It is quite evident that Dennis Barlow, the protagonist of Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One, is indicted for his callousness, for his getting to know the "chilly" American way of life in southern California, just as all of the supporting members of the work are somehow implicated in guilt for their unfeeling ways. When Sir Francis Hinsley commits suicide, Barlow responds to the death no better than Sir Ambrose Abercrombie, with his "false and fruity tones," since he accepts it as a natural course of events: "But his reason accepted the event as part of the established order. Others in gentler ages had had their lives changed by such a revelation; to Dennis it was the kind of thing to be expected in the world he knew and, as he drove to Whispering Glades, his conscious mind was pleasantly exhilarated and full of curiosity" (pp. 46-47). The suggestion is, of course, that he is more interested in meeting Aimee Thanatogenos again than he is about arranging Hinsley's funeral.
But an even stronger suggestion of Barlow's corruption is made manifest by a classical allusion which seems to have been overlooked by Waugh scholars. When he returns to Whispering Glades in order to make the necessary burial arrangements and to compose a poem for Frank at the suggestion of Abercrombie, Barlow has trouble keeping his mind on his dead colleague: "The unwritten verses lay heavy on him. Not a word was yet written and the languorous, odorous afternoon did not conduce to work. There was also another voice speaking faintly and persistently, calling him to a more strenuous task than Frank Hinsley's obsequies" (p. 95). The voice which intrudes upon him and keeps him from his appointed task is the call of passion for Aimee.
Succumbing to the call of duty once again, and hoping to dispel all thoughts of Aimee, Barlow hastens to the Lake Island of Innisfree, a remote bower of Whispering Glades which is separated from the park proper by a river, with the absurd notion that the lush setting will quicken his dulled creative spirit. Before crossing over, however, he encounters a nosy ferryman who, before extracting a twenty-five cent fare from his passenger, disparages the isle as simply nothing more than a necking-spot for gum-chewing lovers. Then, once there, Barlow can only write two doggerel verses commemorating his "friend's" life. As the narrator blithely says, "This was no time for writing. The voice of inspiration was silent; the voice of duty muffled" (p. 102). Thoughts or Aimee once more take hold of him; Hinsley is forgotten. When Aimee subsequently appears at the Island and engages Barlow in a lengthy discussion about her family, her education, and her "artistic" proclivities, Barlow all but relinquishes any thought of Frank; in fact, from this point on in the novel the funeral is scarcely mentioned. What takes precedence over it is the poet's inability to master his "unethical" passion for this girl whose Greek surname reeks of roots rich with death.
What I propose is that the ferryman who discourses with Barlow is none other than a modern-day Charon who carts him across Acheron to a symbolic underworld of the dead not unlike that mythological realm of oblivion where superhuman heroes forgot the world, but whose deeds were recorded by the living. Barlow is likewise a caricature of Vergil's Aeneas, and his euphonic first name, Dennis, suggests that of his Roman prototype. From what we know, Dennis is the only one of the visitors to the Island to discourse with the ferryman; similarly, in the Aeneid, Charon haggles with Aeneas over the fact that the living and those not properly buried cannot enter the underworld. Then, too, the ferryman collects his fare just as Charon always collects his. Finally, just as Anchises, Aeneas's father, makes him drink of Lethe's waters of forgetfulness before he ascends to the upper world, so too does Barlow completely forget his eulogy to Hinsley as he falls prey to the prosaic charms of a naive, half-witted girl.
