Word: waugh
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...name Evelyn Waugh comes unavoidably to mind. Wilson shares some of the comic master's ability to draw character in swift strokes. There are similar conversational nuances, inventive use of irony and a longing for an older order, especially spiritual. "Where there was light-from the headlamps of cars, from streetlamps and shop windows-it seemed to be a fuzzy, half-hearted sort of light, almost conspiring with the dark to lose itself in blackness. The windows of the Abbey glowed dimly like old jewels. Behind them, the choir, Dean and Chapter had recently acknowledged that they had followed...
...Waugh's Guy Crouchback or Charles Ryder might have had such plaintive thoughts about their ignoble times. Wilson interjects such commentary to underscore the point that the assemblages of traits and mannerisms that are his characters are too confused or corrupt for weighty contemplation. Wilson is forbearing about the sins of the flesh, while the transgressions against reason are greeted with disdain. Conservative authority is the secret hero of this book; hapless liberalism and its freebooting institutions are the goats. The result is a sharp irony concisely expressed by an envious KGB agent: "How could a man reach Blore...
...showcased Boyd's gift for spinning out old-fashioned tales that bounce along as smartly as a scriptwriter on holiday. Now, in his first collection of stories, the young author has edged a little closer to the genre of savage British satire written by such masters as Evelyn Waugh and Kingsley Amis...
Finally, journalism often misses the truth by unconsciously eroding one's sympathy with life. A seasoned correspondent in Evelyn Waugh's maliciously funny novel Scoop lectures a green reporter. "You know," he says, "you've got a lot to learn about journalism. Look at it this way. News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read." The matter is not a laughing one. A superabundance of news has the benumbing effect of mob rule on the senses. Every problem in the world begins to look unreachable, unimprovable. What could...
...course, and the intellectual elite concentrated in history and literature, where a remarkable group of tutors like Perry Miller, F.O. Matthiessen and Kenneth Murdoch created an atmosphere of excitement for whole generations of students. The emphasis in literature seemed to have been on English authors. If one read Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies, or dipped into Zuleika Dobson, it was a true sign of sophistication. French literature was pretty much uncharted territory, except in my case, for I received a copy of Les Fleurs du Mal with a "sensitive" inscription on the flyleaf from some moony...