Brothers Judd Top 100 of the 20th Century: Novels (87)
After a brief, apparently unpleasant, stay in Hollywood--he had been
commissioned to adapt his novel Brideshead Revisited for the screen--Evelyn
Waugh wrote this wonderfully wicked satire of the movie business, the funeral
industry, lowbrow Americans and whatever other hapless targets wandered
within range of his savage pen. Dennis Barlow is a young British
poet, who, having lost his movie job, is temporarily employed at The Happier
Hunting Ground, a pet cemetery modeled after the hallowed Whispering Glades,
graveyard to the stars. But such a lowly job is anathema to the British
expatriate community, as Sir Ambrose Abercrombie informs him:
We limeys have a peculiar position to keep up, you
know, Barlow. They may laugh at us a bit--the
However, when Barlow's roommate, Sir Francis Hinsley, is abruptly dismissed
from his studio job and hangs himself, Abercrombie and his fellow Cricket
Club members depend on Barlow to arrange the burial--after all, he knows
about how to dispose of animal remains, how much different can it be?
So Barlow heads over to Whispering Glades where he is treated to a hilariously
garish tour and sales pitch. He meets and falls in love with one
of the cosmeticians there, Aimée Thanatogenos, but must hide the
truth about his embarrassing job, particularly since she is also smitten
with Mr. Joyboy, the legendary embalmer at Whispering Glades. When
she proves unresponsive to his own poetry, Barlow woos her with passages
from the great poets, the works of whom she is utterly ignorant.
Naturally, it all goes bung, as Barlow's various frauds are revealed
and Aimée kills herself. Barlow extorts some money out of
the scandal fearing Joyboy and buries her at the Hunting Grounds, so:
Tomorrow and on every anniversary as long as the
Happier Hunting Ground existed a postcard
Your little Aimée
is wagging her tail in heaven tonight, thinking of you.
Waugh lays bare a Hollywood where all is pretense and illusion, where
human lives--never mind human feelings--are meaningless, where semantic
niceties, like calling a corpse a "Loved One" are intended to mask reality.
It is brutal, and unfortunately still timely, and quite certainly one of
the best novels ever written about the movie industry. It is also
just a screaming hoot.
(Reviewed:15-May-00 )
Grade: (A )
Orrin C. Judd
Websites:
Evelyn Waugh Links:
-WIKIPEDIA: Evelyn Waugh
-Evelyn
Waugh (1903-1966) (kirjasto)
-The
Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition. 2000: Waugh, Evelyn Arthur
St. John
-FEATURED
AUTHOR: Evelyn Waugh (NY Times Archives)
-OBIT:
Evelyn Waugh, Satirical Novelist, Is Dead at 62 (Special to The New
York Times, April 11, 1966)
-TOP
100 CATHOLICS OF THE CENTURY: #97 Evelyn Waugh (DAILY CATHOLIC)
-BIO:
Evelyn Waugh--Catholic Convert & Writer (St. Joseph Messenger)
-Doubting
Hall : A Guided Tour Around Evelyn Waugh
-PROFILE
: Evelyn Waugh : The Best and the Wost ( Charles J. Rolo, Atlantic
Monthly, 1954)
-PROFILE
: Evelyn Waugh : The Height of His Powers (L.E. Sissman, Atlantic Monthly,
1972)
-ESSAY:
from The Road to Damascus: The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Fifteen Converts
to Catholicism (Evelyn Waugh)
-ESSAY:
St. Helena Empress (Evelyn Waugh)
-ESSAY:
The Capture of Campion (Evelyn Waugh)
-LETTER:
Evelyn Waugh on the Changes in the Mass (1965, Latin Mass Magazine)
-EXCERPTS:
Waugh Diaries (Aquinas Cafe)
-INTERVIEW:
An Interview With Evelyn Waugh (HARVEY BREIT, NY Times, March 13, 1949)
-Evelyn
Waugh: The Loved One
-PODCAST: On Satire: Evelyn Waugh’s ‘A Handful of Dust’ (LRB Close Readings)
-
-ESSAY: ‘And You a Catholic!’ : Faith beyond the culture wars Phil Klay, October 18, 2024, Commonweal)
-ESSAY: Waugh at war : Self-sacrifice, tradition and service seem to have been cast aside by today’s society (Max Bayliss, 8/12/24, The Critic)
-ESSAY: Liturgical Conservatism and the Modern Novel : The greatest Catholic writers of the 20th century drew on the deep riches of the liturgy to speak to the secular age. (Roy Peachey, October 29, 2023, European Conservative)
-ESSAY: Evelyn Waugh is laughing at you : His lethally coherent worldview still turns reality into a farce. (Will Lloyd, 8/26/23, New Statesman)
-ESSAY: Guy Crouchback: Evelyn Waugh’s Hosea (Dwight Longenecker, March 13th, 2023, Imaginative Conservative)
-ESSAY: Crouchbackus Contritus: Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honor Trilogy as a Chivalric Romance (Nathaniel Birzer May 31, 2024, Liberty Fund: Online Library of Liberty)
-ESSAY: HELENA, JULIAN AND ATTILA: THE TWILIGHT OF ROME IN 20TH-CENTURY FICTION (Edmund Racher, 2/20/23, Antigone)
-ESSAY: Why we should venerate Evelyn Waugh : Waugh was unquestionably among the greatest novelists of the 20th century (Chilton Williamson, Jr., October 12, 2021, The Spectator)
-SUMMARY: Brideshead Revisited in a Nutshell (JOSEPH PEARCE, 9/24/22, Crisis)
-PODCAST: Phil Klay on Evelyn Waugh’s Catholic, Conservative, and Curmudgeonly Ways :
From the History of Literature Podcast with Jacke Wilson (History of Literature, December 20, 2021)
-ESSAY: EVELYN WAUGH LOVED PERRY MASON WITH ALL HIS HEART : He read every single one of Erle Stanley Gardner's books. But his passion didn't stop there (OLIVIA RUTIGLIANO, 12/10/20, Crime Reads)
-ESSAY: Evelyn Waugh as a cinematic novelist
(Terry Teachout, 12/03/20)
-REVIEW ESSAY: Champagne Flute with an Iron Spine : Dystopia and Providence in Five Novels (Eve Tushnet, 3/01/20, Kirk Center)
-ESSAY: Deadly Satire, Saving Grace: The Faith & Work of Evelyn Waugh (James E. Person, Jr., June 2005, Touchstone)
-Doubting
Hall: site dedicated to the works of the English novelist Evelyn Waugh
(1903-1966)
-Evelyn
Waugh World Wide Resources
-Brideshead
Revisited
-ESSAY:
St. Evelyn Waugh (George Weigel, First Things)
-REVIEW ESSAY: THE PERMANENT ADOLESCENT: The vices of Evelyn Waugh are what made him a king of comedy and of tragedy. (Christopher Hitchens, May 2003, The Atlantic)
-ESSAY
: Wealth, Privilege and Decline and Fall : Evelyn Waugh was a
staunch critic of social privilege, says Derek Copold (Spintech)
Waugh's
Comic Waste Land (NY Review of Books)
-ESSAY:
An Eccentric Novelist in the War (Paul Burdett, HistoryNet)
-ESSAY:
A Handful of Dust: Return to Guiana (V.S. NAIPAUL, NY Review of Books)
-ESSAY:
EVELYN WAUGH: Wife left scars (The Straits Times)
-ESSAY:
"Evelyn Waugh- That's What's Wrong with England" (Patrick Adcock, Professor
of English)
-ESSAY:
Declaration of Waugh: How Evelyn Waugh's 'late lunacy' was triggered
by a conversation with Alan Brien at White's Club... (The Oldie)
-ESSAY:
“The consecration of the heart”: Ronald Knox reconsidered
(Paul Dean, New Criterion)
-STUDY
GUIDE: Evelyn Waugh A Handful of Dust (1934) (plot summary, etc)
-DISCUSSION:
Libertarian Pop Culture Forum: Evelyn Waugh and Aldous Huxley
-ETEXT: A Companion to Evelyn Waugh's Sword of
Honour (David Cliffe)
-ESSAY: The Crouchback tendency :
Sword of Honour enthralled millions of television viewers but it overlooked a profound truth about wars (Neal Ascherson, January 7, 2001, The
Observer)
-ESSAY: The Permanent Adolescent : His vices made Evelyn Waugh a king of comedy and of tragedy (Christopher Hitchens, MAY 2003, The Atlantic)
-ESSAY: Evelyn Waugh on War And Honor (Milton
Batiste, LewRockwell.com)
