DOCSLIB.ORG

EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER and STUDIES Volume 27, Number 3 Winter 1993

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER and STUDIES Volume 27, Number 3 Winter 1993 EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Volume 27, Number 3 Winter 1993 BARD IA MARTIN STANNARD'S MILITARY MUDDLE By Donat Gallagher (James Cook University, Australia) When reading Martin Stannard's No Abiding City [entitled Evelyn Waugh, The Later Years in the USA], for review, I was struck by what seemed an exceptionally large number of factual errors, unsupported claims, imputations of motive, overstatements and misreadings. The inaccuracy seemed so pervasive as to undermine the book's value as a work of record. In order to test this impression, I decided to examine a short neutral passage that would serve as a fair sample. The passage chosen for scrutiny had to be brief, and about an easily researched subject. The subject also had to be incapable of having stirred the prejudices of the biographer or the reviewer, or of awakening those of the readers of the book or review. Pages 28-31 of No Abiding City were selected because they dealt with a very minor military operation, viz. a Commando raid on Bardia, and with a humdrum article Waugh wrote about it. No issue of class, religion, politics, literary theory or internal military squabbling arises. Nor does the spectre of professional rivalry, for no one, I imagine, seeks the bubble reputation in a war of words about Bardia. The three pages narrate the events of the raid, using information drawn from Waugh's article and diaries. In addition, criticisms are made of Waugh on the basis of real and purported discrepancies between the article and the diaries. Little is said about the genesis of the article or about the administrative difficulties attending its publication. This is what I found. Use and Misuse of Sources The documentary sources of information about the raid on Bardia are few, complete and accessible. They comprise: 1. Waugh's "Memorandum on Layforce," printed in The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, ed. Michael Davie. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976, pp. 495-96. This is a cryptic summary of the operation, written after the event, and fully intelligible only in the light of more comprehensive reports. It is critical but rather overstated. (DIARIES) 2. Waugh's article, "Commando Raid on Bardia," printed in somewhat different forms in the Evening Standard and Life. 2 The Life version is reprinted in The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh, ed. Donat Gallagher. London: Methuen, 1983, pp. 263-68. (EAR) 3. Layforce HQ War Diary for 19/20 April 1941: with Appendix VIII (a), "Operation Order No.2" and Appendix Vlll(i), "Report in Raid on Bardia." "The Report," which is a detailed critical analysis of the operation, is corrected in Waugh's hand and was probably drafted by him. (W0218/166) (HQ War Diary) 4. Layforce "A" Battalion War Diary for 19/20 April 1941, with Appendices. This is another full account of the operation, considerably less critical of its conduct than the HQ Report. (W0218/168) ("A"BN War Diary) 5. The few pages about the raid contained in the published histories of the Commandos and of Combined Operations: e.g. Charles Messenger, The Commandos 1940-1946 (London: William Kimber 1991) and Bernard Fergusson, The Watery Maze: The Story of Combined Operations (London: Collins, 1961 ). Stannard uses only two of these sources, viz. Waugh's cryptic "Memorandum" and his "Commando Raid on Bardia," which, like most popular wartime journalism, adjusts facts to create atmosphere and to satisfy the censorship. This limited use of sources would not matter if Stannard had exercised critical caution and followed a standard biographical practice. He was fully entitled either to confine his treatment to the circumstances surrounding Waugh's participation in the raid and the writing of the article; or to present Waugh's version of the events-as Waugh's; or virtually to ignore the incident. Instead he relates the events found in Waugh's text on his own authority: "The Commandos, discovering no opposition, ran about freely. There was no transportation centre, but there was a dump of new lyres. They set light to this, blew up a trestle bridge ... " (p. 30). A paraphrase of Waugh's text thus becomes Stannard's narrative. This practice leads Stannard into two traps. The first is to repeat Waugh's errors. Thus Waugh writes: Our parent force had another job on that night- 250 men in a destroyer raiding further up the .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and Their Adaptations Evan J
    Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2016 The alueV of Attending University: An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and their Adaptations Evan J. Molineux Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Molineux, Evan J., "The alueV of Attending University: An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and their Adaptations" (2016). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 1407. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1407 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Claremont McKenna College The Value of Attending University: An Analysis on the Novels of Evelyn Waugh and their Adaptations submitted to Professor Kathryn Stergiopoulos by Evan Molineux for Senior Thesis Spring 2016 April 25, 2016 i Table of Contents Acknowledgements I. Introduction . 1 – 7 II. The Transformative Effects of Oxford in Brideshead Revisited . 8 - 30 III. Paul Pennyfeather’s Chaotic Journey through Decline and Fall . 31 - 55 IV. The Bright Young Things of Vile Bodies . 56 - 70 V. The Reaffirming Power of Evelyn Waugh Through Film and Television . 71 - 85 Works Cited ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Professor Kathryn Stergiopoulos, for her patience, guidance, support, and constructive criticism over the past two semesters. Without her or her colloquiums, this thesis would not have been nearly as enjoyable to work on. I would also like to thank the rest of the literature department for helping to nurture my love for a subject that I have truly enjoyed studying over the past four years.