That the spiritually defunct lovers who people Innisfree's gardens are representatives of the dead souls of the Greek and Roman underworld is unmistakable, Waugh holds up to the looking glass all kinds of non-love in his ironically titled novel, and what love there is is as "scrubby," "rusty," and "dry" as the wasteland imagery which opens the novel. Once Barlow crosses over to Innisfree there is no turning back for him. He becomes like other plastic lovers, gratified only by sensual pleasure when and where he can take it, while he never sheds a trace of real sentiment for poor old Hinsley - the only frank character in the work - as he lies rotting in Joyboy's sterile mortuary. It is only fitting at the novel's conclusion that the cracked and lifeless Barlow wipe the slate completely clean by renouncing all claims to the dead Aimee, and coolly roast her in the Happier Hunting Ground oven as he reads Miss Poski's novel. The entire scene at Innisfree then (a mythical isle for Yeats as well) is but a microcosm of the much-looked-forward-to journey over the Atlantic that Barlow plans to take as he carries back with him to England a "great, shapeless chunk of experience" to a "comfortless shore" (p. 190). We may be certain that he will have no difficulty forgetting Frank, Aimee, and Whispering Glades.
NOTE : All references to The Loved One are from the Dell paperback, Laurel edition, 1948.
(Under pseudonym, "Scaramel"), "Rugger Night," The Isis, February 7, 1923, 8.
"D.G. Rossetti," Times Literary Supplement, May 17, 1928, 379. Response to review of Rossetti: His Life and Works, T.L.S., May 10, 1928, 341-342, in which Waugh was called "Miss Waugh" and said to be like a "dainty Miss of the Sixties."
"Edmund Campion," Listener, XV (February 26, 1936), 410-411. Reply to J. A. Kensit's "Edmund Campion," Listener, XV (January 30, 1936), 221. Other letters in this controversy all entitled "Edmund Campion" and in Listener, XV, are: Desmond MacCarthy, January 30, 1936, 221-222; J. A. Kensit, February 12, 1936, 318-319; L. Hicks, March 4, 1936, 458-459; J. A. Kensit, March 18, 1936, 552-553; L. Hicks, April 1, 1936, 642.
"The Conquest of Abyssinia," Times, May 19, 1936, 12. Reply to article, "The Emperor Withdraws," Times, May 4, 1936, 15.
"Christmas at Bethlehem," Tablet, CLXXX (January 2, 1937), 26. Reply to Donald Attwater, "Latin - Or Roman," Tablet, CLXXIX (December 26, 1936), 923. Attwater's Letter was a response to Waugh's article, "Christmas at Bethlehem," Tablet, CLXXIX (December 19, 1936), 861.
"Christmas at Bethlehem," Tablet, CLXXX (January 9, 1937), 62. Reply to A.J.L. Proctor, "Christmas at Bethlehem," Tablet, CLXXX (January 2, 1937), 36.
"Italian Reprisals in Addis Ababa," Times, March 12, 1937, 17. Reply to Guy Stanford's Letter, "Italian Reprisals in Addis Ababa," Times, March 10, 1937, 15.
"Teresa Higginson," Tablet, CLXXX (December 11, 1937), 803. There are three other letters under the same title on the same page of the above issue of Tablet, one by Herbert Thurston, S.J., the others anonymous. (See note below.)
"Mr. Evelyn Waugh's Review," Tablet, CLXXXI (December 10, 1938), 805: Corrections of typographical errors in Waugh's review of Enemies of Promise, "Present Discontents," Tablet, CLXXXI (December 3, 1938), 743-744.
"B.B.C. Bulletins," Times, February 20, 1939, 8.
"Mr. Evelyn Waugh and the Daily Mail," Tablet, CLXXXII (August 19, 1939), 250. This letter is an introduction to an excerpt from the Daily Mail entitled Robbery Under Law: in it the Daily Mail retracts a suggestion implicit in its review of Waugh's book that Waugh overemphasized the corruption of the Catholic Church in Mexico.
"Tito and Stepinac," New Statesman and Nation, n.s. XLV (January 31, 1953), 122. Reply to letters by Mr. Baerlin and Mr. Sokorac as part of an already large controversy. In same issue letters by Michael Derrick and Graham Greene, pp. 121-122. Followed by letters: by David Ginsberg and A. Sokorac, February 7, 1953, 150-151; and by Hubert Butler and Graham Greene, February 14, 1953, 178-179.
