New take puts movie romance at the heart of 'Brideshead' Jul 25, 2008
It's factual to say that the film has been adapted from Evelyn Waugh's novel, but the filmmakers appear to have thrown a copy of "Titanic" in among the source material ... He finds the missing link between Evelyn Waugh and Norman Bates. (Boston Globe)
A love of home bordering on madness Jul 25, 2008
It's also the story of her father, and not the least of its accomplishments is that it instantly catapults him into the front rank of impossible and eccentric English parents - right up there with the overbearing Thomas Butler, nightmarish father of Samuel; with Evelyn Waugh, who wrote that "I despise all my seven children equally"; and even with Lord Redesdale, Nancy Mitford's "Farve," who once kicked a young man off the family estate just because he carried a pocket comb. None of them, as far... (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Guilt-Free Star Jul 24, 2008
After the Cinema Society's premiere of the Miramax film Tuesday night, she was asked about guilt, the theme of the Evelyn Waugh novel on which the picture is based. "I don't feel guilt," she declared. (New York Post -- Gossip)
Evelyn Waugh has a mixed filmography Jul 20, 2008
"All is loud, obvious and prosaic," Evelyn Waugh lamented in a 1947 article about Hollywood. The main problem with film adaptations of Waugh's novels is that they're usually hushed, obvious, and overdecorated. (Boston Globe)
Tobias Wolff Jul 19, 2008
"But things were all roiled up over here and I just didn't want to talk about Vietnam any more." On holiday in England, he made friends with people at Oxford, including the historian Martin Gilbert, and ended up attending Hertford College - former pupils include Jonathan Swift and Evelyn Waugh, he says proudly - emerging with a first class degree in English. "I don't want to make it sound easy. It wasn't at all! I had to sit the entrance exams, so I hired some tutors, studying Latin and French... (Guardian Unlimited)
All in the mind Jul 13, 2008
"He'd sort of tear up and manipulate his own emotions." McGrath read "virtually everything" taking a "passionate interest" in horror stories but also Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene. McGrath's Irish background meant summer holidays with family near Galway and has left him still rolling his Rs in a sort of brogue. (Guardian Unlimited -- Arts)
The new guise of a word we love to fret over Jul 7, 2008
By the following decade, Evelyn Waugh was openly mocking "the fashionable agonics of angst." And the adjective angsty makes an appearance, in a punny 1956 headline from Oxford Magazine: "Angsty young men.". The verb, to angst, might have sprung up at any point along this timeline. (Boston Globe)
Culture Club Jul 1, 2008
Let s see Evelyn Waugh, Roald Dahl, Amis, Larkin, John Osborne. I d even put a professional against-the-prevailing-winds-whatever-they-might-be like Christopher Hitchens in there. (The Palm Beach Post)
Bodice-rippers, tear-jerkers and hot drama Jun 25, 2008
MiramaxMatthew Goode and Ben Whishaw star as Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte in this new adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited." ... Starring: Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell, Emma Thompson, Michael GambonDirector: Julian JarroldStory:Another adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh classic, this film tells the story of Captain Charles Ryders (Goode) enchantment and entanglement with the wealthy Marchmain family. (MSNBC -- Movies)
Speaking personally Jun 21, 2008
Here are a few good ones: "'You won't find your mother much changed,' he announced, as the car turned into the drive of the mental asylum" (from the opening of Mr Loveday's Little Outing, by Evelyn Waugh); "the sun shone, having no alternative" (Murphy, Beckett, also the opening line); "summer set in with its usual severity" (Coleridge; later, we get "winter set in with its usual severity", for some reason). No one has the energy to steal so many good lines; some of them may even have come from... (Guardian Unlimited -- Books)
Agency that lost its stars seeks new lustre Jun 19, 2008
