Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead

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Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 254 ratings · 63 reviews

Evelyn Waugh was already famous when Brideshead Revisited was published in 1945. Written at the height of the war, the novel was, he admitted, of no "immediate propaganda value." Instead, it was the story of a household, a family and a journey of religious faith—an elegy for a vanishing world and a testimony to a family he had fallen in love with a decade earlier.

The Lygon...more

Hardcover, 384 pages

Published March 30th 2010 by Harper (first published 2009)

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Oct 10, 2010 Whitaker rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-biography, 2010-read

This is perhaps less a review of this book than a reflection on Brideshead Revisited.

Brideshead Revisited is one of those odd books: I don't think it can really be read now. Or at least, read and understood the way Waugh meant it to be understood. You need a religious sensibility that has long since been lost to the world: a belief that God wants you to deny yourself pleasure; that in denying yourself earthly pleasures, you accrue merit in Heaven. And that that love for God is better and more i...more This is perhaps less a review of this book than a reflection on Brideshead Revisited.

Brideshead Revisited is one of those odd books: I don't think it can really be read now. Or at least, read and understood the way Waugh meant it to be understood. You need a religious sensibility that has long since been lost to the world: a belief that God wants you to deny yourself pleasure; that in denying yourself earthly pleasures, you accrue merit in Heaven. And that that love for God is better and more important that any corrupt (in the old sense of the word), ephemeral joy you might get in this material world.

I can just hear the chorus now: No, no! You got it all wrong! It's all about how religion/Catholicism is awful and destroys people's lives. So speaks the secular 21st century mind. Actually, so speaks the religious 21st century mind--Waugh would have spat on the Prosperity Gospel. If you're reading this, you've read the book. So consider then, this passage where Lord Marchmain accepts God at the end:

Suddenly Lord Marchmain moved his hand to his forehead; I thought he had felt the touch of the chrism and was wiping it away. “O God,” I prayed, “don’t let him do that.” But there was no need for fear; the hand moved slowly down his breast, then to his shoulder, and Lord Marchmain made the sign of the cross. Then I knew that the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing nod of recognition, and a phrase came to me back from my childhood of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom.

Consider the scene where Charles gives up Julia, understanding why she has to leave him:

“I don’t want to make it easier for you,” I said; “I hope your heart may break; but I do understand.”

Consider also his conversion, his prayer in the chapel:

The chapel showed no ill-effects of its long neglect; the art-nouveau paint was as fresh and bright, as ever; the art-nouveau lamp burned once more before the altar. I said a prayer, an ancient newly learned form of words, and left, turning towards the camp...
...
Something quite remote from anything the builders intended has come out of their work, and out of the fierce little human tragedy in which I played; something none of us thought about at the time: a small red flame--a beaten-copper lamp of deplorable design, relit before the beaten-copper doors of a tabernacle; the flame which the old knights saw from their tombs, which they saw put out; that flame burns again for other soldiers, far from home, farther, in heart, than Acre or Jerusalem. It could not have been lit but for the builders and the tragedians, and there I found it this morning, burning anew among the old stones.

I quickened my pace and reached the hut which served us for our ante-room.

“You’re looking unusually cheerful to-day,” said the second in-command.

And if the text of the book itself doesn't convince you, read this book. Or maybe don't: you might want to cling on to your own reading of Brideshead Revisited instead.

What Others Thought

The Guardian:

Since its publication in 1945, a vast amount has been written about the novel and about the striking similarities between two families, the fictional Flytes and the real-life Lygons. The parallels seem almost infinite--between Lord Beauchamp and Lord Marchmain, Hugh Lygon and Sebastian, and the two great houses, magnificent Brideshead and Madresfield, the Lygons' moated manor house in Worcestershire