"Sir Thomas More," New Statesman and Nation, n.s. XLVI (December 12, 1953), 762. Response to H.R. Trevor-Roper's "Books in General," December 5, 1953, 735-736. Replies by H. R. Trevor- Roper and Sean O'Casey, December 26, 1953, 822.
"Sir Thomas More," New Statesman and Nation, n.s. XLVII (January 2, 1954). 16. Reply to letter by H. R. Trevor-Roper, December 26, 1953, 822.
"Sir Thomas More," New Statesman and Nation, n.s. XLVII (January 16, 1954). 70. Reply to letter by H. R. Trevor-Roper, January 9, 1954, 51-52. A reply by H. R. Trevor-Roper is printed at the end of Waugh's letter. Another letter in reply to Waugh by Joan Bennett is printed in the same issue. Final letter in the controversy by Godfrey Anstruther, O. P., January 23, 1954, 100.
"Graham Greene," Catholic Herald, June 3, 1955, 2. Reply to Douglas Hyde who had criticized Greene in Catholic Herald.
"P. G. Wodehouse," The Observer, February 12, 1956, 12. Response to John Wain's "New Novels," (Review of P. G. Wodehouse's French Leave and other novels) The Observer, January 29, 1956, 9. Sequel to this exchange was an article by Waugh, "Dr. Wodehouse and Mr. Wain," Spectator, CXCVI (February 24, 1956), 243-244.
"A Poet of the Counter-Reformation," Spectator, CXCVI (July 13, 1956), 63. Reply to H. Drown, one of several correspondents who had commented on Waugh's review of Fr. Devlin's Life of Robert Southwell. All items are in Spectator, CXCVI, entitled "A Poet of the Counter-Reformation:" Waugh's review, June 22, 1956, 859-860; letters by E. Benson Perkins and T. U. Taylor, June 29, 1956, 887; letters by John Coventry, Rose Macauley, Harold Drown, July 6, 1956, 19.
"A Poet of the Counter-Reformation," Spectator, CXCVI (July 27, 1956), 143. Reply to letter by John Little, "A Poet of the Counter-Reformation," Spectator, CXCVI (July 20, 1956), 96.
"Deification and Clarification," Spectator, CXCVI (August 3, 1956), 178. Response to Pharos's "Spectator's Notebook," Spectator, CXCVI (July 27, 1956), 135.
"Deification and Clarification," Spectator, CXCVI (August 10, 1956), 206. Reply to Pharos's "Spectator's Notebook," Spectator, CXCVI (August 3,1956), no page no. Two letters which are part of this controversy appear under the same title and on the same page as Waugh's letter.
"Deification and Clarification," Spectator, CXCVI (August 24, 1956), 261. Reply to John Martin, "Deification and Clarification," Spectator, CXCVI (August 17, 1956), 230. Other letters in this controversy all entitled "Deification and Clarification" and in Spectator, CXCVI, are: Hugh Ross Williamson, August 17, 1956, 230; W.H.C. Friend and Hugh Ross Williamson, August 31, 1956, 286; two letters, September 7, 1956, 319; one letter, September 14, 1956, 352; one letter, September 28, 1956, 416.
"Popish Plotters," New Statesman and Nation, n.s. LII (September 1, 1956), 243. Response to H.R. Trevor-Roper's "Books in General: Twice Martyred," New Statesman and Nation, August 25, 1956, 217-218. Another letter in the same issue in reply to Trevor-Roper by Gerald Hamilton. Replies by Trevor-Roper and G.R. Elton, September 8, 1956, 284.
"Papist Plots," New Statesman and Nation, n.s. LII (September 15, 1956), 312. Reply by H.R. Trevor-Roper, "Papist Plots," September 22, 1956, 346.
"Popish Plots," New Statesman and Nation, n.s. LII (September 29, 1956), 377. Final replies by H.R. Trevor-Roper and J.V. Simcox, "Popish Plots," October 6, 1956, 410.
