Volume 46, Number 12 · July 15, 1999
Waugh's Comic Waste Land
By David Lodge
The early novels of Evelyn Waugh have probably given more pleasure to more readers than any comparable body of work from the same period of English fiction (1928-1942). I discovered these books myself in adolescence. I was, I think, fifteen when my father put into my hands a tattered Penguin edition of Decline and Fall. For most of his life he was a dance musician by profession, and at some time in the 1930s he used to play in a nightclub frequented by Evelyn Waugh and his friends, whose names figured prominently in the newspaper gossip columns of the day. This had given my father a personal interest in the author, but it was a very tenuous link between my world and that of Waugh's early fiction.
Feature, 5724 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |