Evelyn Waugh : Fictions: Faith and Family

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Evelyn Waugh: Fictions, Faith and Family is a wide-ranging survey of the prolific literary career of one of the most popular English writers of the 20th century. Michael G. Brennan here identifies three major themes as central to any understanding of Waugh's work: Catholicism, society and the concept of family. From Decline and Fall (published in 1928) to his final writings, this book draws not only on the major novels and short stories but also Waugh's substantial journalistic output, his private journals and correspondences and unpublished draft manuscripts. Through this comprehensive and systematic exploration, Brennan demonstrates the sustained creative importance of Catholicism to Waugh's literary work. In addition, the book goes on to consider how Evelyn Waugh's descendants - his son Auberon and his grandson Alexander Waugh - have echoed and developed these literary concerns in their own writing.

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CHOICE Review

Though an imperfect guide to the volume's content, the title of this book does suggest the extreme range of its subject matter. Waugh (1903-66) came from a family of prolific but now obscure writers and was himself the author of many novels and travel narratives and a body of Catholic essays. For many, Waugh was the greatest novelist of the 20th century. Brennan (Univ. of Leeds, UK) makes much of the Catholic spirit that informs the later novels. Despite all of Waugh's disgust at the modern, he seems to have embraced G. K. Chesterton's optimism. Brennan surveys Waugh's fiction, provides a summary of the novels, and identifies persons Waugh used as models. One could take issue with a few of the statements in the summaries, and the martyrs of the English Reformation did not die for a Latin mass but for something far more important. Advanced readers might wish for more references to primary texts like the unfinished George Orwell essay and Waugh's literary and religious essays. Fair bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended. With reservations. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. R. Griffin emeritus, Colorado State University-Pueblo