"Mgr. Knox on St. Teresa," Catholic Herald, July 11, 1958, 2. Reply to Fr. Benedict, O.D.C., who had criticized Knox's translation of St. Teresa's autobiography.
"The Council: Phase One," Tablet, CCXVII (September 7, 1963), 969. Response to Abbot of Downside's article, "The Council: Phase One," Tablet, CCXVII (August 31,1963), 935-936.
"The Council: Phase One," Tablet, CCXVII (September 21, 1963), 1017. Reply to B. C. Butler (the Abbot of Downside) and six other correspondents all under title "The Council: Phase One," Tablet, CCWII (September 14, 1963), 992-993.
"What is Expendable?" Tablet, CCXVII (September 28, 1963), 1044. Reply to two correspondents, "The Council: Phase One," Tablet, CCXVII (September 21, 1963), 1017-1018. From this point the controversy was carried on under a variety of titles, all in Tablet, CCXVII: B. C. Butler, "Ecumenism and Essence," and C. H. Lawrence, "Too Bleak a welcome," September 28, 1963, 1044; John F. Taylor, "The Need for Dialogue," October 5, 1963, 1072; Bonaventure Welsford and one other, "Ecumenism and Indifferentism," October 12, 1963, 1099-1100; J. P. Brown, "Ecumenism and Indifferentism," and Hugh Ross Williamson, "The Meaning of Ecumenical," October 19, 1963, 1126.
"Understanding the Conservatives," Commonweal, LXXX (August 7, 1964), 547-548. Response to John Cogley's article "Understanding the Conservatives," Commonweal, LXXX (June 19, 1964), 388-389.
"Reactions to Evelyn Waugh," Catholic Herald, August 28, 1964, 4. Reply to critics of his "Changes in the Church:" four letters under title, "Waugh the Ex-Beatle," Catholic Herald, August 14, 1964, 5; and five letters under the title, "More Objections to Evelyn Waugh," Catholic Herald, August 21, 1964, 5.
"A Suggestion for Mr. Waugh," Commonweal, LXXXI (December 4, 1964), 352-353, . Reply to John Cogley, "A Suggestion for Mr. Waugh," Commonweal, LXXXI (October 23, 1964) 120-122.
"Some Modest Proposals from Illinois," Tablet, CCXIX (September 18, 1965), 1040. Response to John J. Ryan's article, "Post-Tribal Worship," Commonweal, LXXXII (August 20, 1965), 586-589.
"A Post-Waugh Insight," Commonweal, LXXXIII (January 7, 1966), 391. Reply to J. M. Cameron's article, "A Post-Waugh Insight," Commonweal, LXXXIII (October 29, 1965), 114-115.
ADDENDA
Few people would now remember the name, Teresa Higginson, and fewer still would know anything about her, but she is an outstandingly interesting example of pre-Vatican Catholic piety. Teresa was a young school teacher believed by many to be a saint, thought by others to be medically and psychologically unsound. She originated, and attempted to spread, devotion to "The Sacred Head as the Seat of Divine Wisdom." There was agitation for, and resistance to, her canonization in the twenties and thirties; Waugh's letter was part of a controversy which arose from this agitation.
Some bibliography:
A. M. O'Sullivan, O.S.B., Teresa Higginson, The Servant of God, School Teacher, London, Sands and Co., 1923.
Letters of Teresa Higginson, selected and discussed by a Monk of St. Augustine's Abbey, Ramsgate, London, Sands and Co., 1937.
A Possible Addition to Letters-to-the-editor
One Waugh letter presents a problem in classification. The editor of Tablet severely censured A Handful of Dust on moral grounds. Waugh replied to this criticism by writing a letter, not to the editor, but to the gossip columnist of the Daily Express condemning the Tablet's editor for his "moral lecture." Waugh accused him of acting as "a valet masquerading in his master's clothes," of attempting "to ape his superiors," and of giving "an uncouth and impudent performance" in these roles.
