Evelyn Waugh - Arena pt 3
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- čas přidán 10. 02. 2017
- The final episode examines Waugh's deteriorating health in his latter years. After his mental illness Waugh penned The Ordeal of Gilbert Penfold, which describes horror, hallucinations and voices in the head. So accurate were his descriptions of his experiences that the work was highly regarded by psychoanalysts.
He wrote about a nervous breakdown when most people were ashamed about having one. That took guts.
''the cruelty of the way things are, not his own cruelty.'' -this line resonates.
A fascinating series - there are gaps, his special operations service in Yugoslavia, his biography of Ronald Knox. He saw the world quite clearly and wrote of it, in some humour in his novels but always with an edge, like a prodding finger, in anticipation of something clearer and purer than our daily experience of the world.
Many thanks for uploading.
It is satisfactory and wonderfully affirming to hear Evelyn describe Ulysses as 'gibberish', or at least the latter half of it, the opening chapters are actually very good and sound: then the 'experiment' unfolds which apparently only educated and esoteric minds can follow.
What are novels if not fro readers? For the high minded? A bit convenient don’t you think given these people know each other....
Only satisfactory? Not good?
All of it was self satisfied rubbish. I have no need for the kaleidoscope of psychosis.
@yusufaden2432 Why readers? Any writer of any value write for his own self. Not to satisfy the whims and fleeting fancies of the readers.
It is funny how writers describe one another. They have great power of observation and can describe their character in a few hard-hitting sentences.
After watching biographies, I can't say I would want him for a friend. However, Brideshead Revisited is one of my favorite books and I give him all his due as a writer.
I just finished watching all 3 parts.
I was thinking part 1: this is cool, part 2: this is touching, part 3: this is powerful! It's always nice to see past life through the eyes that lived in those days. It's interesting to learn their personal experience with life. His selections on failure is (to say the least) notable. He wasn't perfect, yet he still seen the flaws in the world, and found it difficult to process mentally along with his own behavior. This is just what I understand for the 1st time knowing about this person. I usually don't like history, mainly because it's full of violence and humans selling each other out. Yet, in order for me to somewhat understand why humans think the way they do, I must search for stories like this (not just what is taught in school). It helps me a lot. Most humans "go with the flow" of life. A selection of them know they're different, yet still "go with the flow" that they later regret, and you have the very few that refuse to be brainwashed and manipulated by the world and stand against it fearless and alone. Thank you for sharing this with the world. 😇💙💜
Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him, may he rest in peace. Amen
Superb documentary which I have watched four or five times over the years.
Mr. Waugh was spot on about the Novus Ordo Mass.
Thank you for uploading these programmes; EW is quite literally my hero.
Thanks for uploading this, it’s really wonderful.
A wonderful series.
Funny how people resent how their parents treated them and then treat their children in exactly the same way, or worse.
What we call a vicious circle I suppose.
Philip Larkin wrote a poem about that. It goes something like:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad,
They might not mean to, but they do,
They give you all the faults they had,
And some new ones just for you.
They can’t help themselves but some break the cycle through awareness.
Waugh is reminiscent of the comically austere affections of Charles Ryder’s father
I know its very short, but the Loved one, I think, is one of Waughs greatest satires! I really wish he had of wrote more on the weird American way of life and death in the wake of the war...when it all went into 'plastic fantastic' over drive, and has never really stopped since. Because he was an outside too it, but so observant, I feel he could have been much wittily savage and on the mark about American culture than he was from his more 'insider' position in British culture. If the Loved one is anything to go by. Anyway, wonderful series on a fascinating writer and man. Thanks or the upload.
@William Gruff , sad, isn't it?
@William Gruff All the literacy in the world doesn't allow or excuse being rude and condescending in pouncing on someone's grammatical or syntactical error. At least that person was showing an appreciation for Waugh, as well as for the person who kindly posted the video. I think I'd prefer their company to yours. Bad manners are the worst sort of social poverty.
squire haggard : It seems that the William Gruff in question has deleted his comment but I - and all the rest of us, of course - have a very good idea of the petty remarks he was making. Good to see your comment, so well-expressed. Just wanted to say well done to you. Bravo.
It really is good to be able to see these programmes again. Waugh is, of course, one of the best British novelists on the 20th century. It will be interesting to see if his reputation survives.
I suspect his reputation will survive. It's been nearly 100 years since his first novel. An indicator of Waugh's reputation is that (1) his books are still in print (2) he's usually on "Best novel" lists and (3) he's in the "Classics" sections of bookstores. Also - he is currently in copyright, we can expect him to get a boost when he goes out of copyright. But only time will tell.
Here in Italy all his books have never been out of print - in Italy!
Thank you so much John for uploading. For some years, have been periodically checking youtube to see whether the series had been uploaded, so was a wonderful surprise.
