Evelyn waugh伊夫林

梦重现。

‖

由于

waugh

把现代社会描绘得混乱而盲目，他经常被认为是一个社会保守主义

者。在接受一次采 访时，他阐明了自己的立场。当被问道：

―

你认为把你称为反对 派

合适吗

‖

时，他回答：

―

一个艺术家必须是个反对派。他必须站出时代的进程之外，而

不是亦步亦趋；他必须作出一些对抗。

‖

Waugh

与现代社会的疏离导致他在

1930

年最终皈依了天主教。 这在他的一生中

是个重要事件。

Waugh

第一次婚姻的破裂起了刺激作用。

他在寻找一个秩序和稳定性

的焦点，而这种稳定和秩序曾经为结婚誓言和道德感所强调。

新建立 起来的宗教信仰首次反映在

1934

年出版的《一捧尘土》中。 这部带有较

多自传色彩的小说追溯了

tony

< br>和

brenda

的婚姻在

bre nda

与

john beaver

通奸 后的破裂

过程。

Brenda

的婚外情 受到她在伦敦的世故朋友的鼓励。小说的最后，绝望的

tony

为摆脱烦恼到非洲的丛林中旅行，被一个酷爱迪更斯的老人捕获，从此留在密林中为

其诵 读迪更斯的小说。

Evelyn Waugh

Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels,

travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer. His best- known

works

include

his

early

satires

Decline

and

Fall

(1928)

and

A

Handful

of

Dust

(1934),

his

novel

Brideshead

Revisited

(1945)

and

his

trilogy

of Second

World War

novels

collectively

known as

Sword of Honour

(1952

–

61). Waugh is widely recognised as one of the great prose

stylists of the 20th century.

The

son

of

a

publisher,

Waugh

was

educated

at

Lancing

and

Hertford

College,

Oxford

,

and

worked briefly as a schoolmaster before becoming a full-time writer. As a young man, he acquired

many

fashionable

and

aristocratic

friends,

and

developed

a

taste

for

country

house

society

that

never left him. In the 1930s he travelled extensively, often as a special newspaper correspondent;

he was reporting from

Abyssinia

at the time of the 1935 Italian invasion. He served in the British

armed forces throughout the Second World War, first in the

Royal Marines

and later in the

Royal

Horse Guards

. All these experiences, and the wide range of people he encountered, were used in

Waugh's fiction, generally to humorous effect; even his own mental breakdown in the early 1950s,

brought about by misuse of drugs, was fictionalised.

Waugh had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1930, after the failure of his first marriage. His

traditionalist

stance

led

him

to

oppose

strongly

all

attempts

to

reform

the

Church;

the

changes

brought about in the wake of the

Second Vatican Council

of 1962

–

65, particularly the introduction

of the vernacular

Mass

, greatly disturbed him. This blow, together with a growing dislike for the

culture

of

the

postwar

world

and

a

decline

in

his

health,

saddened

his

final

years,

although

he

continued

to

write.

To

the

public

at

large

he

generally

displayed

a

mask

of

indifference,

but

he

was

capable

of

great

kindness

to

those

he

considered

his

friends,

many

of

whom remained devoted to him throughout his life. After his death in 1966, he acquired a new

following through film and television versions of his work, such as

Brideshead Revisited

in 1982.

Years of celebrity

Recognition

Waugh's

biographer,

Christopher Sykes

,

records

that

after

the

divorce

friends

or believed

they

saw,

a

new

hardness

and

bitterness

in

Waugh's

outlook.

Nevertheless,

despite

a

letter

to

Acton

in

which

he

wrote

that

he

not

know

it

was

possible

to

be

so

miserable

and

live

Waugh

soon

resumed

his

professional

and

social

life.

He

finished

his

second

novel,

Vile

Bodies

,and wrote articles including (ironically he thought) one for the

Daily Mail

on the meaning

of the marriage ceremony. Between September and January 1930, when the novel was published,

Waugh moved between the various houses of his friends, a practice he was to continue as he was

to have no settled home for the next eight years.