With the cream of its talent having jumped ship, the final blow to PFD s prestige came in March when The Times disclosed that a rival agent, Andrew The Jackal Wylie, had snatched control of Evelyn Waugh s literary estate, which had been with the firm for 80 years. Yesterday Mr Neil said that he had been approached to bid for the agency by Caroline Michel, PFD s chief executive, who was brought in last September just as the row between CSS and its agents burst into the open. (Times Online)
FATHER OF THE BRIDESHEAD Jun 15, 2008
In 1958, the novelist Evelyn Waugh wrote to the godmother of one of his sons, "Auberon Alexander is having his character undermined by well disposed people who pamper him sitting round in..." ... In 1958, the novelist Evelyn Waugh wrote to the godmother of one of his sons, "Auberon Alexander is having his character undermined by well disposed people who pamper him sitting round in his bed and satisfying his every whim . . . Jolly lucky if he can find people to sponge on, say I. I can't." To... (New York Post -- Opinions)
Making tracks Jun 14, 2008
This, of course, is self-defeating nonsense, but it was reinforced by the lives of my first literary heroes, people like Evelyn Waugh. My uncle Jack was a fireman who was doing an Open University course and he passed on his books to my father. (Guardian Unlimited -- Books)
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh Jun 7, 2008
John CraceSaturday June 7, 2008. "It's not a bad camp, Sir," said Hooper. (Guardian Unlimited -- Books)
V.S. Naipaul's 'A Writer's People' Jun 7, 2008
" His surprise at this, all these years later, is, well, surprising. Although Naipaul does not often confront the topic directly, he says enough to give the impression that the lack of interest that greeted his early work in Britain still rankles. In his telling, the main English writers did not understand him, and he had little appreciation for them (the book is crammed with dismissive comments about Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Philip Larkin and many others). "It is amazing to me," he writes,... (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Deborah Mitford May 23, 2008
It is not something one picks up from Nancy's letters, of whose notes to Evelyn Waugh Julian Barnes once said: "The counterpart of this brightness, of the playful, ebullient surface of this correspondence, is the large vacancy of expressed emotion." ... "I'll tell you an odd thing, about my older sisters more than me, really, which was that the friends they made - excepting the Kennedys, who were a case in point for me - were the young men at Oxford, when we lived near Oxford. They were just... (Guardian Unlimited)
"A WRITER'S PEOPLE" May 18, 2008
As a young man, Naipaul was hired by the BBC to conduct radio interviews on Caribbean topics, and once let slip in a live interview with writer Samuel Sevlon: "But getting back to your wretched little book . . ." It is clear that Naipaul has not been softened by time or accolade, as large swathes of the Western canon are mercilessly dismissed here, including Henry James, Evelyn Waugh, Somerset Maugham, Philip Larkin and Ernest Hemingway, who are skewered in short order. Naipaul is deeply... (New York Post -- Opinions)
Newsweek: Inside the life of James Bond's creator May 9, 2008
The exhibition has Fleming's writing table from his Jamaican retreat, named Goldeneye, after a wartime operation, as well as photographs of their social circle that included Noel Coward, Somerset Maugham and Evelyn Waugh. There is even a book featuring the source of Agent 007s name: Fleming's original copy of the book "The Field Guide to Birds of the West Indies" written by American ornithologist James Bond. (MSNBC -- Lifestyle)
Taking a leaf out of their books May 8, 2008
At the start of year 10 at Matraville High School our English teacher, Doris Allen, brought in a box of her books: novels of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Evelyn Waugh. These, she said, were not on the curriculum but we were adults and should read them, even if we had to set our alarm clocks an hour earlier every morning. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Opinion)
Life is like that May 3, 2008