-ESSAY: Evelyn Waugh: The Best and the Worst (Charles
J. Rolo, October 1954, The Atlantic Monthly)
-ARCHIVES: Waugh (Slate)
-ESSAY: Evelyn Waugh’s sincerest form of flattery : He had a major but unsung inspiration: the now-neglected novelist William Gerhardie (William Boyd, July 24, 2022, The Spectator)
-REVIEW ESSAY: Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Helena’ Revisited : A novel about the quiet greatness of Constantine’s mother. (Lawrence Dugan, August 27, 2024, Modern Age)
-ESSAY: Put Out More Flags (Charlotte Hays, Fall 2001,
Independent Women's Quarterly)
-REVIEW: of The Sword of Honour Trilogy by Evelyn
Waugh (Michael Dirda, The Crisis)
-REVIEW:
of The Loved One (Orville Prescott, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh's Finest Novel (JOHN K. HUTCHENS,
NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of A Handful of Dust (Anatole Broyard, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of A Handful of Dust (Nicholas Lezard, London Guardian)
-REVIEW
: of The Sword of Honor Trilogy by Evelyn Waugh : A Maverick Historian
: Rarely has comedy of manners been so artfully infused with pathos
as in Evelyn Waugh's recently reissued Sword of Honour trilogy: "the finest
work of fiction in English," our author argues, "to emerge from World
War II" (Penelope Lively , Atlantic Monthly)
-REVIEW:
of Decline and Fall By Evelyn Waugh (A.E.C., London Guardian,
Friday October 12, 1928)
-REVIEW:
John Gross: Waugh Revisited , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
D.A.N. Jones: Waugh Revisited , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
of The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh (Algis Valiunas, American Spectator)
-REVIEW:
of The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh (ROGER GATHMAN, Austin Chronicle)
-REVIEW:
of 'Stories of Evelyn Waugh' shows why the author is known for his
novels (Clarence Brown, The Seattle Times)
-REVIEW:
of The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (FRANK KERMODE, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Nigel Dennis: Fabricated Man , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
Robert Craft: Too Little Waugh , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
of The Life of Evelyn Waugh by Douglas Lane Patey (Kenneth R. Craycraft,
Jr., First Things)
-REVIEW:
Conor Cruise O'Brien: Nobs and Snobs , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
of Martin Stannard's "Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years, 1903-1939," (Edmund
Morris, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Wilfrid Sheed: Portrait of the Artist as a Self-Made Man , NY review
of Books
-REVIEW:
of Martin Stannard's "Evelyn Waugh: The Later Years, 1939-1966," (Penelope
Fitzgerald, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Clive James: Waugh's Last Stand , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
of "The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Diana Cooper" (William F. Buckley,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies by Christopher Hitchens
(Stewart Donovan, Antigonish Review)
-REVIEW:
of The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh (James Campbell, Paradigm
Magazine)
-REVIEW:
of THE LETTERS OF NANCY MITFORD & EVELYN WAUGH (Katherine Knorr,
International Herald Tribune)
-REVIEW:
of Selina Hastings' "Evelyn Waugh: A Biography," (Hugh Kenner,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of Evelyn Waugh: A Biography by Selina Hastings (John Banville, London
Guardian)
The
Possessed (NOEL ANNAN. NY Review of Books)
-REVIEW: of At War with Waugh by WF Deedes (Diana Mosley, Evening Standard)