How is Waugh's letter to be classified? Should it be called a "letter to a gossip columnist intended for publication" or would it be better included with "letters-to-the editor?"
The details are as follows:
Untitled letter published in William Hickey's (Tom Driberg) gossip column, Daily Express, September 11, 1934, 6. Response to Tablet editor's "The Pity of It," (review of A Handful of Dust), Tablet, CLXXVII (September 8, 1934), 300.
There seems, unfortunately, to be no way of knowing whether or not Waugh ever read E.A.W. Clarke's Jaspar Tristram, but its similarity to Brideshead Revisited is quite considerable. The author is listed in the British Museum Catalogue as having written this book alone; it is known, however, that he was a minor member of the literary homosexual underground that flourished in the 1890's, and may well have published other works under a pseudonym, as many of his colleagues certainly did.
In 1899, when it was published, Jaspar Tristram appears to have attracted no attention to itself apart from that of other homosexual writers, to whom it became something of a cult book (1). Oscar Wilde himself had read the novel; he mentions it in a letter of 2 November 1899 to Louis Wilkinson, then a schoolboy at Radley College, pointing out that Jaspar's school, "Bridwell", is in fact Radley (2).
A synopsis of the plot of Jaspar Tristram is as follows: Jaspar, an orphan in the care of an unsympathetic guardian, makes the acquaintance of the young Viscount Tremlett (nicknamed "Els") at his preparatory school, Scarisbrick. Els is then the favourite of an older boy, Orr, who bullies Jaspar unmercifully, but this bullying makes Els transfer his allegiance from Orr to Jaspar.
Jaspar and Els go on to Bridwell together; unfortunately for Jaspar, one of the first boys they meet there is Orr, who is anxious to resume his initial relationship with Els. At first, Els scorns Orr's advances; however, his conspicuous beauty makes him a great favourite with the older boys, of whom Orr is a leader, and the result is estrangement from Jaspar. Jaspar's love continues unabated, but is repeatedly and brutally scorned by Els; eventually, the breach is healed to a certain degree, and Jaspar consents to visit Els and his family at Tremlett. Here, Jaspar's lack of interest in sport causes him to be once more cast aside by Els; he is hence thrown back upon the company of Els' younger sister Nita, whom he begins to substitute for her brother in his affections. By the time Jaspar leaves Tremlett, Nita has fully supplanted Els.
Following the visit, Jaspar goes abroad for some time; by chance, he encounters the family again while in France. Orr is travelling with them, and Jaspar discovers that he is now competing with him for Nita's affections; Jaspar resigns from his pursuit in despair, and returns to England and a civil service post. In the next few years, he encounters Els and Nita at a number of social functions in London, notably Els' wedding, to which he is invited by Nita as an afterthought; Nita dies soon afterward, and the novel ends with Jaspar's reflections on his lonely state after the funeral.
The notion of substituting the sister for the brother as found in Jaspar Tristram is much like the version of it found in Brideshead Revisited; however, the earlier book is quite emphatic about the blurring of the distinction between the sexes. Witness, for example, Jaspar's first thoughts about Nita:
And all at once it struck him, as she sat there just in front, that she was quite as much boy as girl. And as one of Elsie's greatest charms had been that he had something in his dress and manner and looks and limbs of the delicacy and grace of a girl; so now he took delight in finding in her a delicious flavour of the roughness of a boy. Even of the dress she wore there was really nothing but what might have equally well done for one of the other sex (3).