Utterly solid chap
no
Wonderful stylist, awful chap
Excellent writer, crap human being. Looked down on people with less power and money not everybody can born into the gentry, with enormous estates ,and a cut glass English
Accent, an utter snob more or less.
A excellent biographical series.
Thanks again, John. Great documentaries about a great writer.
Absolutely remarkable, every single person including the interviewers came from one class. It reminded me of a film I once watched. A civilization who lived in the sky and had a very privileged life and the only way to belong was to be born there, and represented probably 0.01% of the total population. On the ground were the rest of the people who toiled to support them.
I watched all 3 parts and was fascinated. Everything was a game to these people and they had no clue about the rest of us on the ground and how we lived. I have no animosity towards them, it was just how things were.
Keith Young This was historically the ruling and intellectual class of England. Small island, they all went to the same six or so public schools and then to Oxford or Cambridge. The people in this really wonderful series were the last generation of that system. As in the US, the elites have embraced the left.
@@ransomcoates546 read “The Intellectuals and the Masses” by John Carey. It lays it all out
Keith Young - Wrong - some of the staff are interviewed and they are not of the upper class at all. But would you prefer that everyone were exactly the same, as in Capitalist America, where only the rich matter, or Soviet Russia where only the Party bosses matter? Under the old class system, not everyone was equal but everyone mattered, rich or poor, master or servant, noble or commoner. I know which I prefer. And if you think they all had easy, privileged lives, you could not be more wrong and merely publish your own lack of knowledge of this period. Diana Mitford spent half the war in a very unpleasant jail. And if you think they had no clue about how the rest live, you could also not be more wrong. Most of the upper class men had been army officers and knew their troops very well. With respect, please do not pontificate about what you so little know.
@@GiacomoLockhart Thank you for your interest “about what I so little know”. You are quite correct, some of the servants may not have belonged to the ruling class. However, they spoke with the same accent, so perhaps they were connected. You also mention that - under the old class system everyone mattered - 1st world war, troops thought of as grains of rice by their superiors. My grandfather retuned with mustard gas poisoning and died within three years. And poor Mitford in a “very unpleasant jail”, as a posed to the very pleasant jail she should have been in as a member of the ruling class. Your view of political systems is very limited, there are other more inclusive options to your preference for an elite ruling class. And you are rather presumptuous in assuming I know so little about the subject. Can I enquire haw you have acquired your expensive knowledge. Again, thank you for your interest, always pleased to exchange ideas. Finally I wish you and your family a happy Christmas and a prosperous new year.
@@keithyoung7 - With this reply you merely demonstrate to the world all the more how woeful your ignorance is. Indeed, your ignorance is so profound I am beginning to wonder if you must be an American, or at any rate someone extremely unfamiliar with Britain. The servants did not speak with anything like the "same accent" nor were they "connected". Deep ignorance. The entire First World War was the brain-child, not of the upper classes, but, quite the reverse, of the revolutionary Capitalists or Socialists of the middle class. Deep ignorance. It was started by the revolutionary terrorists of the Black Hand of Serbia who brutally murdered the upper class Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his pregnant wife who had never harmed a living soul. Deep ignorance. The bourgeois politicians of Germany, Austria, Russia, England, Italy and particularly France then pressed for, and demanded, war and their aim was to destroy monarchy altogether (one of the few aims they actually achieved). Deep ignorance. The upper classes, with few exceptions, tried to stop the war, even Kaiser Wilhelm, initially, although he was over-borne by war-mongers like the middle class Ludendorff. Deep ignorance. Famously, Kaiser Charles of Austria, so soon as he came to power in 1916, set about trying to end the war but was defeated at every turn by the German, French, British and Italian middle class Capitalists and Socialists, particularly Ludendorff, Clemenceau, Ribot and Lloyd-George. Deep ignorance. It was not their upper class officers (who died in the biggest numbers) who thought of their troops as "grains of rice" but the Capitalist and Socialist middle class politicians and the radical Leftists who were determined (like you?) to eliminate the upper classes. Deep ignorance, again. The result was that millions of the poor and lower classes died but - proportionately - more from the upper classes, so the radical middle class politicians did not care. You cannot even spell - "as a posed to" - what drivel is that? Deep ignorance. Diana Mitford is but one example of many who were made to suffer far worse than most ordinary people. It is your view of political systems, not mine, that is very limited, and your claim of "other more inclusive options" carries zero weight since you are unable to name any. Deep ignorance. It is not my presumption but you, yourself, who prove how little you know about the subject. You ask how I acquired my knowledge. Simple - I read books. Try it sometimes. It might help to dispel your deep ignorance. Buy yourself one for Christmas!
James Joyce wrote absolute rot. That’s a pretty accurate description 😂
I tried to read Ullyses in my 20s couldn't finish it didn't understand any of it
@@Puffball-ll1lytry Finnegans Wake
It’s easier and a good way to start
His wife's handling of him sounded like a prize bull being lead by a dairy maid. Asymmetrically but with complete control and affection.