Her parents were a French count, whose family escaped to England during the revolution, and a successful novelist, Mrs Henry de la Pasture, who had a considerable influence on Ivy Compton-Burnett and was much admired by Evelyn Waugh. Delafield came out as a very beautiful debutante in 1909. (Guardian Unlimited -- Arts)
Toughs at the top May 3, 2008
It is not always easy to tell when the faint echoes of Evelyn Waugh and PG Wodehouse are intentional and when they are a reflection of Mount's character. But either way, they are great fun. (Guardian Unlimited -- Arts)
Back - due to popular demand May 3, 2008
He was as witty as Evelyn Waugh, and a good deal wiser than most of the Kingsley Amis generation ... It became Evelyn Waugh's favourite Gerhardie novel. (Guardian Unlimited -- Books)
Rhymes of passion: Betjeman's women Apr 18, 2008
Bullied at school for having a German-sounding name when the First World War was raging, he fell in gratefully with the smart jeunesse dor;e at Oxford in the 1920s (Evelyn Waugh, Cyril Connolly, Anthony Powell et al) and, through them, found his way into the country-house-weekend set. There, floundering a little among the nobs, he compensated by romancing the ladies. (Independent)
A prime number: URI stages "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" Apr 18, 2008
"Dame Muriel Spark, who was born in 1918 and died in 2006, never saw greater fame than with "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," but she published her last novel, "The Finishing School," as recently as 2004. Her early work caught the attention of Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, and several of her novels deal with conversion to Catholicism, which she underwent as a young adult writer.Does Wortman, a teacher, find a personal kinship with Jean Brodie? "I think that every teacher has to have a... (Westerly Sun, RI)
Waugh at the BBC: 'the most ill-natured interview ever' on CD after 55 years Apr 15, 2008
So a BBC Home Service programme called Frankly Speaking in which Evelyn Waugh is quizzed by three abrasive questioners was never going to be a walk in the country ... The Spoken Word: Evelyn Waugh is published by the British Library today, price 9. (Guardian Unlimited -- Arts)
Evelyn Waugh, Novelist Apr 9, 2008
Brief biography of novelist Evelyn Waugh, a leading satirist of his time, and famous for his popular Catholic book Brideshead Revisited. Many people think that the English writer Evelyn Waugh was the most brilliant satirist ... Evelyn Waugh's Final Years. (Suite101.com)
To the end of the line Mar 22, 2008
Now and then one would meet the real thing in a book: Evelyn Waugh mistaken for his brother Alex in Labels; Naipaul's explosions of bad temper in An Area of Darkness; the "I hate Mexicans" parts of Greene's The Lawless Roads; or the human encounters, full of dialogue, in Anthony Trollope's The West Indies and the Spanish Main. In these and other cases, something human happens and was recorded. (Guardian Unlimited)
You can't keep Terry Pratchett down Mar 16, 2008
"I rank him with P G Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh. The books are wonderfully witty, imaginative, full of verbal play, and he's a very nice man, too. I've never met an author less up himself than Terry.". For the past 25 years Pratchett has devoted much of his imagination to creating the Discworld, a flat planet within the "multiverse", largely populated by wizards, dragons and werewolves. (Telegraph.co.uk)
It's the clever way to power Mar 16, 2008
Evelyn Waugh said Oxford instilled a lifelong desire to draw attention to yourself. And I did PPE, which is the self-publicist's degree. (Guardian Unlimited)
Profile: Terry Pratchett Mar 15, 2008
"I always feel aggrieved for him, because in a way his extraordinary popularity rather militates against him being seen as one of our greatest satirists and humorous writers in English today. To me he's right up there with Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh, and I'm slightly puzzled more people don't spot this.". Famously, everything that interests Pratchett finds its way into Discworld, his flat planet balanced on four elephants standing on a giant turtle hurtling through space: time travel, corrupt... (Guardian Unlimited -- Society)
Martin Pawley Mar 15, 2008