It is soon made much clearer that what strikes Jaspar is not merely Nita's boyishness, but her resemblance to Els in the days of his love for Jaspar, just as Julia's appeal to Ryder is that of the Sebastian of Oxford days:
But indeed it was always of her brother that she reminded him; not of the brother he had known in more recent times, but rather of the young Prince Charming his fond imagination had already begun to insist had been his friend in those far-off Scarisbrick days. For though not nearly so good-looking, she had yet the same broken eyebrows which in him he had been so fond of and the same laughing eyes; even the few tiny freckles which Els had had and which had exercised upon him such a curious charm, were now reproduced in her and with the same effect. . . . It was true that it was framed in heavy curls, this face which was so troublingly like that of the boy to whom, a boy, he had been devoted; but even this was not enough to persuade him of her being really a girl, for Elsie's lovelocks in the theatricals had been as long. . . (4)
It is obvious that Clarke's approach differs considerably from Waugh's. Clarke seems to be preoccupied with the lack of distinction between male and female in Jaspar's mind; this method is taken one step further by Frederick Rolfe, in whose circles Clarke moved, when, in The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole, he has his hero, Nicholas Crabbe, ' fall in love with a girl who, in accordance with his wishes, impersonates a boy. While this element of homosexual fantasy is not to be found in Brideshead Revisited, Waugh, like Clarke, uses the idea of family resemblance coloured by nostalgia to explain Ryder's substitution of Julia for Sebastian as the object of his affections.
There is yet one other similarity between Jaspar Tristram and Brideshead Revisited. Jaspar, like Ryder, has an admiration for the aristocracy which tends to degenerate into snobbery; while at Tremlett, he is overcome with what he sees as the glory of the monuments to the ancestors of Els and Nita in the village church, and a certain part of Nita's appeal to him derives from her ancestry. For example, he reflects that "Charms too she had for the mind's eye, who was of high birth and rank; and a beauty of noble race shone with far more splendour than that which was meanly born (5)," and, in the course of a daydream involving himself and Nita riding together in a hansom as man and wife, he "would swell with pride to see himself, as he lolled at ease, catching up and passing, one after another, the omnibuses, wherein, in odious promiscuity, the base vulgar, his contempt for whom the sight increased, were slowly being jolted along (6)". Waugh is far more conscious of the subtlety required in presenting the ideas of a point-of-view character than is Clarke, and such bold statements of contempt for those not of noble lineage are never found in Brideshead Revisited; however, the element of snobbery, like the sister-for-brother substitution, is common to both novels.
The readers of Jaspar Tristram at the time of its publication included Oscar Wilde, Lytton Strachey (7), and, very probably, Frederick Rolfe; that Waugh might have read it seems an extremely remote possibility. Be that as it may, there are, in the clumsy and ungrammatical prose of this forgotten novel, enough similarities to Brideshead Revisited to suggest that, however remote, it is still a possibility.
Footnotes
1. See Timothy d'Arch Smith, Love in Earnest (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 157.
2. Oscar Wilde, Letters, ed. Rupert Hart-Davis (London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 1962), p. 812.
3. Edward Ashley Walrond Clarke, Jaspar Tristram (London, Heinemann, 1899), p. 207.
4. Jaspar Tristram, pp. 216-217.
5. Jaspar Tristram, p. 264.
6. Jaspar Tristram, p. 277.
7. The copy of Jaspar Tristram which I used, now in the library of the University of Reading, contains Strachey's bookplate. .
William J. Cook, Jr., Masks, Modes, and Morals: The Art of Evelyn Waugh, Cranbury, N.J., Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1971, $12.00, 352 pages. Reviewed by Paul A. Doyle.
Professor Cook studies Waugh's use of the narrator-persona and the character-persona and insists that a knowledge of the handling of these techniques is vital if one hopes to understand fully and appreciate Evelyn's artistry, themes, and change of approach from the early satiric novels to the ultimate use of ironic realism in the war trilogy. Each major novel is analyzed primarily by studying Waugh's relationship to the narrator and the narrator's relationship to the book's characters. Initially, Waugh is considered to be completely detached from the narrator. As his career develops, Waugh becomes more involved with the protagonist until he is - in effect - Charles Ryder. The Sword of Honour trilogy finds Waugh's art developed to its highest level because, so Cook argues, Evelyn accurately varies his mode from detachment to identification.