-REVIEW: The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (Not for the Squeamish) (SEAN FITZPATRICK, 9/24/18, Crisis)
-REVIEW ESSAY: ‘Brideshead Revisited’ Revisited (Mark McGinness, 5/28/20, Quadrant)
-REVIEW ESSAY: Waugh’s Saving Grace : Revisiting Brideshead, we see that wine ministers to the sense of being as do few other things (Saintsbury, 25 March, 2013, Standpoint)
-REVIEW: Evelyn Waugh’s ‘A Handful of Dust’ (Jeffrey myers, The Article)
-BOOKLIST:
Editor's pick Michael Korda, editor of Jacqueline Susann and
Tennessee Williams, picks his five favorite novels of the past 40 years
(MICHAEL KORDA, Salon)
-BOOKLIST:
Thomas Swick's top 10 travel books of the 20th century (Salon)
-REVIEW: ‘Sword of Honour’ — an under-appreciated gem by Evelyn Waugh : Evelyn Waugh's lesser-known work contains spiritual and literary jewels as wonderful as those in 'Brideshead Revisited' (James Bradshaw, Feb 21, 2022, MercatorNet)
-
- ESSAY:
England's
Doubt: When Christianity in England reformulated itself in the 18th
century as a scientific hypothesis, it became vulnerable to scientific
refutation. (Prospect )
-ESSAY:
The Necessity for Christianity (Professor Paul Johnson)
-ESSAY:
The Making of the English Middle Class: Under Margaret Thatcher and
now under Tony Blair, Britain has become markedly less class-bound. How
did this happen? (Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Atlantic)Book-related and General Links: -Evelyn
Waugh (1903-1966) (kirjasto)
-ENCYCLOPAEDIA
BRITANNICA: Your search: "evelyn waugh"
-The
Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition. 2000: Waugh, Evelyn Arthur
St. John
-FEATURED
AUTHOR: Evelyn Waugh (NY Times Archives)
-OBIT:
Evelyn Waugh, Satirical Novelist, Is Dead at 62 (Special to The New
York Times, April 11, 1966)
-TOP
100 CATHOLICS OF THE CENTURY: #97 Evelyn Waugh (DAILY CATHOLIC)
-BIO:
Evelyn Waugh--Catholic Convert & Writer (St. Joseph Messenger)
-Doubting
Hall : A Guided Tour Around Evelyn Waugh
-PROFILE
: Evelyn Waugh : The Best and the Wost ( Charles J. Rolo, Atlantic
Monthly, 1954)
-PROFILE
: Evelyn Waugh : The Height of His Powers (L.E. Sissman, Atlantic Monthly,
1972)
-ESSAY:
from The Road to Damascus: The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Fifteen Converts
to Catholicism (Evelyn Waugh)
-ESSAY:
St. Helena Empress (Evelyn Waugh)
-ESSAY:
The Capture of Campion (Evelyn Waugh)
-LETTER:
Evelyn Waugh on the Changes in the Mass (1965, Latin Mass Magazine)
-EXCERPTS:
Waugh Diaries (Aquinas Cafe)
-INTERVIEW:
An Interview With Evelyn Waugh (HARVEY BREIT, NY Times, March 13, 1949)
-Evelyn
Waugh: The Loved One
-Doubting
Hall: site dedicated to the works of the English novelist Evelyn Waugh
(1903-1966)
-Evelyn
Waugh World Wide Resources
-Brideshead
Revisited
-ESSAY:
St. Evelyn Waugh (George Weigel, First Things)
-ESSAY
: Wealth, Privilege and Decline and Fall : Evelyn Waugh was a
staunch critic of social privilege, says Derek Copold (Spintech)
Waugh's
Comic Waste Land (NY Review of Books)
-ESSAY:
An Eccentric Novelist in the War (Paul Burdett, HistoryNet)
-ESSAY:
A Handful of Dust: Return to Guiana (V.S. NAIPAUL, NY Review of Books)
-ESSAY:
EVELYN WAUGH: Wife left scars (The Straits Times)
-ESSAY:
"Evelyn Waugh- That's What's Wrong with England" (Patrick Adcock, Professor
of English)
-ESSAY:
Declaration of Waugh: How Evelyn Waugh's 'late lunacy' was triggered
by a conversation with Alan Brien at White's Club... (The Oldie)
-ESSAY:
ìThe consecration of the heartî: Ronald Knox reconsidered
(Paul Dean, New Criterion)
-STUDY
GUIDE: Evelyn Waugh A Handful of Dust (1934) (plot summary, etc)
-DISCUSSION:
Libertarian Pop Culture Forum: Evelyn Waugh and Aldous Huxley
-REVIEW:
of The Loved One (Orville Prescott, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh's Finest Novel (JOHN K. HUTCHENS,
NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of A Handful of Dust (Anatole Broyard, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of A Handful of Dust (Nicholas Lezard, London Guardian)
-REVIEW
: of The Sword of Honor Trilogy by Evelyn Waugh : A Maverick Historian
: Rarely has comedy of manners been so artfully infused with pathos
as in Evelyn Waugh's recently reissued Sword of Honour trilogy: "the finest
work of fiction in English," our author argues, "to emerge from World
War II" (Penelope Lively , Atlantic Monthly)
-REVIEW:
of Decline and Fall By Evelyn Waugh (A.E.C., London Guardian,
Friday October 12, 1928)
-REVIEW:
John Gross: Waugh Revisited , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
D.A.N. Jones: Waugh Revisited , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
of The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh (Algis Valiunas, American Spectator)
-REVIEW:
of The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh (ROGER GATHMAN, Austin Chronicle)
-REVIEW:
of 'Stories of Evelyn Waugh' shows why the author is known for his
novels (Clarence Brown, The Seattle Times)
-REVIEW:
of The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (FRANK KERMODE, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Nigel Dennis: Fabricated Man , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
Robert Craft: Too Little Waugh , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
of The Life of Evelyn Waugh by Douglas Lane Patey (Kenneth R. Craycraft,
Jr., First Things)
-REVIEW:
Conor Cruise O'Brien: Nobs and Snobs , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
of Martin Stannard's "Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years, 1903-1939," (Edmund
Morris, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Wilfrid Sheed: Portrait of the Artist as a Self-Made Man , NY review
of Books
-REVIEW:
of Martin Stannard's "Evelyn Waugh: The Later Years, 1939-1966," (Penelope
Fitzgerald, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Clive James: Waugh's Last Stand , NY Review of Books
-REVIEW:
of "The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Diana Cooper" (William F. Buckley,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies by Christopher Hitchens
(Stewart Donovan, Antigonish Review)
-REVIEW:
of The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh (James Campbell, Paradigm
Magazine)
-REVIEW:
of THE LETTERS OF NANCY MITFORD & EVELYN WAUGH (Katherine Knorr,
International Herald Tribune)
-REVIEW:
of Selina Hastings' "Evelyn Waugh: A Biography," (Hugh Kenner,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of Evelyn Waugh: A Biography by Selina Hastings (John Banville, London
Guardian)
The
Possessed (NOEL ANNAN. NY Review of Books)
-BOOKLIST:
Editor's pick Michael Korda, editor of Jacqueline Susann and
Tennessee Williams, picks his five favorite novels of the past 40 years
(MICHAEL KORDA, Salon)
-BOOKLIST:
Thomas Swick's top 10 travel books of the 20th century (Salon)
GENERAL:
- ESSAY:
England's
Doubt: When Christianity in England reformulated itself in the 18th
century as a scientific hypothesis, it became vulnerable to scientific
refutation. (Prospect )
-ESSAY:
The Necessity for Christianity (Professor Paul Johnson)
-ESSAY:
The Making of the English Middle Class: Under Margaret Thatcher and
now under Tony Blair, Britain has become markedly less class-bound. How
did this happen? (Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Atlantic)