Paula Byrne is the latest to explore the people and the story that inspired the book and she does so with acuity and panache. Her stated aim is to portray Waugh through his friendship with the Lygons, and in the process reveal some substantial new information about the high-society scandal that in 1931 electrified the country.
...
Byrne understands very well the powerful enchantment that Madresfield, or "Mad" as the girls called it, cast over Waugh. The beauty of the place, the limit-less freedom, the traditions of centuries juxtaposed with childish high spirits and silliness, all proved irresistible to the penniless young man from Golders Green. Byrne entertainingly summarises his career up to this point--the childhood, the schooldays, the melancholia and debauchery of Oxford, the schoolmastering and the first published works--and layers in with this the story of the Lygons, of Lord Beauchamp's early life, and of those of his wife and children.
...
Essentially, what Mad World provides is a lively introduction to Waugh and to Brideshead, and to the rarefied social world in which much of the novel is set. To this is added a small amount of new material, to which, understandably, much emphasis is given.
...
Much as I admire Mad World, I do have some reservations: source notes, disgracefully, are almost non-existent and the index is virtually useless.
...

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Jun 02, 2013 Rebecca Bugge rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, 20th-century-history, biographies, british-history

Byrne states from the beginning that she wants to make a themed biography of Waugh, focusing on his relationship with the Lygon family. Now admittedly I haven't read other biographies on the writer and perhaps she does skip important bits that doesn't add to this 'story' - but it doesn't seem that way. Instead it seems like a quite standard biography, where she adds comparisons to the Lygons (from long before they actually meet), and more or less skips the last twenty years of Waugh's life (or t...more

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Sep 03, 2012 James rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-biography

I love the early novels of Evelyn Waugh simply because they are so funny, filled with epigrammatic sentences and a humor that verges on the fantastic and surreal. "Decline and Fall" is as sparkling as Voltaire's "Candide," and in some ways funnier for the twentieth-century reader, while "Vile Bodies" is a masterly period piece, the definitive satirical portrait of the 1920s "bright young things." Waugh can shock, too: Near the climax of "Black Mischief" (1932), the hero actually finds himself at...more I love the early novels of Evelyn Waugh simply because they are so funny, filled with epigrammatic sentences and a humor that verges on the fantastic and surreal. "Decline and Fall" is as sparkling as Voltaire's "Candide," and in some ways funnier for the twentieth-century reader, while "Vile Bodies" is a masterly period piece, the definitive satirical portrait of the 1920s "bright young things." Waugh can shock, too: Near the climax of "Black Mischief" (1932), the hero actually finds himself at a cannibal feast where he ends up eating his girlfriend.

In Mad World, Paula Byrne spends much of the book showing just how deeply the novelist drew on real people, places and events to produce his best known and most controversial novel, "Brideshead Revisited". Despite being exceptionally funny in places, "Brideshead Revisited" focuses, slowly but inexorably, on a religious theme: the working out of God's grace in human lives. In its pages Charles Ryder gradually progresses up a kind of ladder of love. Byrne pursues the autobiographical connections between Waugh, Tony Last of A Handful of Dust and Brideshead Revisited’s Charles Ryder. One link, says Byrne, is Madresfield Court, much of its architecture used as model for both Hetton Abbey and Brideshead Castle, many of its inhabitants used as model for his characters — notably, the gay Lord Beauchamp, squire of Madresfield, inspired Tony Last, and Beauchamp’s gay son Hugh Lygon, one of those with whom Waugh had an affair while at Oxford, inspired Brideshead’s Sebastian Flyte. Byrne’s title plays off Madresfield’s informal name of Mad Court or “Madders”; her title is also inspired by the nervous breakdown of Waugh’s later years:
He went mad, began hearing voices in his head. One of them kept telling him that he was homosexual. He wasn’t — he loved women too much for that — but there is no question that the creator of Sebastian Flyte and admirer of Lord Beauchamp had one of the great bisexual imaginations of the English literary tradition.
Byrne's biography is somewhat narrow in focus, concentrating on just the first 40 years of the writer's life, and with this focus she is able to maintain a fast pace and mirror the fun of his novels. Only in her last section does the story slow, becoming somewhat academic in needlessly highlighting all the correspondences between the world of Madresfield and the world of Brideshead. But she makes her case.
As she says in her prologue, "Mad World" illuminates the obsessions that shaped Waugh's life: "the search for an ideal family and the quest for a secure faith." Her book also reminds us just how much our lives are enriched and sustained by friendships.
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May 25, 2012 Alistair rated it 4 of 5 stars