Pawley's was a sharp, take-no-prisoners style of journalism, and his writing, when he was in top form, recalled Evelyn Waugh, though he shared none of Waugh's reactionary views, on architecture or anything else. Pawley once called Modernism a "magnificent mutiny against historicism" whose "presence has been central to the fortunes of architecture, whether as an avant-garde tendency, a rising star, a revolutionary challenge, a global orthodoxy, an unmitigated evil, a fallen giant or (perhaps) as... (Slate)
Upside of downDepression is dark and horrible. But is it also good for you? Feb 29, 2008
Robbie Williams, Sir Elton John, Winston Churchill and Stephen Fry (pictured) Writers Tennessee Williams, Sylvia Plath, Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway Artists Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Degas, William Blake Performers Caroline Ahern, Ewan McGregor, Morrissey. "There are benefits and that's why it has persisted. It's a tough message to hear while you are in depression but I think that there's a life afterwards," he says. (BBC News -- UK)
Books: Book Review: In the Blood Feb 19, 2008
More interesting, though, are memoirists like George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh. Their school remembrances gave the darker reading to the two-faced Latin phrase "I too have been in Arcadia" the one in which "I" is not the nostalgic rememberer, but doom or, specifically, death. (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Eric Estorick: The making of an art collector Feb 16, 2008
The story of Eric Estorick, whose feats are celebrated by a show of 20th-century Italian art on view at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in North London until April 6, falls somewhere between a dark humoristic tale by Evelyn Waugh and a fantasy straight out of one of P. G. Wodehouse's spoofy novels. In 1905, Eric's Russian parents, fed up with the anti-Semitism of their native land, emigrated to America and settled in Brooklyn, New York. (International Herald Tribune)
The Irresistible Inheritance Of Wilberforce Feb 9, 2008
Salmon Fishing, despite its preponderance of absurd and catastrophic events, is ultimately an uplifting work, employing the stylistic grace of Evelyn Waugh and F.Scott Fitzgerald (two of Torday's admitted influences) without their essentially negative world-view. Much of the time it even veers into the territory of P.G. Wodehouse, another obvious influence. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
A Who's Who of the Federal Reserve policymakers who hold power over your pocketbook Jan 30, 2008
A voracious reader, Fisher's favorite authors include Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Langston Hughes, P.G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh. Recent reads include The Shadow of the Wind, The Secret Life of Lobsters, and A Thousand Splendid Suns. (San Diego Union-Tribune -- Business)
Look back in wonder Jan 5, 2008
Of course, Lawrence had a low opinion of Proust: "too much jelly-water: I can't read him." As did Evelyn Waugh, who wrote to Nancy Mitford (March 16 1948). I am reading Proust for the first time - in English of course - and am surprised to find him a mental defective. (Guardian Unlimited -- Books)
Difficulties in changing your faith Dec 23, 2007
Search Politics for MPs and issues. By postcode or place. (Guardian Unlimited)
Difficulties in changing faith Dec 23, 2007
Difficulties in changing your faith. Richard HarriesSunday December 23, 2007. (Guardian Unlimited -- UK)
Public radio Dec 15, 2007
Germaine reads, Bella Fleece Gives a Party, by Evelyn Waugh and The Christmas Party, by Bailey White. 1 p.m. The Folk Show with John Myers. (Montana Standard, MT)
Angry letters Dec 10, 2007
Much more common was Orwell's refusal of the nomination for the Hampstead Garden Suburb seat in 1945 or Evelyn Waugh's relief at not having joined the cavalcade of Winston Churchill's "young men" ... Evelyn Waugh, invited to contribute to the famous Spain: Authors Take Sides pamphlet of 1937, began by admitting that he knew the country only a tourist. (Guardian Unlimited -- Books)
My week: Jeremy Paxman Dec 3, 2007