    [Show full text]
  • Marston Lafrance SWORD of HONOUR
    Marston LaFrance SWORD OF HONOUR: THE IRONIST PLACATUS Sword of Honour offers plenty of critical problems quite sufficient unto themselves, but they are further complicated by the mere fact of the trilogy's place in the canon. Because it comes at the end of Waugh's long career the reader is bound to be influenced, more or less unavoidably, by his general view of the earlier work, by his overall conception of an author whom he has enjoyed- or resented- for almost four decades. At least three such general views seem to have emerged over the years, and a brief look at them will suggest that a fourth might prove useful. Those readers who consider Waugh "essentially a comedian", 1 for example, should find Men at Arms the most attractive part of the trilogy, and thus it should surprise no one that this book, the least important of the three, has been called "the best of Waugh's novels".2 Readers convinced that Waugh is the twentieth century's archetypal snob, and prejudiced champion of a defunct aristocracy, must find Officers and Gentlemen impossible and parts of Unconditional Surrend er difficult to accept. Those who view him as primarily a disgruntled Tory satirist- probably the majority, and the best of the lot- will find abundant grist for their aesthetic mills throughout the trilogy, but they will also encounter solid blocks of material which their machinery canno t easily accommodate. There is nothing conspicuously satiric about the relationship between Guy and his father,3 about the deaths of Gervase and lvo, Tony Box-Bender's becoming a monk, Guy's betrayal by Virgini a, Guy's devotion to the ideal represented by Sir Roger of Waybroke, Guy's escape from Crete, Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • Books and Articles by Evelyn Waugh Black Mischief (1930), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938
    BIBLIOGRAPHY Books and articles by Evelyn Waugh Black Mischief (1930), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938. Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder (1945), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962. Decline and Fall (1928), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1937. Edmund Campion (1935), London: Cassell, 1987. A Little Learning, London: Chapman and Hall, 1964. Put Out More Flags (1942), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976. Scott-King’s Modern Europe, in Work Suspended and Other Stories (1947), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982. The Sword of Honour Trilogy (1952, 1955, 1961), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984. Vile Bodies (1930), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938. “Beau Brummells on £60 A Year”, Daily Express, 13 February 1929, 5. “Commando Raid on Bardia”, Life, 17 November 1941, 63-66, 71, 72, 74. “Failure of a Mission”, review of Miss Fire, by Jasper Rootham, The Tablet, 11 May 1946, 241. “Fan-Fare”, Life, 8 April 1946, 53, 54, 56, 58, 60. “Introduction”, to Christie Lawrence, Irregular Adventure, London: Faber and Faber, 1947, 11-13. “Marshal Tito’s Regime”, The Times, 23 May 1945, 5. “Marshal Tito’s Regime”, The Times, 5 June 1945, 5 [both under the pseudonym “A British Soldier Lately in Yugoslavia”]. “Marshal Tito’s Visit”, Spectator, 19 December 1952, 846. “Marshal Tito’s Visit”, Sunday Times, 1 February 1953, 6. “Mr Waugh Replies”, Sunday Express, 14 December 1952, 3. “Our Guest of Dishonour”, Sunday Express, 30 November 1952, 2. “President Tito’s Visit”, The Times, 24 March 1953, 9. “A Self-Made Myth”, review of Tito Speaks: His Self Portrait and Struggle with Stalin by Vladimir Dedijer, The Month NS 9 (April 1953), 240-45. 332 In the Picture “Tito and Stepinac”, New Statesman and Nation, 31 January 1953, 122.