there have been plenty of biographies of Evelyn Waugh and this one concentrates primarily on his lifelong friendships with the Lygon family and the fellow students he met at Oxford .
Waugh's love of stately homes is well known but a lot of this book revolves around the stately homos that he came across particularly Earl Beauchamp the pater familias of the Lygon family who after a long career with various footmen and butlers etc was hounded out of England by his brother in law .
Waugh arrived in Ox...more

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Mar 16, 2012 Jenny Brown rated it 1 of 5 stars

A tedious, excruciatingly detailed portrayal of the lives of a group of people about whom I really wish, now, I knew less.

If you had have respect left for the British ruling class, this book will rid you of it. Wealthy, selfish drunkards whose path in life was smoothed for them thanks to the connections they made in the public schools and University where a culture of sexual predation flourished, they dabbled in a kind of homosexuality that did not blink at sexually abusing boy prostitutes, and,...more A tedious, excruciatingly detailed portrayal of the lives of a group of people about whom I really wish, now, I knew less.

If you had have respect left for the British ruling class, this book will rid you of it. Wealthy, selfish drunkards whose path in life was smoothed for them thanks to the connections they made in the public schools and University where a culture of sexual predation flourished, they dabbled in a kind of homosexuality that did not blink at sexually abusing boy prostitutes, and, though they shuddered with horror at the idea of consorting with the middle class, did not drive from their ranks a man who ran over its members when driving very drunk, twice, getting off easy because of his political connections.

So one of them wrote some good books, for which we are supposed to overlook the toxic culture he exemplified and wallowed in. The only additional understanding I came away with from reading this book is the thought that Waugh must have become such an enthusiastic Catholic and then Catholic apologist, because no other Church is as tolerant and forgiving of pederasts.

Throughout the book I got the feeling that the author thinks we should excuse the behavior of wealthy older men who sexually prey on children, servants, and the poor because homosexuality was illegal at the time. But the portrait she paints of the homosexuality of the period is filled with the kinds of cliches that are what has stood in the way of gay people having rights until now. The author apparently doesn't get that an anecdote about a schoolmaster who "enjoys" himself with a young boy at a school picnic is not funny, and that sexual orientation and sexual predation are two different things.

Most disturbing, too, is the way the author thinks we should feel sorry for Lord Beauchamp because his wife finally had enough of his constant rogering of handsome footmen he'd hired on for just that purpose, which he did, obsessively, in the home where she had borne him 7 children. Apparently the fact that she wasn't as cheerful a person as her husband makes her the villain in this story. I came away wondering why she hadn't poisoned him after producing the heir and a spare.
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Nov 19, 2010 Terry rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I really wanted to like this book. I didn't. The author says up front she feels Waugh's reputation has been somewhat maligned and that he was a much more sensitive, kind person than his legacy of behavior (and literature) would have one believe. However, she did absolutely nothing to show him being anything but what she says most people think of him: a snobbish, cranky, occassionally quite vulgar, selfish social-climber. Also, she seems to feel that he had a deep relationship with the Lygon fami...more

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Jun 14, 2013 Nigeyb rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Paula Byrne set out to write this book because she believed that Evelyn Waugh had been consistently misrepresented as a snob and a curmudgeonly misanthropist. I, for one, am very glad that she did. Paula Byrne eschews the "cradle to grave" approach, instead focussing on those key moments in Evelyn Waugh's life, and in particular those that informed his work.