Although I've read about it in novels by the likes of Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell, I've never been inside the Cafe Royal before. I'd always assumed it the sort of place where chaps stuffed napkins into their collars and chewed meat off the carcass of a bloody grouse while waiters in long white aprons poured champagne for bored girls in cocktail dresses, all of them called Binky. (Guardian Unlimited -- Media)
Full Story Nov 30, 2007
SCATHING LOOK AT GOV'S GOOFS. Friday, November 30, 2007 Last Update: 06:55 AM EST. (New York Post -- Gossip)
ACTRESS HAS NEW LEADING MAN Nov 29, 2007
November 29, 2007 -- 'I EXPECT you know my friend Evelyn Waugh, who, like your holiness, is a Roman Catholic," said Randolph Churchill during an audience with Pope Paul VI. SPEAKING in the vul gate - is something going on between the delectable Sutton Foster and her leading man, the scientist on stage Dr. Frankenstein (steen?) - actor Roger Bart? Maybe so, now that her marriage to Christian Borle seems to be kaput. During "Young Frankenstein," these two seem quite giddy with one another in their... (New York Post -- Gossip)
Gwynnie & Chris: Missing? Nov 29, 2007
GWYNNIE & CHRIS: MISSING. - New York Post Online Edition: Seven. (New York Post -- Gossip)
Hello, operator? Phone books dating back to 1880 go online Nov 29, 2007
Writer Evelyn Waugh's number is among millions online ... Among the millions of names and numbers online are prime minister Harold McMillan at his cottage in Chelwood Gate, composer Edward Elgar at his estate in Warwickshire and writer Evelyn Waugh at the home in the West Country where he wrote Brideshead Revisited. (BBC News -- Technology)
Bill Deedes, you were an inspiration Nov 27, 2007
" said Bill.One night at the Hay Literary Festival, the novelist Monica Ali and I quizzed Bill about how much Evelyn Waugh had exaggerated when making up the character of William Boot, the hero of Scoop, who is said to be based on the young Bill Deedes. "Oh, quite a lot," he said. "I wasn't that into cleft sticks, though I did pack an absurd amount of stuff. But Waugh wasn't such a good reporter you know. (Telegraph.co.uk)
'Martin Amis is no racist' Nov 21, 2007
I have instead, he snorts, become the Evelyn Waugh. How is one to come to grips with a man so crude in his sneers that his idea of an insult is to compare me to one of the greatest novelists of the past century. (Guardian Unlimited -- Books)
THE GUIDE: L.A. book fans are getting lit in a whole new way. Nov 1, 2007
It was a ludicrous put-down, given L.A.'s well-documented literary pedigree as home to a multitude of talents both native (Ray Bradbury, Charles Bukowski) and imported (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Evelyn Waugh, William Faulkner). But the truth can no longer be denied. (Los Angeles Times)
The Unquiet Graham Greene Oct 30, 2007
Whereas some writers, including Evelyn Waugh, Edward Sackville-West, and Raymond Mortimer, had suggested that Scobie was a sinful saint, others had seen only the sinner: Scobie commits adultery, sacrilege, murder (indirectly), and suicide in quick succession, one correspondent wrote ... By the time that Greene wrote his play The Potting Shed in 1957, even old friends and allies, such as Evelyn Waugh, were losing patience with his heterodox dabblings. (The American Conservative)
Trevor's world: A precise if solemn search for meaning Oct 20, 2007
Trevor's world: A precise if solemn search for meaning - International Herald Tribune. In 1923, the now-forgotten English novelist William Gerhardie wrote a short study of Chekhov. (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Rollicking account of crabs and crocs Oct 6, 2007
There is a report on the fifth successive inauguration of William Vacanarat Shadrack Tubman, leader of the True Whig Party and President of Liberia, which has shades of Evelyn Waugh in its eye for incongruities. There are hackneyed or banal tales but also rollicking yarns such as Woolcott transporting enormous coconut crabs from an Indonesian island to Jakarta in a plywood box stored in the lavatory of the embassy's DC3. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
My literary love affair Oct 6, 2007
I even knew who the authors of the modern classics were: James Joyce, of course, and Virginia Woolf, and Evelyn Waugh, and all those other familiar names. But who on earth were these people. (Guardian Unlimited -- Books)