    [Show full text]
  • Research Special Forces.Indd
    www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma a WORLD WAR WORLDTWO WAR Research Guide Swww.kcl.ac.uk/lhcm pecial Forces Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma a EVANS, Maj P H (1913-1994) LAYCOCK, Maj Gen Sir Robert (1907-1968) Trained with Special Operations Executive (SOE) Commanded Special Service Brigade, ‘Layforce’, in Palestine and Egypt, 1943; served with SOE 1941, and Middle East Commando, 1941-194; Special Forces Force 133, Greece, 1943-1944 commanded Special Service Brigade, UK, Diaries, 1943-1944, detailing SOE training, 1942-1943, for the organisation and training of service as instructor, Allied Military Mission Commandos; Chief of Combined Operations, WORLD WAR TWO This guide offers brief descriptions of material held in the Liddell Commando School, Pendalophos, British 1943-1947 Hart Centre for Military Archives relating to the role of Special relations with Greek partisans, and SOE Completed application forms for volunteer Forces in World War Two. Further biographical information about harassment and demolition activity in Greece; Commando officers [1940]; papers on reports,www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcm 1944, on reconnaissance missions in Commando training, 1940-1941; notes and each of the individuals named and complete summary descriptions the Vitsi area, West Macedonia, Greece, and memoranda on Commando operations, on Operation NOAH’S ARK, Allied and Greek 1941-1942; papers on Operation BLAZING and of the papers held here may be consulted on the Centre’s website resistance missions during the German Operation AIMWELL, for raids on Alderney, (see contact details on the back page), where information about withdrawal from Greece; correspondence 1942; notes on the planning of Operation between Evans and other Allied officers, West CORKSCREW for the capture of Pantelleria, the location of the Centre, opening hours and how to gain access Macedonia, Greece, 1944; captured German Linosa and Lampedusa Islands, Mediterranean, may also be found.
    [Show full text]
  • EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER and STUDIES Vol
    EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Vol. 36, No. 1 Spring 2005 “The Funniest Book in the World”: Waugh and The Diary of a Nobody by Peter Morton Flinders University Evelyn Waugh did not enjoy his Christmas of 1946. It was the second after the war and the national mood was somber. Troops were still being demobilized and the food rationing was worse than ever. As a Christmas “bonus” the government had allowed an extra eight pence worth of meat (half to be corned beef), but bread and potatoes were about to be rationed for the first time. To top it all, the weather was deteriorating and the winter 1946-7 would be the worst in living memory. Waugh, then in his early 40s, was en famille at Piers Court, and that was always a trial in itself. And he felt beleaguered. New houses were encroaching on his land, the socialist “grey lice” were in government, taxes were punitive and he was thinking of emigrating to Ireland. He tried to stay in fairly good humor on the day itself, for the sake of the children, but without much success. He was disgusted by his children’s shoddy presents and the general disorder. Their lunch was cold and ill-cooked. His wife had given him some caviar, but he had eaten that the week before. All in all, it was a “ghastly” day. He had already told his diary that he was looking forward to his forthcoming stay in hospital, for an operation on his hemorrhoids, to get away from them all.[1] The one bright spot of the day was his mother’s gift: a copy of George & Weedon Grossmith’s Diary of a Nobody, the seventh edition (J.
    [Show full text]
  • Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited": Paradise Lost Or Paradise Regained?
    Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited": Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained? VALERIE KENNEDY It is worth asking why, in a secular and post-roman tic age, a myth of the Fall should have such validity. .. One answer, I think, is that the experience of being abandoned, of losing an unconditional love, and thereby of forfeiting the simple confidence and wholeness which it sanctions, is a common childhood tragedy. (Thurman 327) i. Introduction AJrideshead Revisited was first published in a limited edition in 1944, then in a revised edition for the general public in 1945, and then again, fifteen years later, in another revised edition, in 1960.1 The novel caused great controversy on its first appearance because of the striking changes it presented in Waugh's style and subject- matter.2 Previously known to his readers as a purveyor of ironic, apparently nihilistic black comedy and as a writer of no explicit moral or religious persuasion, Waugh emerges in Brideshead Re• visited as the author of a Catholic apologia whose dominant mode is that of realism. The novel traces the emotional, moral, and spiritual development of its protagonist and first-person narrator, Charles Ryder, through his relations with the Flyte family. As Waugh puts it in his i960 Preface to the novel, its "perhaps pre• sumptuously large" theme is "the operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters" ( 7 ). In the first edition "Warning," he described the theme even more precisely as "the workings of the divine purpose in a pagan world, in the fives of an English Catholic family, half-paganized themselves, in the world of 1923-1939" (quoted in Heath 163).