A few weeks before reading 'Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead', I read and thoroughly enjoyed 'Brideshead Revisited'. 'B ...more

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Oct 28, 2010 Lauren Albert rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-autobiography, literary-criticism

Admittedly, it was rather stupid of me to read this when I couldn't remember whether or not I had read Brideshead Revisited. I have read some Waugh novels, but I don't believe I read this one. But it was well-written and interesting as a look on a particular culture milieu, and as a portrayal of how one writer was inspired by life. It certainly made me want to read more of Waugh, Particularly, of course, Brideshead. Byrne certainly demonstrates that mockery can be generated from great love and a...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Kelsey Grace rated it 4 of 5 stars

Being a self-confessed Evelyn Waugh fanatic, I was all set and ready to like this book. And like it I did! Mostly.
There are a few things holding me back from giving this book five stars. The pettiest of these is my issue with the author's habit of remarking on the sexuality of anyone and everyone, no matter how tangential to the story, that appears. Maybe some people found that interesting, but I thought it was a peculiar and irritating habit of Ms. Bryne's.
My other hangup with this book is tha...more

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Aug 28, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Mad World by Paula Byrne is a biography of the writer Evelyn Waugh. By the author’s admission, it is by no means a complete biography, but one which focuses on the experiences and relationships that provided the material for Waugh’s great novel, Brideshead Revisited, as well as several others such Vile Bodies and A Handful of Dust. The book engrossed me from page one and I found it hard to put down.
I first read Waugh in college when A Handful of Dust was assigned as part of a 20th century novel...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Morgan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Excellent biography of an author the world is so unwilling to give the benefit of the doubt to. Way more complex then many give him credit for, Waugh was an observer and a satirist of the circles he moved in. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about his relationship with the aristocratic Lygon family, their father's downfall due to homosexual relationships, and understanding the real family that the famous Flytes were based upon in Brideshead Revisited. As well the book provides a fascinating insight...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Craig rated it 3 of 5 stars

Another extensive 'bio' of the life and times of EW...perhaps the frankest and most misquoted and misunderstood writer the UK has ever produced. Naturally he aspired to be the most complete "SNOB" at Oxford and brought his public school tastes from the cold South Downs to his university study. Only the prurient and the repressed will be shocked by the revelations of Paula Byrne's literary achievement. The book does not add a great deal to Selens Hastings 1994 biography, which tended to be less h...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Hot Cup O'Monkey rated it 3 of 5 stars

After watching the mini-series version of Brideshead Revisited, I had a lot of questions: why did everyone hate Lady Marchmain? Why did Sebastian lose himself to alcoholism? Why the startling conversion to Catholicism at the end? This book really cleared up a lot of things, explaining that the family featured in Brideshead was largely based on the real-life Lygon family of Great Britain.

It was disturbing to read about the hedonistic lifestyles of so many in pre-WWII British upper class nobility,...more

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Jul 28, 2011 Sandra rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Those interested in Evelyn Waugh, lovers of Brideshead Revisited

This was an enjoyable look at Evelyn Waugh's time at Oxford, his friendships and how they impacted upon the characters and events in Brideshead Revisited. In particular the author emphasises his relationship with the aristocratic Lygon family and their home, Madresfield Court. Finding parallels with Brideshead Castle and the Flyte family.

Her style makes for an easy read although I occassionally found some of the information a little repetitive. Byrne set out to write a 'selective' biography, wh...more

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Jul 21, 2011 Basicallyrun rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, history

Very interesting account of Waugh's relationship with the Lygon family. Byrne's theme seems to be that nearly everything in Brideshead Revisited can be traced back to the Lygons, which isn't exactly improbable - the parallels are quite extraordinary. It's a biography of an entire family - two families, really: the Waughs and the Lygons - as well as snapshots of their friends, and it's an evocative look at a period of history through that extremely focused lens.

My one gripe is Byrne's approach to...more

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Feb 11, 2013 J.E. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Byrne is scrupulous enough not to speculate on things for which there isn’t evidence, and that is to her credit as a biographer, but it’s also frustrating...But these unanswered questions may just be the limitation of biography. To see inside the minds of people, we have to turn to fiction. The greatest potential strength of a literary biography is to make us want to read books by the original writer. In this, Mad World succeeds.

http://www.lambdaliterary.org/reviews...