Vile Bodies

, a satire on the

Bright Young People

of the 1920s, was published on 19 January 1930

and was Waugh's first major commercial success. Despite its quasi-biblical title, the book is dark,

bitter,

manifesto

of

disillusionment

according

to

biographer

Martin

Stannard.

As

a

best-selling

author

Waugh

could

now

command

larger

fees

for

his

journalism.

[67]

Amid

regular

work

for

The

Graphic

,

Town

and

Country

and

Harper's

Bazaar

,

he

quickly

wrote

Labels

,

a

detached account of his honeymoon cruise with She-Evelyn.

Conversion to Catholicism

On 29 September 1930 Waugh was received into the Roman Catholic Church. This shocked his

family

and

surprised

some

of

his

friends,

but

the

step

had

been

contemplated

for

some

time.

Although he had lost his Anglicanism at Lancing and had led an irreligious life at Oxford, from

the mid-1920s there are references in his diaries to religious discussion and regular church-going.

On 22 December 1925 Waugh writes:

morning arguing about the Roman Church

[70]

The entry for 20 February 1927 includes

visit a Father Underhill about being a parson

his friend Olivia Plunket-Greene, who had converted in 1925 and of whom Waugh wrote later:

Martin D'Arcy

, who persuaded

Waugh

firm

intellectual

convictions

but

little

emotion

that

Christian

revelation

was

genuine

In

1949

Waugh

explained

that

his

conversion

followed

his

realisation

that

life

was

Writer and traveller

Emperor

Haile Selassie

, whose coronation Waugh attended in 1930, on the first of his three trips

to

Abyssinia

On 10 October 1930 Waugh, representing several newspapers, departed for

Abyssinia

to cover the

coronation

of

Haile

Selassie

.

He

reported

the

event

as

elaborate

propaganda

effort

to

convince the world that Abyssinia was a civilised nation, concealing the truth that the emperor had

achieved power through barbarous means. A subsequent journey through the British East Africa

colonies

and

the

Belgian

Congo

formed

the

basis

of

two

books;

the

travelogue

Remote

People

(1931) and the comic novel

Black Mischief

(1932). Waugh's next extended trip, in the winter of

1932

–

33, was to

British Guiana

(now Guyana) in South America, possibly taken to distract him

from a long and unrequited passion for the socialite

Teresa Jungman

. On arrival in

Georgetown

,

Waugh

arranged

a

river

trip

by

steam

launch

into

the

interior.

He

travelled

on

via

several

staging-posts

to

Boa

Vista

in

Brazil,

then

took

a

convoluted

overland

journey

back

to

Georgetown.

[77]

His various adventures and encounters found their way into two further books: his

travel account

Ninety-two days

, and the novel

A Handful of Dust

, both published in 1934.

[78]

Back

from

South

America,

Waugh

faced

accusations

of

obscenity

and

blasphemy

from

the

Catholic journal

The Tablet

, which objected to passages in

Black Mischief

. He defended himself in

an open letter to the

Archbishop of Westminster

, Cardinal

Francis Bourne

. In the summer of 1934

he went on an expedition to

Spitsbergen

in the Arctic, an experience he did not enjoy and of which

he made minimal literary use. On his return, determined to write a major Catholic biography, he

selected the

Jesuit

martyr

Edmund Campion

as his subject. The book, published in 1935, caused

controversy

through

its

forthright

pro-Catholic,

anti- Protestant

stance

but

brought

its

writer

the

Hawthornden Prize

. He returned to Abyssinia in August 1935, to report the opening stages of the

Second

Italo-Abyssinian

War

for

the

Daily

Mail

.

Waugh,

on

the

basis

of

his

earlier

visit,

considered Abyssinia

fellow-reporter

William Deedes

. Waugh saw little action, and was not wholly serious in his role as