang sometimes does it, or might be a newish automatic feature I haven't heard about. Oddly, if you search the story name it says it was actually posted 3 days ago, but directs tot his thread: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=evelyn%20waugh&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... You can email them and ask, email's in the faq. They do respond.
detaro 2y ago
it's a boost feature, which basically resets the clock for a story (and since the ranking algorithm is influenced by newness a lot, it pushes it back up)
giraffe_lady 2y ago
Dang was just proud of me for not calling anyone a coward or heretic in this one and wanted to make sure everyone saw.