EVELYN WAUGH
Probably best known for his novel Bridehead Revisted, Evelyn Waugh was, despite the polished performance he would put on in public, a very tormented man full of rage and despair. When his friend the novelist Nancy Mitford asked him how he could be a practicing Catholic and still behave so abominably, Waugh is said to have answered: “You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid, I would hardly be a human being.”
One wonders whether his chronically depressed state may have been at least partially due to his stature. He was a small and stout man who realized that he didn’t quite fit in with the tall, good-looking aristocrats with whom he would cavort (although he was by no means ugly himself). His father was a man of letters but Evelyn was certainly no aristocrat, an issue he was touchy about even as a boy.
Interestingly, Waugh’s first marriage to a strikingly beautiful woman by the name of Evelyn Gardner served to boost his self-confidence. When his first marriage broke up however, all of Waugh’s lack of confidence, self-doubts and melancholia came rushing to the fore once more. He fared better with his second wife, Laura Herbert, with whom he had 6 children (she had a propensity for naming their cows after Shakesperean characters - i.e. Desdemona, Ophelia…)
Probably best known for his novel Bridehead Revisted, Evelyn Waugh was, despite the polished performance he would put on in public, a very tormented man full of rage and despair. When his friend the novelist Nancy Mitford asked him how he could be a practicing Catholic and still behave so abominably, Waugh is said to have answered: “You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid, I would hardly be a human being.”
One wonders whether his chronically depressed state may have been at least partially due to his stature. He was a small and stout man who realized that he didn’t quite fit in with the tall, good-looking aristocrats with whom he would cavort (although he was by no means ugly himself). His father was a man of letters but Evelyn was certainly no aristocrat, an issue he was touchy about even as a boy.
Interestingly, Waugh’s first marriage to a strikingly beautiful woman by the name of Evelyn Gardner served to boost his self-confidence. When his first marriage broke up however, all of Waugh’s lack of confidence, self-doubts and melancholia came rushing to the fore once more. He fared better with his second wife, Laura Herbert, with whom he had 6 children (she had a propensity for naming their cows after Shakesperean characters - i.e. Desdemona, Ophelia…)
A few years prior to him becoming a writer, Waugh decided to commit suicide by drowning. It was in 1925 and he was teaching at a boys’ school in Wales when he waded into the water and swam out…only to be stung by a jellyfish, which forced him to return to shore!
There is no doubt he was (and remains) one of England’s finest comic and satirical writers. His biting depictions of contemporary social life revealed a world overrun by chaos and ambiguity, a wasteland. He was especially fond of skewering the elite of society. His repudiation of modern life (he refused to learn to drive a car, preferred to communicate by letter rather than by phone and used a pen which he had to continually dip in ink…) certainly worked well in novels but must have been the source of considerable angst for him (he once affirmed that he was “two hundred years behind the times”).
After his first marriage broke up, Waugh joined Catholicism and it was his veneration for the church and for tradition and hierarchy that marked his archaic and snobby personality.
There is no doubt he was (and remains) one of England’s finest comic and satirical writers. His biting depictions of contemporary social life revealed a world overrun by chaos and ambiguity, a wasteland. He was especially fond of skewering the elite of society. His repudiation of modern life (he refused to learn to drive a car, preferred to communicate by letter rather than by phone and used a pen which he had to continually dip in ink…) certainly worked well in novels but must have been the source of considerable angst for him (he once affirmed that he was “two hundred years behind the times”).
After his first marriage broke up, Waugh joined Catholicism and it was his veneration for the church and for tradition and hierarchy that marked his archaic and snobby personality.
Sufficed to say, his demeanour did not always stand him in good stead. At Lancing (one of England’s less fashionable public schools), he was picked on by the other boys and at Oxford some of his contemporaries called him a “bitter little man – a social climber.”
Although children were beguiled and fascinated by him, he would often get bored and irritated by them and it wasn’t unusual for him to lock himself away in his study for days on end following an encounter with one. Of his own children, he said: “I have numerous children whom I see once a day for ten, I hope, awe-inspiring minutes.”
Toward the end of his life, he was a raging alcoholic. His drinking problems probably started when he went to school at Oxford. Freed of the rigid structure and isolation of the English public school system, he would often get blind drunk. During those Oxford days, he had two affairs with men (although if truth be told, it was not uncommon in 1920’s England for straight men to act and talk effeminately). Following Oxford, he married twice and never again had a relationship with a man.
The last few years of Waugh’s life saw a rapid decline in his health as he would combine sleeping drops (such as Bromide) with copious amounts of alcohol.
Although children were beguiled and fascinated by him, he would often get bored and irritated by them and it wasn’t unusual for him to lock himself away in his study for days on end following an encounter with one. Of his own children, he said: “I have numerous children whom I see once a day for ten, I hope, awe-inspiring minutes.”
Toward the end of his life, he was a raging alcoholic. His drinking problems probably started when he went to school at Oxford. Freed of the rigid structure and isolation of the English public school system, he would often get blind drunk. During those Oxford days, he had two affairs with men (although if truth be told, it was not uncommon in 1920’s England for straight men to act and talk effeminately). Following Oxford, he married twice and never again had a relationship with a man.
The last few years of Waugh’s life saw a rapid decline in his health as he would combine sleeping drops (such as Bromide) with copious amounts of alcohol.