    [Show full text]
  • Evelyn Waugh: an Oxonian Life Parallels Brideshead Revisited
    - Evelyn Waugh: An Oxonian Life Parallels Brideshead Revisited An Honors Thesis by Krista M. Pomeroy Thesis Advisor - Dr. Joanne Edmonds Ball State University Muncie, Indiana May 2000 - - Abstract English writer Evelyn Waugh has been known for using characters from his life in many of his literary works, including his novel Brideshead Revisited. Through analyzing my study abroad trip to Harris Manchester College in Oxford, England, the novel itself, and Evelyn Waugh's life, I discuss the comparisons that can be drawn and conclude with why I think many of the similarities cannot be avoided. - - - Acknowledgements Many thanks go to Dr. Joanne Edmonds for guiding me through the thought process of my thesis and for giving me the opportunity to travel to Oxford. I would also like to thank Erin, DeiDei, David, Sam, Aimee, Emily, Julia, Shea, Noelle, Natalie, Dr. John Emert, Dr. Joanne Edmonds, and Dr. Tony Edmonds for making our Harris Manchester study abroad trip a memorable experience. I would not trade it for anything. All my love (til Monday), Krista M. Pomeroy -- -- 2 - Evelyn Waugh: An Oxonian Life Parallels Brideshead Revisited On Saturday, July 24, 1999, I, along with ten other Ball State University Honors College students, stepped into a world of beauty and tradition. Oxford University is famous for its medieval buildings with their reaching spires and for its aspiring academics. We were in Oxford to study abroad at Harris Manchester College and to experience the culture that has inspired its visitors for centuries. Oxford has been the muse of many poems and novels, and reading a selection of these was a portion of our assignment while in England.
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT Evelyn Waugh and La Nouvelle Théologie Dan Reid
    ABSTRACT Evelyn Waugh and La Nouvelle Théologie Dan Reid Makowsky, Ph.D. Mentor: Ralph C. Wood, Ph.D. This dissertation seeks to provide a more profound study of Evelyn Waugh’s relation to twentieth-century Catholic theology than has yet been attempted. In doing so, it offers a radical revision of our understanding of Waugh’s relation to the Second Vatican Coucil. Waugh’s famous contempt for the liturgical reforms of the early 1960s, his self-described “intellectual” conversion, and his identification with the Council of Trent, have all contributed to a commonplace perception of Waugh as a reactionary Catholic stridently opposed to reform. However, careful attention to Waugh’s dynamic artistic concerns and the deeply sacramental theology implicit in his later fiction reveals a striking resemblance to the most important Catholic theological reform movement of the mid-twentieth century: la nouvelle théologie. By comparing Waugh’s artistic project to the theology of the Nouvelle theologians, who advocated the recovery of a fundamentally sacramental theology, this dissertation demonstrates that the two mirror one another in many of their basic concerns. This mirroring was no mere coincidence. Waugh’s long-time mentor Father Martin D’Arcy was steeped in many of the same sacramentally-minded thinkers as the Nouvelle theologians. Through D’Arcy’s theological influence as well as the deepening of Waugh’s own faith, he, too, developed a sacramental cast of mind. In reading some of the key works of Waugh’s later years, I will show how Waugh realized this sacramental outlook in his art. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that Waugh’s main contribution to the renewal of sacramental thought within Catholicism lies in his portrayal of personal vocation as the remedy for acedia, or sloth, which he considered the “besetting sin” of the age.
    [Show full text]
  • A Military Engima: the Canadian Air Service Company, 1948-1949
    Canadian Military History Volume 10 Issue 1 Article 3 2001 A Military Engima: The Canadian Air Service Company, 1948-1949 Bernd Horn Royal Military College of Canada Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Horn, Bernd "A Military Engima: The Canadian Air Service Company, 1948-1949." Canadian Military History 10, 1 (2001) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Horn: A Military Engima A Military Enigma The Canadian Special Air Service Company, 1948-1949 Bernd Horn he Canadian Special Air Service (SAS) of all arms of the service. Second, it was to T Company is truly a military enigma. Very few provide a small but highly trained and skilled people are aware of its short-lived existence. professional force which, in time of conflict, could Those who are normally have a misunder­ expand and train citizen soldiers who would fight standing of its origins and role, a misconception that war. 1 Within this framework paratroopers largely reinforced by the sparse and largely had limited relevance. Not surprisingly, few inaccurate material that has been written on the showed concern for the potential loss of Canada's subject. For example, most believe that it was hard-earned airborne experience. raised specifically to provide a commando capability within the Canadian Army immediately In the austere postwar climate of"minimum after the Second World War.