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Mar 12, 2012 Sarah Battersby rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, brit-lit

This book had both good and bad parts in equal measure. For the good, as a Brideshead lover, it was enjoyable to be let in on some of the background that inspired the characters and settings. For the bad, well...ok, the bad outweighs the good. First, Byrne spends nearly a third of the book writing in agonizingly simple sentences, "Waugh met the Lygons. He went to Madresfield. They greeted him. Then they ate breakfast". etc. which drove me nearly insane (I love a good semicolon). She emphasizes t...more

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Aug 04, 2010 Jessica Rose rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book exceeded my expectations. At the end I felt envy for not only Waugh’s life in general, but also his personality and great humour that entertained so many people throughout his wild and wonderful life. This book helped me in many ways, as I am currently studying ‘Brideshead revisited’ for my A Levels, it helped me unravel his world and the individuals engrossed within it. I found this book gripping, I felt an attachment not only to Waugh but to the Lygon family, the definite parallels b...more

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Jan 10, 2012 jeand99 rated it 3 of 5 stars

Yesterday evening I finished reading Paula Byrne's book 'Mad World. Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead'. I started with this book on Christmas evening. Can't really tell why ... I guess I needed a kind of escapism: big houses, money, dolce far niente, nobility and those without titles (s.nob = sine nobilitate).

Lovely book. It's theme is the historical background on Evelyn Waugh's (1903-1966) book 'Brideshead Revisited' (1945). Waugh had a middle-class background. His father was a publish...more Yesterday evening I finished reading Paula Byrne's book 'Mad World. Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead'. I started with this book on Christmas evening. Can't really tell why ... I guess I needed a kind of escapism: big houses, money, dolce far niente, nobility and those without titles (s.nob = sine nobilitate).

Lovely book. It's theme is the historical background on Evelyn Waugh's (1903-1966) book 'Brideshead Revisited' (1945). Waugh had a middle-class background. His father was a publisher. He won a scholarship for Oxford. There he met - after a couple of terms - the rich and famous, in the circle known as the Hypocrites. This circle was for Evelyn the door to the English upper-class and their country houses.

Everybody loves a Lord. Evelyn was in love with a whole family! He was in love with the Lygons. The head of the family was William Lygon (1872-1938), 7th Earl Beauchamp. He lived with his wife and 7 children in Madresfield Court in Worcestershire.

This is the family that inspired - they do not completely coincide - Evelyn Waugh's characters in Brideshead. In real life Earl Beauchamp (say: Beechamp) did not cheat his wife with a woman but with a man. He was a homosexual who was forced by his wife and his jealous brother-in-law (2nd Duke of Westminister) to go into exile and "never" to return to England. And if not ... they would make public his homosexuality and he had to go to jail.

New for me:
- The Lygons did not weekend at other country houses: that was considered vulgar.
- Evelyn and Hugh Lygon had a homosexual affair.
- Social climber? A lot of Evelyn's best aristocratic friends emphasised that it was they who sought his company, rather than the other way around. Evelyn judged people not by their class but by their ability to be funny and entertaining.
- Correspondence between Evelyn and three of the Lygon girls from 1931-1966: Sibell, Mary ('Maimie') and Dorothy ('Coote'). They considered him as a brother.
- The 7th Earl ('Boom') did not mention his children Lettice nor Dickie in his will.
- Apart from Lettice (who married before her father's scandal) none of the Lygon girls married into aristocracy or gentry. This shows more than anything the legacy of their father's disgrace.
- What happened to the Lygons? When William, 8th Earl Beauchamp ('Elmley') died the title got extinct. Of the seven children only Richard ('Dickie') got children: two daughters. No heir to the title! And who lives in Madresfield Court now? Dickie's daughter Rosalind.(less)

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Sep 18, 2010 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-mt-bookpile

This is not a biography in the sense one might think - it's not about one person, it's about a man's relationship to a family and the book that they inspired him to write. If you watched the original Grenada adaptation of Brideshead Revisited (and please, ignore the more recent movie) and wanted to know how Evelyn Waugh came up with the story, well, this book is for you.