I think the family conspired to make her more content than she was. Friends said that nobody ever really felt they knew her, and she became an alcoholic, dying not long after her husband.
Thank you so much for this series on a writer I have enjoyed for decades.
Now here's someone who dislikes children more than me.
In 2 words: IM POSSIBLE!
The GOAT. No question. I gave up writing when I realised how foolish I’d seem
His reading from ‘The Loved One’ had me laughing out loud. He was a natural actor.
This was filmed before Kingsley Amis turned into Evelyn Waugh.
What a shame his prose didn't turn into Waugh's prose .
@@rogerlegends166 Yes, I think rudeness is only as acceptable as one's prose
27:44: Imagine starting an interview like that today.
After seeing this video, Waugh becomes even more of an enigma. We, the public, are like the invitees on the other side of his locked door as he constantly turns the key, whilst the door remains locked.
I wonder if biopic based on his life was ever considered with the right producers actors director and screen writer it would a very good film.
I was wondering the same thing.
I read decline and fall years ago, and i still find it hilarious.
Yes, this is and was how staying the Catholic ' enter by the narrow gate' bit can unfold, as much as Dante's Purgatorio lines of ' Christians, be harder to move'...
John Mortimer says that the phone call in "A Handful of Dust" is the most horrible thing Waugh wrote, but I would say the phone call in "The Loved One" between the hard-bitten journalist agony aunt ('Guru Brahmin') and Aimee, which causes her to kill herself surpasses that and, in fact, is the most movingly awful piece in all literature.
So true!
Just finished “Gilbert Pinfold,” so this is quite illuminating. Thank you for this!
Now, I have to look for the diaries and letters...
📝
K August , go for the Letters.
I thought Paula Byrne's Mad World pretty great
@@sterlingwalter5971 Found it!
@@sterlingwalter5971 It was...to a point. And now, the Diaries.
@@MrUndersolo Waugh to his wife: (paraphrase) I know your life is boring now,, but do your letters need to be ?
Everyone who talks about him has the same plum-in-the-gob accent. England and its literature and art haven't changed that much since then. (cf Downton Abbey and The Queen).
That James Joyce line always makes me laugh.
Funny and true ;)
It was nice to hear someone tell the truth about Joyce and Stein. How their writing was ever taken seriously escapes me.
@@GaylordBuzzard they formed a clique and wrote extensively about each other in exalted tones. Waugh said the same of Auden-Spender-Quennell-MacNeice etc: "the literature about them is more copious than the original work they ever produced"
@@Lioncair The adulation for those writers always reminds me of the Emperor's New Clothes. Their fawning critics were, and are, so blinded by the opinions of others that they are unable to see the jibberish they wrote. Read Stein or Joyce and tell me honestly that their work is that of someone with a clear mind.
@@GaylordBuzzard the other striking thing is that people who claim to have read Joyce have seldom read anything else. Also I doubt Stein's work is read at all nowadays.
As the man said, "Decline and Fall" was an undergraduate novel, but a funny, successful one, though fairly lightweight. "Vile Bodies" is terrible, "Black Mischief" also (and racist and fascist). From "A Handful of Dust" onwards the novels are great , despite his extremely reactionary attitudes. It really says a lot about the upper classes especially, but also people more generally, about how parents pass on their terrible attitudes to their offspring and how it goes on and on and on...
Just come across this fascinating documentary. Where is Part 2? Only Parts 1&3 seem to be available.
does this work? YT started blocking parts of the episodes recently.
czcams.com/video/QiCJT14XJW8/video.html
@@johnsalisbury785 Thanks, but I get the message: "Video Unavailable"
@@davidhodgson2117 alternative link - www.bitchute.com/video/UB1wla2HKrgM
@@johnsalisbury785 Thanks! Part 2 has been removed from CZcams in the UK but I can see it there.
TYVM ⚓Fasinating story.
Could you please reupload the second part?
blocked in uk. alternate link www.bitchute.com/video/UB1wla2HKrgM/
Poor he-Evelyn, dreading the 3 score years & 10 for the reasons he gave. Pity he didn't live long enough to be inspired by Mick Jagger.
Imagine!
Love Waugh's humour & if there are ppl like him today, please tell me their names.
I walked past 17a Canonbury Square yesterday in hommage. I live close by. 27b was of course was George Orwell's residence.
I love treading in the footsteps of great people.
Thanks for posting this🙏
Yes, Waugh died at 62 - but I think he was ready to go by then.
A woman, clearly. A Handful of Dust was a masterpiece.
What exactly is Evelyn's reply at 57:20? I can't quite catch it.
"I should like people in their charity to pray for my soul as a sinner"!