    [Show full text]
  • EVELYN WAUGH STUDIES Vol
    EVELYN WAUGH STUDIES Vol. 50, No. 1 Spring 2019 CONTENTS “Huxley’s Ape:” Waugh in Scandinavia (August-September 1947) 2 Jeffrey Manley REVIEWS Reconstruction and Ricochet 29 The Bitter Taste of Victory: Life, Love and Art in the Ruins of the Reich, by Lara Feigel. Reviewed by Marshall McGraw Inez, Evelyn, and the Blitz 33 The Blitz Writing: Night Shift and It Was Different at the Time, by Inez Holden. Reviewed by Jeffrey Manley NEWS Evelyn Waugh Studies 2 “Huxley’s Ape:” Waugh in Scandinavia (August-September 1947) Jeffrey Manley Between his first two trips to the USA (Spring 1947 and Fall 1948), Evelyn Waugh made a two-week tour of Scandinavia. This was proposed and sponsored by the Daily Telegraph, publishing two articles about the trip afterwards. Unlike his earlier postwar journeys to Spain and the USA, this one produced neither a novel nor a travel book. Nor do his biographers spend much time considering either the motivations for the trip or the newspaper articles it produced. The trip is of interest to Waugh readers, however, because it took place at the peak of his popularity as a novelist, between the publication of his two best-selling works. Brideshead had been issued in 1945, and he had just completed The Loved One, that would be published in 1948. During the tour he was extensively interviewed by reporters and asked about these two books, as well as those written previously and what new works he had in mind. In addition, he had recently returned from his trip to Hollywood and discussed his impressions of the USA and the film industry as well as the burial practices at Forest Lawn.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evelyn Waugh Circle
    The Evelyn Waugh Circle Acton, Sir Harold (1904-94), of Anglo-American parentage, was at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford and spent most of his life at the family horne, La Pietra, near Florence. As well as poems, novels and historical works, he published Memoirs of an Aesthete (1948), More Memoirs (1970) and a memoir of Nancy Mitford (1975). Asquith, Katharine (1885-1977), nee Horner, married (1907) Raymond Asquith (killed in action 1916), eldest son of H.H. Asquith, Prime Minister. A Roman Catholic convert, she lived at the Manor House, Mells, Somerset, inherited from her father, Sir John Horner; from 1949 Ronald Knox also lived there, and EW was a frequent visitor to the house. Balfour, Patrick (1904-77), author and journalist, was educated at Winchester and Balliol College, Oxford, and succeeded to the title of 3rd Baron Kinross in 1939. As an Evening Standard corre­ spondent, he covered the war in Abyssinia. The character of Lord Kilbannock in the Sword of Honour trilogy is based on Balfour. Baxter, Beverley (1891-1964), born and educated in Canada, be­ came a journalist in England and served for many years on the staff of the Daily Express. Later he served as a Member of Parlia­ ment (1935-50) and was knighted in 1954. Beaton, Cecil (1904-80), photographer and stage designer. Educated at Harrow and Cambridge. Knighted in 1972. Beerbohm, Max (1872-1956), essayist, dramatic critic, parodist and caricaturist, greatly admired by EW from boyhood onwards. He lived mainly in Italy after his marriage in 1910, but often visited England. Bell, Clive (1881-1962), writer on art and a member of the Bloomsbury Group, married (1907) Vanessa Stephen, herself an artist and a sister of Virginia Woolf.
    [Show full text]
  • Once Upon a Time a Historian Named Antony Beevor, Bemused by a Diary, Novel and Telegram, Built an Ingenious Labyrinth of Speculation About the Evacuation of Crete
    CHAPTER 5 CRETAN LABYRINTH: THE WAY OUT Once upon a time a historian named Antony Beevor, bemused by a diary, novel and telegram, built an ingenious labyrinth of speculation about the evacuation of Crete. Outdoing Theseus, he pursued not one, but two, Minotaurs, Colonel Robert Laycock and Captain Evelyn Waugh. But he became lost in the maze of his own creation. Literary scholars, dazzled by the clever historian, followed him deep into the labyrinth in pursuit of the mythic monsters and became even more lost than the Master. And all the while, sadly ignored, Ariadne’s little string of plain fact was there to lead them out into the light of common day. Matters for judgement In May 1941 Colonel (and Brigade Commander) Robert Laycock was Officer Commanding Layforce, a Brigade made up of a headquarters and four Commandos (also called “A”, “B”, “C”, and “D” Battalions), then stationed in Egypt. When German airborne troops invaded Crete, Layforce Headquarters and “A” and “D” Battalions were sent to assist. But the battle had been lost before the Commandos arrived, and the Allied armies in the north-west of the island were in retreat towards the south coast, where they hoped to be evacuated. On landing at Suda Bay, Layforce was ordered to provide a rearguard for the retiring troops. In collaboration with larger Australian and New Zealand units, Layforce carried out its task well. The troops, who were retreating away from their base and their only supplies of food, water, and ammunition, were arduously making for Sphakia, a small fishing village forty miles distant across the rugged mountain range that divides Crete.
    [Show full text]