Since previous studies of Waugh's narrators' and characters' attitudes treated only some of Waugh's novels and did not delve into such issues in complete detail, Cook has now brought forth a necessary and quite useful contribution which all students and Waughians will find informative.
The book, nevertheless, is far from faultless. It bears too much the aura of a doctoral dissertation whether in actuality and/or in handling and badly needs editorial cutting. There is much undue plot summary, unnecessarily lengthy quotations, and repetition of points. The footnotes frequently distract - especially when the full reference to the source is given repeatedly. The fact that Cook's citations and bibliography contain only one reference since 1966 (he slips in one article from 1967) distresses because this means that five years have gone by and he has not bothered to update his research. As a result, he has omitted several valuable scholarly works, and even up to 1966 he omits many items, Bradbury's book, for example, which definitely should have been included.
Despite these shortcomings and the inclusion of several debatable theories (I myself, for instance, don't find Brideshead melodramatic), this book, because of its thorough analysis of Waugh's narrator-character persona, gives several thought-provoking insights and is worth reading.
The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4 (1944-1947), New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971, $7.50.
September 17, 1971
Editor:
I found Mr. Martin S. Cohen's article ("Allusive Conversation in A Handful of Dust and Brideshead Revisited" Autumn 1971) a study in misinterpretation. But just to confine myself to factual errors, in the order of their appearance:
Mr. Cohen calls Handful and Brideshead "the only Waugh novels based on potentially tragic situations". What about Sword of Honor?
Tony is established as a "fully pathetic figure" in Handful not because of the double-entendres that Mr. Cohen discovers, but because he has just lost his only son and been cuckolded.
Bridey is a plain, blunt man, anything but "Jesuitical".
Julia is not "alone of all the Flytes ... able to temporarily put her religion and its obligations aside". Sebastian put his aside for many years, and Lord Marchmain put his aside for some twenty years. Nor did Julia put her religion aside "in order to win Ryder". She had put her religion aside years ago when she married Rex outside the Church.
Poor Lady Marchmain fares badly in Mr. Cohen's heavy hands. She is simply the symbol of orthodox Catholicism. Lord Marchmain, Sebastian and Julia profess to rebel against her, but Mr. Cohen should have seen behind their protestations and realized that they were actually rebelling against their religion.
Brideshead's marriage may have been "grotesque", but Mr. Cohen misleads us when he leaves it at that. The novel makes clear that the marriage was a happy one.
Cordelia is not guilty of "turning to the total escapism that her religion affords". Cordelia became a nurse 1n the Spanish Civil War. Some escapism.
Mr. Gene D. Phillips, in his review of the Kellogg book, is right to score the author for omitting Sword of Honor in his consideration of Waugh as a Catholic novelist. Equally egregious is Dr. Kellogg's omission of Helena.
But enough of criticism. Your Newsletter is valuable, and a joy to read.
Kindest regards,
Neil McCaffrey
President
Arlington House Publishers
The Evelyn Waugh Newsletter, designed to stimulate research and continue interest in the life and writings of Evelyn Waugh, is published three times a year in April, October, and December (Spring, Autumn, and Winter numbers). Subscription rate for libraries and interested individuals: $2.50 a year (£1.10p in England). Single copy 90 cents. Check or money orders should be made payable to the Evelyn Waugh Newsletter. Notes, brief essays, and news items about Waugh and his work may be submitted, but manuscripts cannot be returned unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Address all correspondence to Dr. P.A. Doyle, c/o English Department, Nassau Community College, State University of New York, Garden City, New York 11530.
| See a
more printable version of this Newsletter. As it is
in rtf form it can easily be saved and go into any word processor. The file is 58Kb long. |
| Editorial Board | |
| Editor: | P.A. Doyle |
| Associate Editors: | Alfred W. Borrello (Kingsborough Community College) |
| James F. Carens (Bucknell University) | |
| Robert M. Davis (University of Oklahoma) | |
| Heinz Kosok (University of Marburg) | |
| Charles E. Linck, Jr. (East Texas State University) |