Diana Mosley, a divine like beauty.
Isn't she though? And such an interesting life.
Mesmerizing she was.
too bad she was a fascist .
Anyone know if EW lived long enough to see Tony Richardson's version of The Loved One?
Shame Part 2 isn't available.
Part 2 alternative link - www.bitchute.com/video/UB1wla2HKrgM/
Waugh obviously was very jealous of James Joyce who was a terrific writer.Waugh could never write like Joyce nor should he but Joyce was a great writer.
Fooling everyone into appraising Intricate, aloof and elaborate proseas the highest kind is a popish trick Joyce played on the world of literature.
No one can write like Joyce.
Thank God
Has anyone located part 2 on youtube please?
Part 2 is content blocked in some countries. You could use a VPN - for example it can be viewed in Australia. Or try this alternative link on Bitchute which works. czcams.com/users/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqazRkcWJXMHdJY1N0RV9RQjk4VnFzRnZKNmJPUXxBQ3Jtc0trTVJFMHFleF95NFdaZ25VLUxsS2F5VGc4Nkx1YTFsV3NVd1lqb2pYaVZubTFBVWZ0RFI4VDVtMHRtNS1ZcmthYnVxcWhOakFRbzlYNVJGVUJVcXd2dy1EbWIydExkN1hLVlRtMmhUZ2t2OTdqMWJoNA&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bitchute.com%2Fvideo%2FUB1wla2HKrgM%2F
He became a roman Catholic to annoy his fellow toffee nosed friends !
Is there a new generation to follow the literary giants? If there are they must be even more retiring or as yet still in the nest.........
Strange how Diana Mosley pronounces "gone" as "gorne" and Evelyn Waugh's Catholic priest calls mass "marse".
I assume you're not English. 'Gorne' was common among people of that class and 'marse' common among Roman Catholics.
My grandmother (died late 1990s) said "clawth" for "cloth". "Marse" is still the educated pronunciation of "mass", isn't it?
His daughter Harriet has his eyes.
Waugh's positively garrulous with Elizabeth Jane Howard. John Freeman must've been fuming...
Yes. But Freeman acted as if he were a prosecutor in a murder trial and Waugh was the accused in the witness bow, under oath. This woman acts like a human being and treats her interviewee like one, too.
Plus, John Freeman asked really dumb questions, mostly motivated by morbid class consciousness
I think Brideshead a failure--Waugh thought so as well. In fact he knew it I think as he was composing it --remember when Anthony Blanche criticizes Charles' paintings? That I think is Waugh criticizing the novel. He says it was a failure in his letters to Graham Greene and elsewhere--he was trying to be Proustian and it did not work. He gets in right in his great Trilogy Men at Arms
Like old Basil Seal, I also feel the need to pee constantly these days
Didn't like music...how weird.
Yes I can only feel sorry for those for whom doesn't resonate literally at least his grandson Alexander is very musical and studied the subject not sure about Auberon.
He met Igor and Vera Stravinsky in 1949 in Nee York: Robert Craft (who had organised the dinner) writes entertainingly about it in his marvellous book Down a Path of Wonder. The Stravinskys were big fans of both Brideshrad and The Loved One.
@@robkeeleycomposer in Martin Stannard's biography a letter by Christopher Sykes is quoted, where it is claimed that Stravinsky loved Waugh's books so much he had an album where he pasted Waugh's articles and reviews. In the same book there is also a hilarious account of the dinner.
I wonder if Waugh was attacked with pschotronic equipment? The voices heard and what they said... his sensitivity to sounds of groups of people... his retreat into very private life to seek peace and quiet... all seem to me to be consistent with this probability. Even way back then!
According to wiki - "A brief medical examination indicated that Waugh was suffering from bromide poisoning from his drugs regimen. When his medication was changed, the voices and the other hallucinations quickly disappeared"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Waugh
one thing is he is correct about is that Ulyses is complete jibberish.
Why was Harold Acton a 'Sir'? Not really an important literary, or any other, figure like, say, Anthony Burgess. Just upper-class, I suppose.
If you read his Wikipedia entry it might go some way to explaining his eminence in an admittedly somewhat rarefied field.
He was a distinguished historian and he left his immense collection to the public
I have a certain love for him but I cannot fathom why such a man should have been duped by Religion.
I think you may have a modernist view that gives you the blind spot of the intellectual depth of religion and theology in how to view man, creation, good, evil, etc
Onion soup, rich people's pison. 🤮
well we know finally learn that yes world war 2 was about fighting for godless communism. @ 2:50 mins
Septimus? These Papists. Mogg is as bad.
How anyone can listen to these upper-class twits (thank you Monty Python) talk for more than five minutes is a hero in my book.
What a bizarrely bigoted thing to say.
You may think of them as twits. But You may be certain that some, and you may count among them, who regard you as a twat.