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Will This Do? An Autobiography
Evelyn Waugh uncharitably once characterized his seven-year-old eldest son as "without intellectual, aesthetic, or spiritual interest", none of which holds true about this long-awaited and well-received autobiography.A self-confessed "product of the bourgeois cultural elite" and guerrilla campaigner against both sides in Britain's class war, Waugh is now comfortably establ
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Hardcover
,
288 pages
Published
May 1st 1998
by Carroll & Graf Pub
(first published January 1st 1980)
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Community Reviews
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I think if my father were Evelyn Waugh and I had literary inclinations, I would either (a) suppress them and become an accountant or something or (b) change my name (various children of famous writers have done this, like Stephen King's son, if I recall) so that I could rise or fall on my on my own merits. Auberon Waugh, as it turns out, has very few merits as a novelist, and so trying to coast on his family name—and failing even to succeed in that—was his first mistake. The snarky middlebrow co
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Son of the great Evelyn, Waugh's book is one of the best autobiographies I've ever read and one of the funniest.
Son of Evelyn, this writer at age 50 says "a professional writer has only so many shots in his locker, and autobiography is one of them." His unsentimental, but plainly affectionate, description of the famous family from which he sprang is a high point. Because of the "monstrous child and even worse adolescent" Waugh recalls (himself, in his own words), this might be especially interesting to parents of teens. Sadly, Waugh did not live many years after this book's publication.
Okay. My review may be a BIT inflated...since I had the privilege of being around Bron Waugh when I was an intern at his book review. I think Kakutani--in her NYT review-- said that this book is blissfully devoid of American style psychoanalyzing...but is still fascinating when it comes to his stories about his famous father. Very English. Very funny. Maybe very funny since it is so English.
An honest and sometimes stark memoir of one of Britain's best satirists and humorists. His reputation with some as a literary monster did not match his general personal demeanour and his writings remain a delight whether from Way of the World or the unmatched surrealism of his Private Eye Diaries. Along with Peter Cook he is missed by me at least as someone who made life explicable.
He was a master of vituperation and a great soldier in the journalistic wars of late 20th century London. He was not quite the snobbish shit his father, Evelyn, could be, but he was as funny and was almost as great a stylist. He was an estimable character and this is an estimable book.
Well-worth reading for those intrigued by Evelyn Waugh - a good take on growing up under the mantle of his heavy-duty father and the history of his literary family in general (also, if one has read a bunch on the Mitfords, add this to your list).
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