Book review: Schlesinger's journals, 1952-2000 Oct 2, 2007
The Ford-Carter presidential election, he writes, sounds like the work of Sinclair Lewis: "Babbitt vs. Elmer Gantry." The names of the Nixon courtiers Elmer Bobst, Jack Drown and Bebe Rebozo make him mindful of Evelyn Waugh. When carried away with flattery, Schlesinger could overplay his verbal skills to the point of rebutting claims of Al Gore's woodenness this way: "They mean that he is as graceful as a willow, as handsome as a birch tree and as sturdy as an oak.". (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
The beautiful and the damned Sep 29, 2007
"A. R. de T." was the 25-year-old Evelyn Waugh ... On paper, the connection between - say - Brenda Dean Paul, Evelyn Waugh, Diana Mitford and Edward Burra barely exists. (Guardian Unlimited -- Arts)
Review: Alan Bennett's 'Uncommon Reader' Sep 29, 2007
Review: Alan Bennett's 'Uncommon Reader' - International Herald Tribune. Jeremy McCarter, the theater critic at New York magazine, is editing a collection of Henry Fairlie's writing. (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt Sep 27, 2007
Rather like Evelyn Waugh s Brideshead Revisited, the book has stuck in the public s mind as a nostalgic evocation of erudite university life, when both novels are mostly concerned with other and darker matters. Indeed, Tartt s sharp observations of the ordinary suburban characters whom her protagonist loathes suggest a more mature novelist showing through the lush and tempting world of her central clique. (Suite101.com)
Leading UK literary agents threatening to bolt from agency Sep 26, 2007
A.D. Peters founded the agency in 1924, representing such authors as Hilaire Belloc, C.S. Forester, Arthur Koestler, Nancy Mitford, J.B. Priestley, Evelyn Waugh and Rebecca West. On the Net. (San Diego Union-Tribune -- Business)
The novel is not dead yet Sep 26, 2007
The criteria for literary excellence have changed, and cantankerous critics must catch up or shut up. Zoe WilliamsWednesday September 26, 2007. (Guardian Unlimited)
* 'Agent Zigzag' led Germany and Britain on a merry dance Sep 16, 2007
His incredible wartime adventures, recounted in Ben Macintyre's rollicking, spellbinding Agent Zigzag, blend the spy-versus-spy machinations of John le Carre with the high farce of Evelyn Waugh. Publication Notes. (Taipei Times, Taiwan -- Business)
RS Thomas biography scoops award Aug 29, 2007
The award ranks Rogers alongside previous James Tait Black prizewinners like Lytton Strachey, GM Trevelyan, Evelyn Waugh, Walter de la Mare, DH Lawrence, Arnold Bennett, JB Priestley, Aldous Huxley and Graham Greene. But his book, described by London critics variously as touched by genius , a masterpiece , and brilliant deserves every literary gong going , failed to get near the top literary gong in Wales. (ic Wales)
McCarthy's ‘The Road' wins Scottish prize Aug 27, 2007
Past winners include D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, Iris Murdoch, Graham Greene, Beryl Bainbridge and Zadie Smith. Search the News Search. (Globe and Mail -- Entertainment)
BBC's drama king turns to satire of a lost England Aug 26, 2007
Hawes is adjusting to his growing fame in France, where he has been hailed several times as the new Evelyn Waugh and where he was recently profiled in Le Monde. He is regularly invited to speak at literary festivals there, appearing recently alongside Martin Amis. (Guardian Unlimited -- UK)
Caribbean Odyssey Aug 25, 2007
(Consciously old-fashioned people, like the writer Evelyn Waugh, born in 1903, refused to sunbathe. So the idea of island beauty, which now seems so natural and correct, was in fact imposed from outside, by things like postage stamps and travel posters, cruise ships and a hundred travel books. (Guardian Unlimited -- Arts)
Good old Bill, last survivor of the golden age of Grub Street Aug 19, 2007
Bill Deedes, who died last week at 94, was the inspiration for Evelyn Waugh s Scoop and Private Eye s Dear Bill letters ... Deedes achieved a vicarious immortality very early when he was sent to cover the Abyssinian crisis in 1935 along with Evelyn Waugh, who based William Boot, the hero of his great comic novel Scoop, partly on the young Deedes. (Times Online)
