Thursday, October 28, 2010

Waugh Day

I can't believe I almost missed this. Today would have been Evelyn Waugh's 107th birthday.

I know this is a minority opinion, but I believe that Brideshead Revisted is the greatest novel of the twentieth century.
I rejoiced in the Burgundy. How can I describe it? The Pathetic Fallacy resounds in all our praise of wine. For centuries every language has been strained to define its beauty, and has produced only wild conceits or the stock epithets of the trade. This Burgundy seemed to me, then, serene and triumphant, a reminder that the world was an older and better place than Rex knew, that mankind in its long passion had learned wisdom than his.
I will be celebrating with rib eye steak with a creamy sauce, broccoli, baked potatoes and some bloody Burgundy.

2 comments:

  1. I used to read a lot of Waugh, and since I knew that B.R. was his most famous novel, I expected to like it a lot. In the end, I thought it was all right, but I think I was trying to convince myself that I liked it more than I really did.

    I like Sword of Honor far more.

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  2. Brideshead is very different from the others in that it is very much in the classic English novel mode. It's in three books, very much focused on romantic love and it even has a comedic ending (although with a slight twist in that Ryder ends up united with God instead of a wife).

    I plan to write a fair bit about it here beginning in the new liturgical year a few weeks hence and will make my case for its superiority.

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