Waugh's background is not Etonian, not artistocratic (although it's certainly more upper middle class than seriously middle cla...more

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Feb 14, 2013 Helene rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's difficult for me to be detached and objective when reviewing anything having to do with "Brideshead Revisited". The first half of that book is probably one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. The second half I'm still wrestling with, not because of Waugh's writing, just because I find it overwhelmingly depressing. Nonetheless, it is easily my favorite book and, has been since before the BBC series.

Anyhow, at one time I'd read pretty much ever bio of Waugh both for interest and for...more

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Mar 25, 2010 Ivan rated it 5 of 5 stars

I freely admit to an aversion to most biographies; those half ton tomes stuffed to overflowing with regurgitated facts that so often represent the flotsam and jetsam of the life in question as opposed to actual milestones and achievements. Happily, this is not the case with Paula Byrne’s Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead, a biography as witty and amusing as its subject.

Mad World follows Waugh’s life from cradle to grave. As we trek along we are treated to brief portraits of...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Lee Miller rated it 5 of 5 stars

Rather than full, eight-hundred page massive biographies, scholars today, more and more, are writing partial biographies focused on one aspect of their subject’s life. Mad World is a wonderful example of that genre. The author examines Evelyn Waugh’s relationship with the people who inspired his greatest work, Brideshead Revisited. In so doing, she opens a window on the early 20th-century British upper classe, public schools, wealth and privilege, the decline of the nobility, and “the last arist...more

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Apr 29, 2012 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I guess I was naive in thinking that Brideshead was merely a fictional tale. But this book gave a lot of information on Evelyn Waugh's life and that going on in certain cicles during the first half of the 20th century. Very intersting consider how many people refer to the moral decay of current day society when really there was just less media attention in prior days.

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Apr 26, 2010 Becky C. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Brideshead Revisited is one of my favorite books so this account of Waugh's life thru his Oxford years and beyond was of great interest to me. This book added so much depth to my understanding. I'm re-watching the TV series and find I am appreciating it so much more. One litle tidbit from the book: When they filmed the Oxford scenes for the TV series, Charles Ryder occupies the exact rooms that Waugh occupied when he was a student there.

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Sep 23, 2012 Simon rated it 1 of 5 stars

The problem with biography is knowing what to leave out. I get the impression that Ms Byrne left nothing out. I remain a huge fan of Evelyn Waugh's writing but despite this, not enhanced by this. It took me ages to read and it became a chore.

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Aug 03, 2011 Paul rated it 4 of 5 stars

Great book very interesting in regards how Waugh developed the Brideshead book. If anyone thinks binge drinking is a recent thing read this book. The amount of drink they get through on a night... Very funny and touching at times

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Jul 20, 2012 Mary rated it 3 of 5 stars

Had to speed read a lot of this, especially about Waugh's involvement in WWII. The most interesting part was how he took the events and people from his real life and mixed and matched them into Brideshead Revisited.

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Jun 26, 2010 Paula rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 50-books-read-for-2010

Wonderful book about Waugh's life and how it contributed to the novel Brideshead. I first was introduced to Brideshead through the wonderful series on BBC television starring Jeremy Irons. This series inspired me to read the book, which was just was satisfying, mystifying, and wonderful as the show. When I saw this book at my local library, I knew I had to read it and found it just as interesting. It does help the reader to have a knowledge of the novel in order to make sense of the biography.

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May 02, 2010 Nette rated it 5 of 5 stars

Scholarly but fun: I stayed up late and got up early to finish it. I didn't know the Brideshead backstory, so it was a great treat to learn about the real-life models for Sebastian, Julia & Co.

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